Good Leadership and the Need for more Space

I'm at the airport right now, writing this, drinking a Chai Tea Latte and enjoying a few brief minutes of relative peace in a week that has not been peace-friendly. What a week it has been! Right now two separate groups of visitors are wandering around Mexico City. The UW sports people are with David Gomez touring the downtown area, and the CAMEX interns are with Alex visiting the zoo. I think.

This week has been such a blessing for a lot of reasons, but high among them has been the quality of leadership we have enjoyed. Jonathan Toledo, a Gordon Conwell seminary student and Crystal Langer, recent Biola grad, are the best. Randy and Jackie Eims, the team leaders of the UW team, are top-notch too, and because all 4 of these leaders were here last year, they know a bit more of what to expect and how to lead here.

The icing on the cake is the church here. There are so many people so totally willing to help out that it's a joy to have visitors. David Gomez has, as always, been a trendous help to me. Alex and Alberto and Alan and Melanie and others are right there all of the time, and the help we receive on a daily basis from a lot of church families in the hosting and feeding of the interns has been invaluable.

Good leadership is one of the secrets of a successful internship program.

The other issue I've been reflecting on during my first half of my spiced tea is the need we have for more space. It's a good problem to have...but it's still a problem. Tomorrow we're setting up a portable canopy that seats 150 for our service...but do we want to do that every Sunday? Please pray for a property for us. The interns keep asking me...what are you going to do about space?

Well, gotta sign off. I'm here picking up 4 people, three of which are blackbelts in martial arts. Darrol and his wife are missionary appointees with CAM, and they're coming to visit Mexico for a week with two other friends of theirs. I have a meeting set up with Raymundo, a karate teaching in Ixtapaluca, this afternoon. Sounds funny, doesn't it...punching and kicking people for Jesus. I'm convinced it could be extremely effective here.