A week after I returned home from Haiti, I had the priviledge to travel to Slidell, Louisiana with a team of six other people from Church of the Saviour. It was a little crazy going from trip to trip, but as God said to Paul, "My power is made perfect in your weakness." And boy did I see God's power on this trip. Before I jump too much into what happened while we were in Slidell, I need to cover some background...
In March, I was asked by Pete, a leader at my church, if over the 4th of July week I would be willing to lead a group from "Quest" (people at my church between the ages of 18-25) down to Slidell, Louisiana to help out with a Vacation Bible School at Faith Bible Church. I was a little hesitant accepting, since I would be traveling to Haiti just a few weeks before. But it seemed as though most of my responsibility would be just getting people down there and making sure no one sustained a serious injury, also I'd been wanting to get down to LA sometime to help in the relief effort there. So I prayed about it and felt at peace with accepting. Over the next month and a half, we waited for the droves of people to sign up for this awesome opportunity. In the middle of May I started receiving emails from Faith Bible Church saying that they'd reserved us space for 15 to 20 and wanted to get a final count on how many would be coming. We only had one person sign up, Kristin, and she wasn't even in Quest! Kristin had been to Slidell numerous times before, so she knew the ins and outs of planning transportation and communicating with the church there (she is the first huge blessing that God gave this trip). Pete told Kristin and I, "If you guys can find anyone to go, then go, otherwise, we'll cancel the trip." So seven weeks before we are suppose to leave, Kristin and I send out an APB to the whole church that anyone who would be interested in going needed to commit to it within two weeks. Two weeks later after a good bit of time on our knees in prayer, God provided us with a team of 9, which later got boiled down to a team of 7. That was huge blessing number 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6! We went from two to 7 in two weeks!!
So now we are less than 5 weeks from leaving (and I leave for Haiti in a week and half) and we are over the big hurdle. We have our team, Kristin has put together a good transportation plan, and everything seems to be great. Then bomb number 2 drops. With 4 1/2 weeks to go, Kristin and I receive an email that makes it clear: we are not going down to help Faith Bible Church put on their VBS, but we are expected to plan and implement the whole thing ourselves! And we should expect up to 80 kids! Kristin and I freak out a little bit, tore our clothes, and put dust on our heads, and cried "this is not what we signed up for!!!" When we picked ourselves up off the floor, we realized that this came as no suprise to God and that if it was truly His work, He would give us the strength and ability to complete it. After all, he gave us a team of people just a few weeks before we were leaving. So we started to get to planning.
Now as a leader, my typical MO is to be a control freak, take as much responsibility as I can, and then micro-manage the rest. But I was leaving for Haiti in just days, so that was not a possibility. Instead God began to teach me what it really means to be a leader, a servant-leader. At this point, I began to see how God had hand-picked each person that was on this team. These were not just 7 bodies that were filling up space on a team, but God had brought together 7 specific people with specific abilities, gifts, and experiences.
Each person on this team humbly and diligently gave of their time over those last 4 weeks to plan, organize, and aquire supplies for this trip. When I came back from Haiti, 90% of the planning for the VBS was done! I want to give special props to Kristin, who organized all the trip logistics (transportation, housing, food, etc.), and Kim, who was in charge of the overall direction and planning of the VBS. While the whole team poured their hearts and souls in to getting this all together, those two took on an especially large chunk of responsibility and both did an amazing job. Thank you!! I also want to thank Danielle, who wasn't able to go with us to LA but helped out with a lot of the planning, and Ellie Greenhalgh at COS who helped us with general direction and really gave us great encouragement in the beginning of our planning when we were feeling very overwhelmed.
God did many other amazing things during the preparation of this trip. To quote St. John, "If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." To just mention a couple, ask Al how we received over a hundred beanie babies for FREE and ask Kristin how we were able to build parts for 80 tool boxes in just days before we left (that meant 640 cut pieces of wood and over 2000 holes drilled). All in all, God used the preparation time to really build our faith in Him. He gave us exactly what we needed, exactly when we needed it. Not too much or too little, neither too soon nor too late. It was much like the experience that Gideon went through in chapter 7 of the book of Judges.
I hope you've seen a glimpse of the way God worked before we even left for this trip. Join us in praising Him and thanking Him for His faithfulness. Now let's talk about what happened on our journey to and through Slidell, Louisiana...
Our Group (from left to right): Kristin, Kim, Jess, Me (Ben), Al, Paul, and Mike
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