Laughing Well & Loving Well

 1 John 4: 7-13 :

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit."


The past few days have been bursting at the seams with so many contrasting kinds of emotions and experiences!

Yesterday was a particularly difficult day.

In the early morning when I woke up for the day, I was excitedly expecting a simple and fun "team-building day at the park" (aka a nice break from so many indoor classes/sessions this week!), but had no idea that I was in for a marathon series of physically/emotionally/mentally exhausting challenges to complete alongside my team; challenges specifically designed to frustrate us and push our boundaries so that our underlying tendencies and responses to conflict would surface.

As difficult and stressful and frustrating as the day was at times, throughout the debrief sessions during the day (and also into the evening) I was completely overwhelmed with gratitude for the blatant honesty we were able to express, and for the improvements in communication and clarity within the team.

We already know how to laugh together- we spend most of our time together laughing and enjoying one another- but now I feel strongly that our relationships are deepening significantly with a greater understanding of how to really LOVE one another well. We have learned how to laugh together quickly, but the process of learning how to really love each other through times of disagreement/miscommunication comes much more slowly.

And then today, during one of the sessions, I was reminded that conflict is a powerful opportunity to glorify God! Reconciliation between individuals/groups can be a beautiful reflection of what reconciliation to God looks like through confession, loving correction, and holistic forgiveness.

As a team, we are learning to love each other by taking the time to understand one another more deeply, assessing each others strengths and weaknesses and learning how to overcome conflicts and miscommunications in a way that brings glory to God.

I'm learning more and more about my natural response to conflict- denial/avoidance. These few months will be an amazing time to practice the tools and strategies I'm learning now to face conflict in a God-glorifying way! After all, even Jesus didn't run from conflict- He was/is the Prince of Peace, and was most definitely a "peace-maker", but he wasn't always peaceful. He FLIPPED TABLES one time, y'all! (But then, that opens up a whole other topic of righteous anger vs. contempt-anger, soooo for now lets just say that this is NOT necessarily an excuse for us to throw stuff...)

Learning to love one another as Jesus first loved us is happening within this team in so many ways, and it excites me to be able to walk alongside such amazing people during this process!  Praise God for this answer to prayer!

Tonight we all crammed into a dorm room and shared our life-stories over pizza, and I was completely blown away by how much God has been moving in the lives of each one of my teammates and leaders!
I can't help but praise God for the ways he's brought this eclectic group of talented/wise/hilarious/kind/occasionally crazy people into my life this summer! We have fun together very well, and by the grace of God we are learning to love each other very well too.

This weekend is the end of Pre-Field Orientation week! Next week is Discovery Week, where we'll all have even more opportunity to heavily immerse ourselves in the realities of life on mission, and spend time with amazing men/women/families who have been serving the marginalized and oppressed while planting churches/translating scripture in other cultures.

(Also, for anyone who might be wondering, we have had our orientation for the Asia portion of this trip, and I wish I could disclose more details to you all because I'm so over-the-moon-EXCITED about where God is leading us this summer! It will be one incredible journey, and I'm looking forward to sharing with each of you more as I am able to! :) )

I'm so blessed by your prayers and support- every day I spend here, I thank God for each and every one of you!


Prayer needs:

-Several people in my team are struggling with sleep/spiritual attack. Please pray for REST, and for deliverance from fear and discouragement.

-Unity within each of the teams

-A few visas for another team's trip are delayed, please pray that God would work through these logistics and open doors into these countries.