I write to you on the eve of the Bay Area Urban Project 2014! I've been in our staff orientation for the past three days, which has been full of its own God-moments and preparation for the next six weeks. Let me share a couple:
Our first day, Monday, we went on a food tour of Oakland. Unfortunately, somewhere between the Ethiopian food and the Korean seafood pancake, I picked up some kind of funky bug. By the time we got to our Vietnamese-French dinner, I was feeling queasy, and though I tried to make it to the bathroom in time, I ended up emptying the contents of my stomach on the dinner table. (I KNOW, RIGHT?? It's like the textbook example of "most embarrassing moment"!)
Why do I tell you this? Because God used it to bring us together as a staff team and to remind me that I don't have to pretend to have things under control. It was super shameful in the moment--I barely knew any of my teammates, so this was their first impression of me. And afterwards during that night, I was just super tired and not really able to meaningfully interact. But it paved the way for us as a team to be real with our tension, confusion, and inadequacy. Now we laugh about it: "That was the moment we became family--when Estelle vomited on the dinner table and all the pretense was gone."
I'm grateful for this lesson so early on in the program because I am tempted to evaluate myself by how well I perform and by how others perceive me. God, in his mercy, humbles me to realize that it's not my fake competency that he desires, but my very real, very obvious mess. It's also so helpful to be surrounded by people around whom I can drop the facade of control and just be vulnerably human.
If you are a person of prayer, please pray that the other staff and I would remain humble and centered in God's plans for the summer (not our own)!
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(photo taken at dinner, minutes before my... erm ... episode)
Today, we took a prayer walk around the different work sites we'll be at this summer. I will be volunteering at College Track, an amazing organization that commits to first generation students for eight years (from the beginning of high school through their college graduation).
One of the main hopes at College Track is to produce students with GRIT-- guts, resilience, integrity and tenacity. They realize that students need more than just external resources to make it through the challenges that face them; they need internal guidance and strength, which is built through daily, mundane decisions that add up over time. This also is the process of discipleship--Jesus forming his followers into people who recognize the present moment is an opportunity to choose to say yes.
Please pray that our BayUP students are able to develop GRIT like the College Track students they will be teaching!
If you'd like to continue to stay updated on the adventures of our team, please visit our blog at calteambayup.wordpress.com.
Thank you so much for your support, love and prayers! This experience would not be possible without you, and I am so grateful for your influence in my life.
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