I've been reminded over and over again this past month how essential teamwork is in so many different areas of life, and specifically missions work.
On the mission field, church planters depend on the help of language consultants, pilots, supply buyers, leadership, prayer supporters, financial supporters, accountants, and the list goes on...
It's not an accident that no one person is able to do it all. During the past several months, our class has read through Acts, Romans, Revelation, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, and we've been reminded over and over again that God has designed and fit together different parts to work in different ways in His body, the Church. We aren't supposed to all do the same things, think the same way, or have the same skills.
JUNGLE CAMP
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| Hopefully my jungle camp house will be livable in less than a week! |
Jungle Camp is definitely one of the things that God has been using to remind me how much I need other people to help me!
"What is jungle camp?" you ask. Well, it is a 6 week practicum where my classmates and I have the opportunity to put into practice some of the skills and lifestyle changes that we'll need to use on the mission field.
Here are the basics.
First two weeks = Build a house
I have teamed up with one other women to build a house in the Canadian "wilderness" without using any modern, electric tools. Our primary materials are pre-cut poles, plastic sheeting, screen, duct tape, twine, dowel rods, and staples (nails/screws = forbidden). We dig holes, set posts, make a clay-covered oven, install a roof, and hopefully end up with a house that is livable, because...
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| The site of our future Jungle camp house (after several hours of leveling the dirt). |
Final four weeks = Live off the grid
On Saturday, we will move into our house and live there for a month. On our move-in day, we'll have 17 hours to hike/carry in any supplies we want (It is close enough we can make multiple trips). Anything forgotten will have to be lived without. Our entire class is building houses, so during the month, we'll be living in fairly close proximity to each other and hopefully able to help provide supplements for forgotten items.
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| Day Two: Frame is up, roof plastic is on, oven is built and covered in clay. |
What's the point?
We aren't just doing this because we are missionaries and thus like adventures! :-) This exercise is intended to teach us lessons and skills that we will need while living in remote locations with unreached people groups. It isn't designed to exactly replicate living on the mission field, because every field is different, but here are some of the valuable lessons we can learn through it though.
1. Teamwork
We get to plan, pack, build, and live with one other person, who probably has very different skills, preferences, and ideas and a different personality from us. Can we learn to work together when we both love our different but incompatible ideas? Can we be flexible and find a middle ground? Can we prefer one another when the conditions are less than ideal and our nerves are raw?
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| Day Three: Digging holes for counter top posts |
2. Time Management
We have a limited amount of time to plan, limited time to build, and even while living in jungle camp, everything will take longer. Making coffee suddenly becomes an involved, lengthy task to say nothing of laundry! We will also be given reading and writing assignments to complete, and some weeks will have a required number of hours of study time. All of this will require us to carefully and thoughtfully make choices about our time. That is so practical for the field, where missionaries routinely have to put in 8-12 hours of culture and language study per day for years in order to learn an unwritten language.
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| Day Five: Counter top and shelves done. Sink plumbed. |
3. Unplug
Learning how to live without being in close contact with everyone in our social circle is not as easy as it sounds. What happens when you can't keep in touch by checking facebook? When you can't "google it" to find your answer? When you can't unwind by listening to music? When you can't even type up your paper? We will find out how dependent we are on electronic devices for convenience, but also at times for validations. During jungle camp, we'll get a small taste of the future disconnect we'll most likely experience once we move into a remote people group.
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| Jungle Camp Tech Class: We learned to solder, wire a simple DC circuit from a car batteries, and utilize solar energy to charge our batteries. |
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| Our class with "our" jungle camp solar panel successfully set up. |
4. Endurance
While some of you probably think this sounds like a great adventure, it will also be challenging. During the building days, we've been spending 10-15 hours a day doing hard, physical labor. During jungle camp, we'll be very busy; and in the middle of all of this, we'll be going on a 2 day (3 day for the guys) hike. This whole experience is a chance to test our "grit." When we are tired, when the bugs are terrible, when we just really want nothing more than COLD water with ice cubes, when our shoulders ache from digging our 30th hole, do we choose joy or grumbling?
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| 80+ HOURS of work in one week represented right here! First week of building is done. |
5. Learner's Attitude
There will be a lot of new things during jungle camp. From building a house, to cooking in a clay barrel oven, to learning to use solar power, to installing wiring in my house, it will be full of lessons, probably some failures, but hopefully successes as well.
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| My new oven...friend or foe? I'll let you know next month! |
I can't do this alone, but that is true in all of life. I've already been incredibly humbled at the help I've received as I've prepared for jungle camp. As I recognize areas where I need help, it reminds me to be so thankful for the skills and gifts of others in the body of Christ.
Click HERE to see a summary of who I am and what I'm doing.
Click HERE to find out more about financial partnership.
(My apologizes for not having a printable pdf of this update attached. I'll return to that format next month.)
