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A Whirlwind of a Week So Far!

What an incredible trip it has been so far!  I'm sitting in the outdoor lobby of our hotel this morning, processing all of the things the group has said over the past few evenings in our debriefing sessions.  We haven't had a lot of time for blogging because our evening meetings have gone long due to very good discussion!  As I sit here, I am trying to process all of the things the team shared as well as my own emotions from this trip.  

As team leader, my first responsibility is to for the safety of the team and the administrative tasks of the trip.  But every trip I go on brings new waves of emotion as I interact with the people we come to serve.  This team has been incredible as well.  Our evening debrief sessions have been full of raw, honest thoughts and reactions, both joys and sorrows, as we work with the same group of adults and children each day and go into their homes to install water filters.

Today is our last day on the project and our last day with these people.  We will have to say goodbye to the community we have gotten to know so well over this short trip.  We will say goodbye to the Pastor and Deaconesses who have provided great leadership to their people and great hospitality to us as we came to teach.  And we will say goodbye to our great translators, without whose help the teaching and filter installations would not have been possible.  

You really do become a large family when you're on a trip like this.  Yesterday afternoon, once we finished up with the childrens' lesson we cleaned up and started an impromptu game of beanbag toss with our translators and some of the Deaconesses.  It turned into a game of guys verses girls.  And while the guys did have a commanding lead (8-3 and trying to get to 10), the girls came through in the clutch when I declared that the next point wins!  It was a great time of laughter and sharing comroderie with one another.

Each of us will leave Santa Patricia today a changed person.  While we come into the trip thinking we are going only to help the local people, we leave the trip seeing that God has used the trip to change us.  There is a lot to process still.  But we will finish strong today, by the grace of God.  To God be the glory!

 
  

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