Transformation - Nato

As you might have read, yesterday was an extremely hard day for the marketing team. A combination of figuring out the Living Hope culture, the South African culture and our own team dynamics made for a long afternoon meeting. Last night we regrouped and prepared for a full day of meetings, which led to tough conversations. Our team was either relying on our own skills too heavily, not trusting in God to work through us in a vastly different culture, or feeling like there wasn't a purpose for them on the team, as well as lacking a real sense of unity. We prayed and asked for prayer in our team meeting last night and went to bed wondering what would lie ahead for our next 10 days.

This morning, we woke up and had great times alone with God. Leah was reading in Matthew 6, "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes" (the Message) and shared this with the group as we were preparing for the Living Hope group to arrive.

Throughout the meetings today, God continually showed Himself working. During various portions, each person found themselves at the helm of the meeting, an expert in the required field. Everyone began to see ways in which they were uniquely essential to the marketing team and ideas were brought to the table for both international (US, UK, etc) and South African initiatives. We finished our meetings around 3 and were able to spend the rest of the afternoon spending time with one another. This included going to the beach and hanging out at a restaurant patio called Skabanga (which we subsequently found out means 'mischievous' in Xhose). All that to say, by the end of today, solid bonds had been formed among all members of our team and we had seen so much accomplished for Living Hope. Praise God.