Day 3

This week we have been doing team building exercises and really getting to know each other and learn to work together as a team and as a cohesive unit. Today was a tough day for me as God is definitely working on my heart and the inside of me...bringing out my strengths, and my weaknesses. The day began with working in partners and leading each other up and down from the 3rd floor of our building blindfolded. We had to learn to listen and trust the voice of the person leading us. It was a great little game and everyone really did a great job with it and was feeling encouraged and inspired.

The next game we played involved working in partner teams of 2, and there were 7 teams total. Our instructions were for us to draw a tree and then come show it to David. We did this multiple times over the course of an hour. My partner and I tried to think of every picture that could possibly represent a tree. I think we exhausted all the options in the scriptures: I am the vine and you are the branches, I am the tree of life, tree starting as a seed and growing and producing fruit...etc. Every time each group went up David would just say, "no, that's not what I'm looking for." Then we would go back and try again. Finally he gave us a little hint and my partner and I finally caught on that the goal was for every group to draw a part of the tree and then come together to form the whole tree. I misunderstood the directions or else we would have probably caught on a little bit sooner (not much, but some)...we were one of the last groups to catch on which was frustrating. At the end of the exercise, once finally complete over an hour later, David proceeded to tell us that this assignment was only supposed to take 15-20 minutes and that our group took the longest time that anyone has ever taken that he has worked with. He said we all still had a long way to go until we could finally begin to think of the whole team, and not just ourselves or our unit. After we heard this, we all just kind-of felt like we failed. We were all frustrated and just felt down on ourselves for not catching on sooner, since we had really felt like we were coming together as a team. Finally we were taking steps forward, and now we had taken a few steps back. I was a little bit mad because I thought we were doing so good and wanted to really hear that we had come a long ways, even though we still had things to work on, but I guess we don't always need a pat on the back in every situation...sometimes it takes hard lessons to really learn the lesson.

The next task was a competition between two teams. We competed in various exercises from 2:30pm to 6:00pm. The catch was this: one person in each of the groups was "blind" and would be blindfolded the ENTIRE time, NEVER taking the blindfold off. Another person in the group could never touch the ground, and had to be constantly carried. And then another person could not speak or make any kinds of sounds or noises with their mouth. With all the stuff that has been going through my mind about just dying to self and not always being the one to speak, this couldn't have worked out any perfectly as I was chosen by David to be the one on my team that would not speak. :( I'm sure you can sense my frustration already. I couldn't even say, "mmmmhmm" or else it would be a penalty and points would be deducted from my group. Points were deducted for various things and awarded for others. This was an extremely difficult task for both teams as the blind person had to really work on trusting and not being able to see for 3.5 hours of the day, and the other person had to rely on others to carry her for the entire 3.5 hours...which was difficult to do. I was extremely frustrated during the time I couldn't speak. Some strengths I have are in leading and giving direction and communicating. It was hard to do this without a voice. I felt like I had my legs cut out from under me as I was unable to lend my strength to the team and spent a lot of the time figuring out how I could compensate and communicate. Oh...I also couldn't move my lips to mouth the words. I began communicating with my hands and with snaps and claps and with really just spelling things out for people and trying to help in all situations. Between each activity we had to do as many push-ups in a 3-minute period and I knew that was something I could do. I ended up doing a little over 300 push-ups today, so I'm not too excited to see how my arms feel tomorrow! :) haha... I helped lead the blind person by holding his hand while my other group mate held his other hand and was able to verbally instruct him. Some of the tasks included: going from the 3rd floor to the river and each picking up a rock to stack in a row without falling, blind person putting together a puzzle but not allowed to talk and the others only allowed to say "no, yes, up, down, right, left" and me not being able to speak at all but just point to the group. I was eventually allowed to guide his arm to help him while the others were still limited in their speech, and then the person who couldn't walk was finally able to speak as well as the blind person to ask questions. What we were doing was putting together a puzzle which was a map of the world...it took a while but we eventually completed it. Another task was basically a web made out of rope where we had to get all of the members through the holes of the web, without touching the rope, to the other side. We could only use a space one time so we had to be strategic with everything, especially with the blind person and the person who couldn't walk. Our group was able to finally get all 7 people over to the other side without touching once! The last task was to put the rocks back into the river and go back up to the 3rd floor.

During this whole no-talking experience, I just felt like I couldn't express myself or give encouragement to others for things I wanted to help them with. It was very difficult for me as these are things that I love to do. I even cried at one point out of pure frustration with not being able to talk and lend my full strength and also with the point scorer. It was definitely a day...

Things learned from the no-talking experience:

1. If I do not speak or speak up, I will be frustrated all of the time.
2. When I do speak, I need to know when the time is to speak, and when the time is to be quiet and listen and/or hold my tongue.
3. My voice and my encouragement is my strength...to not use it is to handicap myself and disable myself from having the fullness of God working in my life.
4. I can still communicate without my voice, but it will be difficult, and people need it!

After debriefing from this experience, we had dinner and then a bible study time with the whole group. We are going through the book of Romans. I am finding that I do not necessarily agree with everything, and I am learning when the time is to be quiet and just test the things for myself against the Word, and when the time is to speak up and speak truth. Tonight I got to pour into the group some and remind them that they are the righteousness of God in Christ. That there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That the Holy Spirit came to convince believers of their righteousness, but to convict unbelievers of their need for a Savior. That the Holy Spirit is here to remind us of our righteousness and our ability to do all things through Christ. Also that grace is unearned, undeserved, unmerited favor and blessing of God for all believers. Again a testament to using my voice to speak up and proclaim truth, the entire group woke up from literally sleeping during our Bible study discussion time and began to engage in the conversation and speak up about struggles with this particular topic. I was able to pour into them and remind them that God thinks they are rock stars. Yes we understand that we are sinners and did not deserve everything Jesus did for us, but that because of Jesus, God sees us as perfect because He looks at us through the eyes of Jesus and calls us perfect...we have been perfected forever! I also got to remind them that they are Champions and conquerors and that although we are undeserving, God says we do deserve His grace and we need to take hold of that! We need to walk in confidence of Who is living on the inside of us, but not to be cocky. It was so awesome to just get to talk with some of them individually and hear from their perspective and see that it encouraged and inspired them, and they even encouraged me to speak up more.

Niccole = "Victory of the People"...I'm proclaiming that!