Handing Out The Questions
I was on the plane flying back to the U.S. I floated in and out of napping, daydreaming and glancing at the movie. In six days I was scheduled to give an ‘update’ on my year in Asia. I’d been given one hour. Oh my, one hour. Such face to face moments are precious. I […]
God Doesn’t Use People
Amy wrote at The Grove last week, “He loves you and wants to heal you. Not so he can ‘use your story.’ No, just because he loves you.” And this stuck to my soul. (Amy wrote that, too.) What shift would happen in our teams if we didn’t use one another like God doesn’t use […]
The Team that Found its Swing
“There is a thing that sometimes happens in rowing that is hard to achieve and hard to define. Many crews, even winning crews, never really find it. Others find it but can’t sustain it. It’s called ‘swing.’ It only happens when all eight oarsmen are rowing in such perfect unison that no single action by […]
My Team is My Body
When people ask me, “What is the hardest part of living overseas?” my immediate response is “Getting along with other expats.” It sounds so incredibly 7th grade, I know. But we are a strong-willed, convicted, highly emotional crew. And when you stick a bunch of us on a team and say, “Now go be best […]
The Restorative Power of Diet Pepsi and TV
Team meetings. How many of us inwardly groan a little bit when we hear those two words? I know I went through a period of time when I definitely did more groaning and dreading than I care to think of. You usually don’t get to choose your teammates. You get thrown together with a group […]
6 People that Kill Community
We’ve heard it for years, right? That statistic. “The number one reason overseas workers leave the field is because of other overseas workers.” Someone please tell me this is no longer true. Tell me we’ve grown up and beyond that. I don’t know what the statistics are currently. I do know from experience that overseas […]