Seven Years Later

In the middle of March, I'm traveling to New York City with a small team to facilitate some mission team training. The connection is via some friends who work with Christian Associates and it's a real privilege to help out in this kind of manner.

Our goals include the normal team preparation - helping the team learn to communicate clearly, see something different from the familiar, build a team identity, etc. We are also eager to help each person see their unique role on the team and for each person to experience valid but different expressions of Church. Overall though, this weekend serves to help jump start this team so they can continue to prepare well for their summer experience. For each segment of the weekend, we are providing some followup material to the leaders involved. This context requires leaders that understand not only the specific elements of leading teams in other cultures, it also requires leaders that understand how to be catalytic - how to give it away.

I'm delighted that KevGN and his wife KeelyN are on the team - you'll remember them from serving with the SPACE 08 Hungary team this past summer. Also joining me are JAB and FB - long time readers will remember them from the SPACE 05 Brasil team, before they were married. Each one of them has served in a leadership capacity in other cultures, they understand serving and they are super excited to be a catalyst for this team. It's plain awesome to serve with these four, whom I've worked with on separate occasions, but now all together at once. Extra bonus - Kev and Andy were in my small group when they were high school students.

Kev, Andy and I traveled to NYC with some other students in the summer of 2002, serving with a YWAM base. Seven years later, it gets even better.

Photo: Kev, me and Andy, NYC, 2002.