SL Staff Travel/Team building days

What a wonderful two days we have had traveling to Tennessee and enjoying the fellowship of other Followers of Jesus! Thursday a group of 14 people from Central Baptist Church headed out at 3 am to Cleveland, Tennessee for 9 days of a leadership mission trip. We traveled through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and even a small part of Georgia to arrive at our destination. It took us 15 hours plus the loss of an hour due to a change in time zones before we arrived at our destination at 7:00 p.m. After getting some dinner we sat down and talked about expectations for the trip. One thing I told the kids that I expected from them was to grow in their faith and skills by stepping out of their comfort zone. I would boldly say that God has done his greatest work in my life when I get away from comfort and step into a world of discomfort. It requires me to depend on God and others which in turn shapes me to be more like Jesus. Please pray this for me. Today we woke up and the guys had the privilege of cooking breakfast for the girls to start our day (another thing we talked about in our expectations talk was outdoing one another in showing honor (Romans 12:10 on you)). After a great meal we enjoyed a morning devotion and then started our day. We went whitewater rafting first. This was AMAZING! It began our team building day on the right foot which was all about building relationships that fostered love and kindness with one another. I believe that is best done through accomplishing difficult things together. Whitewater rafting fit the bill perfectly. After dividing up into two teams we were able to enjoy rafting. I was in the boat with Jaeci and Casey, who both sat up front, Chris, Sara, Katelyn, and Aaren. We had a blast and will laugh for a long time about what we got to do. We then got cleaned up and headed to our next activity which was the "Zipline Aerial Adventure". This was great! We got to go to new heights together as a group (cheesy, I know). We really did enjoy it though. We then drove to the top of Lookout Mountain and enjoyed a Starbucks drink and a beautiful view of God's creation before heading back for the night to our cabins. I am enjoying building relationships with many leaders in our student ministry. My hope and prayer is that God uses these moments to positively effect the lives of our church and community. I pray they learn how to live for Jesus more and to lead others to do the same. God is good.