Debriefing (7.23-7.27):

Now that the Tour part was over and we only had a few days left, we spent a lot of time together as a team. This time was filled with “teaching times” where the leaders would take turns teaching from the word and from their own experiences on how to go home from a trip like Operation Barnabas. From their teaching, I learned that it was going to be hard and I would feel lonely. But the biggest pitfall ever in this process is thinking that those things would never apply to you. It hits some harder than others, but I felt it and I know that others on my team felt it too.

 

We went to three different malls or large shopping areas like North Market across Columbus during debriefing. While there we would spend our time talking to people (and even buying things). We split off into small groups of 2-4 or so. We also had a party one night at the house of one of the girls on our team. It was really fun to have a house party with mostly our team and have a night to relax and be together.

 

Saturday: We attended a church service as regular people in Pickerington. It was a little weird at first to just participate in a service and not lead anything as we had all summer, but it was a nice change of pace not to have responsibility or have anyone staring at us the whole time. I sat next to Ritter and Zachary, and after the service we were talking to a woman who was so excited to have us there. She was really sweet and wanted to know all about us and the experience we had this summer. We talked so long we were almost late to get on the bus afterwards.

 

Sunday: We led a service for Grace Polaris combined with Team Ohio, which we hadn’t done since the last day of Orientation. It was a lot of fun and lots of people I knew were there to see us, like several families from my church. After the service, my family took me along with several team members to lunch at Quaker Steak and Lube. I was dared by Logan to get the Triple Atomic Wings Challenge (for which I had to sign a waiver). It was quite a painful experience, but so worth it. My sister told me I was insane. Just one of those “YOLO” moments. Sunday night the team dressed up a little and went to Olive Garden for dinner as a last meal together. We were leaving in the morning. Then we proceeded to attempt to stay up all night together but most of us fell asleep by 4:00 am.

The next morning was bitter sweet. All of us had a huge hug-moment with many tears and sad goodbyes. This summer we connected to each other in a way I have never experienced before or since. It was incredible and I will forever hold my team in my memory in love, as my brothers and sister in Christ.

 

Heading Home(7.27):

After 6 weeks of being out in the world away from my family, somewhat on my own, but with whole lot less responsibility, it was weird coming home. I was on fire for God because I had been all summer, but no one else here was in the same way. On top of that I went back straight into band camp at a public high school, so I all of a sudden heard and saw things I hadn't dealt with in a long time. But God continued to use me and now I'm going to Costa Rica with my own youth group this summer in 2016, including my younger brother. I have been so blessed to see God work through one of the toughest years for my youth group we have had in a long time and OB helped prepare me for that. God is faithful.

 

I think one of the most wonderful things I experienced was actually an application of a passage I had read multiple times before, but never really seen a time when this was actually carried out in a way that represented Christ. Matthew 18 talks about a biblical picture of loving confrontation. Normally, in our culture, confrontation is uncomfortable, scary, even offensive in a lot of cases, but what I learned was that this is only because we’ve been doing it wrong. My leader Brandon really encouraged us to talk to teammates who we felt had hurt us in some way instead of letting it sit inside of us, and this was especially pushed if in that we had harbored feelings of anger toward that person. But there is no point in doing it if I didn’t also come to that person in love and focus on trying to heal the broken relationship we have. I think this is also what God does for us: He sends his Holy Spirit to lovingly tell us when we have done wrong, not to cause guilt or shame but so that we will come back to Him and heal the relationship. I think that using this idea of loving confrontation in my own life could radically change the depth of the relationships I have with other people. With this in place it isn’t about whether we like hanging out with them, it is about whether we truly love them as a creation of God.