Reflection on outreach...

After being in Actopan, I think I started to see what this outreach is really supposed to be about... not us - but them, the people we are serving. I believe that the people in the church in Actopan were more satisfied and blessed by our being there than we were - and that's exactly how it should be. That is what made the week so fulfilling, I exhausted myself for their sake, and not my own.

I really want the next two weeks of Outreach to be the best of all of DTS. I talked to Kyoko one night about having no regrets during our time here. Because we are older than the rest of the people in our DTS, we feel like we can picture 3 months in the future and look back to the now amd see what we would be regretting after DTS is all over. I thought alot about...

• how did I use my free time?
• did I give my ALL in ministry?
• did I take advantage of every opportunity to meet people and build relationships?
• was I truly EXHAUSTED for the Lord every day?

There is definitely a team aspect to the DTS, but in the end, when I go home, the question is gonna be : what did I get from my DTS? what did I do during DTS that made this world a better place? We are each accountable for our own actions - how we work, play, talk, react, etc. I challenged my small group with this when we got back from Actopan, and we decided that we wanted to keep each other accountable and encourage each other to give our all during the rest of outreach, regardless of what other people around us are doing. I am not going to waste another moment...

my beautiful small group in Pachuca, Mexico