Getting ready

Hi all! :)
We are working through lists of stuff to do. Activities to plan, supplies to line up, songs to learn, devotions to write, packing to do, medications to take, childcare and transportation to coordinate, and it all needs to be done before the 29th of July. Add to that the anticipation of immersion in a completely new culture and the desire to make friends and minister to the children and workers at the orphanage (and in my case, a lot of stuff to get in order before I leave my construction projects for a week), and you have the potential for quite a bit of stress.
In my days as a field engineer in the shipyard I used to enjoy saying that stress was nothing but Mc/I, that is, merely the equation combining force and resistance. While edgy and satisfyingly obscure, that statement was not true in the physiological sense. Stress is the very real reaction that we experience when we have too much to do and not enough time, resources, inclination or support to get it all done well. It comes because we have expectations of the situation that we realize are not going to be fulfilled. It can be a useful thing (they say an expert is a drip under pressure), but more often it is a burden to those around us and a detriment to our Christian witness. Flipping out because things aren't going our way is declaring that we don't trust God to bless and protect us even though things look bad. And I am the chief of sinners, as anyone who works with me can tell you.
As with all problems in our Christian walk, the answer is not just to "get over it". I can no more get over my unbelief than I can save myself from my sin. What I can do, however, is have the humility to listen to a gentle rebuke by my teammates when I get stressed out about getting everything done. We need prayer for unity in the work God has given us, so that we can have the courage to speak into each other's lives. This will come when the people we are going to minister to become more important to us than the checklists we bring along, and when the people we are traveling alongside become more important to us than ourselves. That is the heart of Jesus, and I know it is the desire of each one of us on the Guatemala orphanage mission this year.
Thanks for keeping us in your prayers. More later!
Jeremy