Midpoint
words by Brendan
With today coming to an end, we are roughly halfway through our trip. Often on short-term trips, the midpoint is when the exhaustion sets in as the initial excitement of arriving in a new country wanes. We experienced a bit of that today. Our work project was to cut the overgrown grass surrounding another Cumbre Alta facility. This seemed a straight-forward enough assignment, but proved difficult with the dull machetes we were provided. We did have two weed whackers, but we had to work for several hours without them as we waited for gasoline to arrive after the short supply ran out early in the day.
It was hard, slow-going work, but despite the setbacks, we were able to make the most of our time and saw significant progress towards making the field a more inviting facility. Some highlights included running through the sprinklers, joyriding on the riding lawn mower, and taking an ice cream break at a local ice cream shop. I have been proud of the team thus far. They have matched each of the challenges put before them.
A few days ago, I challenged the team with Ecclesiastes 3. We discussed how there is a time for all things. They have done well at being more aware of what type of behavior is most appropriate in the proper time and place. Today, I challenged them to be aware of the physical exhaustion we are feeling and how that will begin to impact our attitudes if we are not careful. Tomorrow will be another long work day, so we are working as a team to make sure our hearts stay in a place of obedience to both God and our contacts.
As part of our debrief tonight, we asked each member of the team to rate from 1 to 10 where their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual “buckets” are at. Physical was by far the lowest average for the team. After many hours of work projects and soccer over the last few days, that is not surprising. Our physical bodies are tired. In the morning, Merlinn will lead us in some stretching and mobility exercises in order to work out some of the soreness and tiredness we are all experiencing. Please be praying for strength, refreshment, and endurance for our team.
Tomorrow, we will be back at the future home of Cumbre Alta to continue the work we began yesterday. It will be another challenging morning and afternoon, but we look forward to tackling the challenge before spending some time with the Jordan-Taube family (founders of Cumbre Alta) over dinner at their home in the evening. We’ll be back with more updates tomorrow!
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