need one? be one.

This is Team Kivu, the small group that will be traveling to Rwanda in 6 short weeks! Starting top row left this is Karen, Bryan, Jeri, and Bob. Front row: me, Colleen, and Mike.

See, I told you we were normal. The trip is composed of 5 such groups, and we are getting to know eachother through our training period, so that we will be more effective to get stuff done once we arrive in Kibuye.

"Training" may sound like an odd way to phrase what we are doing; we associate training with athletic or professional endeavors. But if you can picture what it would take to bring Normal You to a place of readiness to be something other than stunned and useless to a poor, sick, underresourced, scarred, and weary group of people who needed your assistance, can you picture you'd probably want training? Right.

Stunned and useless was where I started Saturday morning when I pictured taking on the P.E.A.C.E. plan- style tasks that my small group packed into this past weekend: on Saturday, a Poker Fun Run Fundraiser for Jeri, a member of Team Kivu, and on Sunday, teaming up to help a family pack their house for a move. Fish-out-of-water might aptly describe me eating lunch with 20 bikers (long story, loved them!) and taking a house from extreme disarray to boxed-and-ready together with a group of 11 hardworking friends. Yet, after the fact, there is nothing that mattered more. In the end, Jeri's fundraiser was a roaring success and a ton of fun, and packing the house for Jen (a cancer patient with two toddlers and a teenage son)and Ted felt like being part of a miracle. One they needed desperately.

Generally speaking, I've noticed either I need a miracle or I'm positioned to be part of one. We are back in the NEED ONE category today. Dave learned Friday that his job has been ellimiated: another casualty of this heinous economy. Today we join the ranks of the unemployed in search of our next miracle. And just like last time, it will show up, we just don't know how. I will need prayer and total clarity to make the decisions we face in the next few weeks. We need some miracles and are actually excited to see them rise like a perfect sun on our horizon. Because that's what our God is like.