Let The Summer Games Begin…

This summer we are blessed with 3 interns who empty their cups everyday as they minister to the community! We also have an amazing – dedicated – hard-working – faithful group of Haitian staff that we meet with every Wednesday.

So I thought wouldn’t it be fun to divide everyone into 2 groups and start a summer-long competition!?! So last Wednesday they pulled papers out of a hat and their teams were formed. Pierre’s team is called Valiant Soldiers! Morgan & Patrick are on his team.  Rodner’s team is called Christiano. Miss Beth & Emily are on that team.

The games will vary from full-out competitions like today, to making the best food, to coming up with the best day of ministry for a team, to night-time strategy games. Each game will be worth a certain amount of points (depending on the game). The team at the end of the summer with the most points wins. Showing up on time for staff meetings will also give them points!

Today was their first competition. So they got into lines. On one end of the field there was a case of empty coke bottles. They had to hop in a sack to get to the empty coke bottles. They then took the sack off and raced with one empty bottle back to the starting line. They did this until every coke bottle was now at the starting line.

They then had to open up a coke and pour it into a teaspoon. Then they had to run back and forth from the start line (where there is a full coke bottle) to a chair that’s holding a container. Teaspoon by teaspoon they run back and forth until they feel the container.

Well…..we did a lot of laughing as both groups did a lot of cheating! Rodner’s team won but since everybody cheated there were no points given to the winner.  It fit well with my devotional talk, which I led right after the game! I was talking about hearing the voice of God over the voice of Satan. I talked about how Satan will use anyone – come in any form – to try and engage us. We lose as soon as we dialogue with him. So when your team members told you to cheat – that it won’t matter – that everyone is doing it – – you just engaged with satan! 🙂 Yep – I went there! 🙂

I told them – we can’t always control our circumstances – the things that are said about us or to us when we walk down the street. But we can control what we listen to – what thoughts we allow to keep us up at night.

So I put headphones on that were plugged to the Bible. Pierre began yelling things at me – I’m a loser, I’m nothing, I’m unworthy of God, I’ll never change, this life won’t get better, there isn’t a Heaven, I’m a thief, no one loves me.

But since I had my earphones plugged into the Bible – I couldn’t hear anything he said. I was singing a new song. I was plugged into the power. I was dancing like David. I didn’t engage the negative talk. I didn’t allow the bad things said to me – to overpower the good things God has promised me.

Tuesday night at 8pm we will begin Competition 2! Yes – it’s a game we will play by flashlight! Hopefully no one will cheat this time!!

Here’s several video clips strung together from Competition 1 –