Group Dynamics

Our group was 18 people. Four from Wisconsin, three from Niwot, and the remaining eleven from Denver/Parker. Obviously, the Wisconsin and Niwot groups knew each other a bit before the trip, but I personally had never met one person that I was traveling with these two weeks. Originally when this trip came up, I thought I would be traveling with my then-boyfriend, but that didn’t work out; and after that, I did have a friend that was going to come with me, but due to some personal things, she couldn’t make it. I was on my own- a theme actually now common to my international travels. Looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way, and to be honest, even from the start I think that’s how God wanted to orchestrate it for me. For me, this trip was not just about going on a mission trip and spreading the good news- it was so much more than that. Part exploration of another culture to just immerse myself in the real Africa, part a self exploration of how can I do when I am by myself, uncomfortable and unfamiliar, working with strangers, part self-test, to see how I did without my routine eating and workout schedule, and most part a search for my relationship with God. Did I know all of that going into it? Yes, I think I did, but not as fully as I know now, even just a few short days later.
God is so good to me.
As I said earlier, our group was 18- 18 very diverse, different people. After two weeks with each of them, I can honestly say that I love and appreciate each one of them in their own way, and I was happy that I made time to get to know each of them and hear their stories. They are each amazingly strong people in their own way, and I feel blessed to have served alongside them. There was a mother-daughter team who had just unexpectedly lost their husband/father a few weeks prior to the trip; there was the HR director from the church who worked with the team leader of the trip; there was a mother-son duo that befriended the outgoing nurse and formed a fabulously sarcastic threesome; there was the epitome of Wisconsin man who wore fanny packs, hot yellow sunglass holders around his neck next to his camera; there was the tall, introverted CFO of a company who was challenged by being away for two weeks; there was the breast cancer survivor who had been to Kenya three times already; there was the preppy, put-together mother of two; there was the amazingly eclectic couple, one with pink hair and both with tattoos and black sweat shirts; there was quiet, almost painfully introverted nurse; the Greenbay packer/amateur photographer turned leader; the eighth grade boy in a grown man’s body; the Texas man that had just lost his wife earlier in the year and loved caring for his five daughters; there was me.

Altogether we got along great. No gossipy talk (at least that I heard), no catty remarks or snappy ‘jokes’ that really revealed disdain; it was amazing how well we all got together. Now, I can’t lie; there were a few that pushed by buttons, of course. And at the beginning of the trip, about six days into it, that was not a problem- I was still running on adrenaline and excitement, patience abounding. However, after about day six and too many traffic jams, a blown tire on the side of the slum road, lack of personal space or anyone that really knew me, my patience grew thin and my prayers grew longer and more insistent. Funny though, how God works: the more I prayed for togetherness and love for one person, the more I was next to that person at everything: dinner, bus rides, just walking. I couldn’t get away! And at one point, I even had to swallow my pride and apologize to this person for being a jerkface, because I had carried a joke too far and I was afraid that I had hurt their feelings and I didn’t want to be the starter of problems. Plus, there is nothing better than a dose of humility to help me get back into my place.

I don’t know if the group members had this same issue, or if they noticed it in me, but I found that with these people, I was not 100% real. I was uncomfortable almost all the time (not with them, but with the whole being out of my comfort zone thing), and when I am uncomfortable, I turn to humor and silliness to lighten things up. I found that the more the trip went on, the more humorous I was trying to be. When I was not being humorous or making snappy comebacks, I was off in my own world, ignoring the group and being deep in thought (mostly on bus rides) to avoid interaction with everyone. Maybe a way of me re-charging my battery? I don’t know.
I don’t have any regrets about this trip (at least none that I can see at this time), but I do wish that I could have been my more ‘real’ self. But I don’t know how realistic that really is, in a situation of 18 strangers together for two weeks in a new, foreign country doing community outreach in another language. I would have liked to been able to show more vulnerability, more openness, more weakness even? But I don’t know how I could have done that, or would have done that, even if I had it to do over. I think so often I want to be this person that I am not, and this experience was a great way for me to see a part of who I really am, whether I like it or not. I would like to take away from this a sense of who I am in situations of stress, and learn to become ok with that. As I have been told in my own therapy, and as I tell many of my own clients and even friends- this is just information. It’s not right or wrong, it just is. So now I guess it’s up for me to decide how comfortable, how intimate I want to become with this information, and how God wants me to integrate it into the whole fabric of me. I am guessing that this kind of reflection is what is going to make the aftermath of this trip so impactful, and I am hoping that God will continue to work in my heart to show me who I am, and who He created me to be.