My Remarkable Team

I have managed Destination Imagination teams for 4 years. Last night, the team I have worked with for the past two years met for their regular time together. I set up an "instant challenge" for them to solve. This is a difficult problem which they must solve with very limited materials and in a very short time frame. I wish I had videotaped it. Just imagine that they managed to devise a catapult in 7 minutes made of a spoon, spool, rubberband, and toothpick that shot a golf ball onto a papertowel roll ramp supported with 2 straws into a target 6 inches away. It was nothing short of brilliant.

Then they spent the next 45 minutes without any supervision finishing off a ten item check list of the things they wanted to accomplish in their meeting time towards their year-long project. I wanted to cry with the sheer joy of their maturity, accomplishment, and through it all, sense of fun and delight.

I have been very discouraged of late. The direction of our country makes me want to vomit. Personal struggles seem to be at an all time high. And on top of that, a spiritual battle rages in one of the darkest days of the year, and I feel like most of us are blind to it. But in the midst of all that angst, steps my Destination Imagination team. Young, bright, motivated, delightful, polite, respectful, and hard working. There is hope for tomorrow. Sometimes God brings fresh air into a room that has been long devoid of oxygen, and with a gasp, we realize we may survive!

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Thank God ! Call out his Name! Tell the whole world who he is and what he’s done! Sing to him! Play songs for him! Broadcast all his wonders! Revel in his holy Name, God -seekers, be jubilant! Study God and his strength, seek his presence day and night; Remember all the wonders he performed, the miracles and judgments that came out of his mouth. Seed of Israel his servant! Children of Jacob, his first choice! He is God, our God; wherever you go you come on his judgments and decisions. He keeps his commitments across thousands of generations, the covenant he commanded, The same one he made with Abraham, the very one he swore to Isaac; He posted it in big block letters to Jacob, this eternal covenant with Israel: “I give you the land of Canaan, this is your inheritance; Even though you’re not much to look at, a few straggling strangers.” (1 Chronicles 16:8-19 MSG)