At the beginning of this week our intern team and the East African Leaders of SLAM and this GOD Intl branch put on another SLAM service week camp. It was such a large and initially intimidating task. There are so many roles and components that need to be covered in order for a smooth and fruitful week to happen.
Thankfully, this was not our first exposure in running a camp like this, we had done a similar work in our very first week of Internship in Nashville, TN, and then also in El Salvador. This week in Africa though, we had even more responsibility. (We’ve been running an empowerment scenario called the 4Ms — Model, Mentor, Monitor, Move On. While we are empowering people around the world, we are also being empowered, and this was akin to a Monitor stage.) So as the week started, we all assumed our roles we had been learning and working in throughout the Summer. My main roles were Focus/Breakout Group Coordinator and the Service Week Coordinator. I had a couple others, and helped the rest of the team, but these were my primary responsibilities.
As the week started I found myself serving and organizing things behind the scenes the majority of the time. Ensuring that breakout groups were set, that they all had leaders and meeting locations, and even figuring out how we could add in more times for them to meet like after service projects. These students were eager and ready to share their hearts and do the important work of learning how to view their experiences through the lens of God’s word. It was evident in there were definitely moments where I felt frustration that my gifts are more administrative and not fully visible or flashy.
I found myself even wishing that I had talents like singing or acting on stages or being crazy good at a sport so that my effort could be seen and appreciated more. But I had a talked with one of my leaders (professors!) I had been working with very closely this week about how our background roles enable and free up people to do the front-of-stage serving. That without us organizing, coordinating, and keeping everyone on track – there would be very very little that happened in the week. It made me think of the passage in 1 Corinthians 12:14-27 where Paul talks about the body of Christ having different gifts and characteristics. How they are all needed to work together in order to move and act.
I know this to be true, but in a very real way I needed reminded of it this week as my flesh reared its head and attempted to distract me from the mission. The mission being to serve the youth in this community in Uganda, Africa. To love them, to teach them how God sees them, to teach them His expectations for living as his kid, and the empower them to serve and tell others. It is a wonderful work. And I am blessed to just be a part of it, and see and hear the good work that we as the Body of Christ are doing, by His grace.