Team Meeting

Tonight we had our final meeting before we leave on Sunday! So cool to see (almost) all the team members together under one roof.


The goal of this meeting was to really bond as a group, and to scratch the surface a bit about our thoughts on this trip. We ate dinner and talked, and then we broke out into a discussion group.


We talked our faith -- individual strengths and weaknesses. One person's strength really struck me -- the ability to see past any stereotypes or immediate perceptions brought on by a stranger's image. This is key as we live our lives. We cannot turn away, nor be turned off, by how someone else looks. This immediately divides you from that person and prevents you from establishing a God-ordained connection with him or her. Yet this phenomenon is so pervasive in our culture. It's key that we are able to get over that on this trip.

We also discussed 1 Peter 3:15, about "always being prepared to give an answer for the HOPE that [we] have." First, we must show that hope, so that people will want to even ask about it! That involves possessing an inner peace and joy in the presence of God which apparently is not always evident, or else people would be asking us about the HOPE that we have all the time!

At the end of the meeting we got a chance to Skype with Donn Truax, the leader of Change of 1 Ministry in Gloversville and the man who has done most of the planning for the trip, and his wife, Cyndie Truax. From what they said, it seems that much of the trip will be focused on outreach in this hurting community.

We prayed it out with them over Skype (how COOL!) and finished up the evening with a bit of dessert.

Each day, as we get closer, I get more and more excited. This trip has gone from a dream to a drive to an almost-reality! I thank God for blessing it SO much.

This may or may not be my last post, as Eric will be taking this over when we leave for the trip. I didn't read over this, so I'm sorry for any grammatical or syntactical errors that may or may not have occurred.

Talk to you soon!

Quinn