hello again

Well, I'm not quite done with the craziness of our training season at YouthWorks, but I had a few minutes and realized that I haven't posted in over a month. Last week we had staff training in Denver, Pittsburg, Birmingham and El Paso/Juarez. I was able to visit 3 of the 4. This week we have about 70 people here in Minneapolis for training as well. It has been great to connect with those who are going out to lead and serve this summer in 77 different communities across North America. We work all year to prepare for these 300+ staff to come and take the batton and run with it at each of our sites, so it is encouraging to meet those who will be doing the running and to be reminded of the beauty of God's intimate involvement in all of our stories. Being at training is almost like looking at a mosaic... meeting different people, hearing their stories, watching them form relationships amongst their teams and their region, seeing God weave together the gifts, personalities, successes and failures of each of these people to do something that none of us could venture to do on our own. As we begin this summer with huge tasks ahead of us, I'm learning more and more how impossible it really is to follow Jesus. Some of the things we are trying to do at YouthWorks are way over our heads, and yet if we could do them ourselves, they would hardly be much worth doing.