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Equipped....Check...

Ready.  Set.  Equipped.

These past two weeks have been packed full with learning, activities, worship, and fun.  Some of the classes have been on truth, what is it?, worldview, contextualization, conflict resolution, family matters, team dynamics, and multicultural teams.  This past Friday we finished with a wrap-up of all we learned these past four weeks and where we are, celebration, and saying good-byes to our fellow classmates who are leaving.

My class was divided into six different groups and we each had to make up a culture based on the criteria that we were given for our culture.  My group's culture was called Nupe.  We were a collectivistic group, had one voice for the group who made the final decisions but yet we were a culture with power.  We are a part of a multicultural team and we were getting ready to plan a week long conference with everyone.  The Nupe culture was assigned worship for the conference.  We had to decide when we would schedule worship time for the conference prior to our meeting.  The facilitators had one or two people from each culture come together to decide on the schedule for the conference.  It was a very interesting business meeting and I was the only representative for the Nupe people.  I had to figure out who was the person in charge and only address them.  I was responsible for getting our times of worship scheduled onto the big schedule and I could not compromise without going back to the leader of the Nupe culture.  It was really 20 minutes of chaos as all six cultures tried coming together and two culture groups were very dominant and controlling.  It was tiring for me to try and get our times of worship scheduled.  After the 20 minutes we met back with our Nupe culture and it was great and relaxing because I felt understood.  We talked about everyone's experiences during their business meetings and we all pretty much had gotten our time slots for worship without compromising.

How many of you played with Legos as a child or even now with kids, grandkids, or nieces and nephews?  I was part of a team simulation where our team was in the Lego business in Romania and we had to keep our business a float to stay in country in order to do ministry.  I had a great team and we worked well together and with some of our people leaving on furlough and one who joined our group.  We made relationships with the associate of our buyer as well as our buyer of toys made out of legos.  It was really amazing to see  how we covered for each other, encouraged one another, had ideas to share, did our roles, and even celebrated the small victories together (getting our business permit, selling each of our toys).  We as a group did a great job and we were able to make enough to stay in country to do ministry.

Some take aways for me these past four weeks are:
  • If the gospel isn't enough for me today, then, I can't preach it to someone who needs it more than me.
  • Secret to a team in less ME and more WE.
  • Contextualization is something God has been doing since the creation of man---making Himself known in ways we could and would understand.
  • My focus needs to be on God...like when plowing a field...or else I will get off track...is my life in alignment with God?
Worshipping together

Missionaries start off as circles minister to squares and when returning to passport country are triangles
TCKs start out as stars and remain stars

Prioritizing

Prioritizing

Prioritizing

Thanking our Awesome Facilitators

Receiving a bell as a gift from the class


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