Building Our Team

In preparation for our quickly approaching trip, we headed up to Berry College this past weekend for a day at Camp WinShape to work on team building and bonding. We were first given our DiSC profiles and then taught how we can best use our personal God-given gifts and strengths to work together, which also helped us to see the areas where each of us will be most challenged. It was a fascinating day filled with lots of laughs, helpful learnings about our team and perhaps a little frustration at times...but all in good fun!

It was interesting how everything we learned at WinShape lines up perfectly with the camp we are teaching in Kenya on the idea of uniqueness. Our memory verse for the camp is 1 Peter 4:10: "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms," and that is exactly what we as a team are going to have to do in order to serve the children in Kenya.

You see, we have a group filled with very different people. Even our married couple, Frank and Cheryl, are almost polar opposites! Sure, we all share some similarities, but each of us is unique in our own way. And that is a good thing - if not a great thing! God brought us together because he knew that Rob would lead us and Cheryl would teach us and Kelly would inspire us and Youf would keep us on track and Raekiela, Mike, Frank, Kallie, Hannah, Lucy D., Cathy, Nadia and I would each bring something different to the table that will help us accomplish things we couldn't imagine doing apart from this team.

God loves to bring things full circle, huh? 

Here are some photos from our Saturday at WinShape. We are so grateful for the incredible leadership we received from the WinShape staff! It is a true blessing that we were able to participate in a camp like this to better prepare our hearts and our minds for the trip ahead.

And so we begin the countdown of T-E-N days!

 

 

 

  

 

 

One Month Out

 

Today marks just one month out from our departure date! Our flights are booked, our supplies purchased and packed. Our t-shirts and luggage tags are in tow and our team is equipped and ready to spread God's love. Time, as it's known to do, is flying, but I think the general overall team sentiment is excitement.

The past two team meetings have focused on preparing for the camp we are putting on for about 150 kids while we're in Ngaamba. We have three groups: lessons, art and games. Each group has several activities planned for the children over the course of three days and at the end of the third day, we have a presentation to the children's parents.

Uniqueness is the theme of the camp and our goal is to teach the children that God has given each of them individual qualities and gifts that are to be used to help others. Our memory verse for the week is 1 Peter 4:10, "Each of you should user whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms."

I think this is a good refresher for all of us, really. It's easy - especially as Americans - to get caught up in what we don't have or how we would like to change ourselves. We've taken our focus off what really matters, which is spreading God's word and serving others, and put it on our insecurities and self-proclaimed shortcomings. I'm just as guilty of it as the next person, so I'm really looking forward to the reminders these lessons will be for me.

Here are a few photos from our meeting yesterday where we gathered all our supplies. We're prepping our hearts and saying our prayers over the next month. We'd love for your continued support.