Team Preparation

We have just over a week before we leave for Indonesia. This short-term team will be focused on dental training, hygiene, training children workers and construction. We have a dentist, three college students, and electrical engineer and the team leader. We have a relatively short time in Indonesia and so we have to be ready to fill our time and give our best efforts. The team members on this team live in two locations and will be meeting in Seattle. We will actually come from three points and meet for the long trans-Pacific flight to Tokyo then Singapore. These are long flights and we lose a day as we land in Singapore.

This team has several personal reasons for their interest in our efforts. I know everyone of them to some degree. One of the college students has been on a previous trip when she was 15 years old. She was an awesome team member. The dentist is a friend of a friend of mine. Our friendship will deepen as we travel together and are roommates on the trip. The young people are carving out the course for their lives. They are all single and just want to experience cross-cultural settings and take a hard look at the future doors for their lives.

I love to see the openness and heart these team members have for working with the poor. They inspire all of us who do this regularly. These team members always deposit something lasting in the lives of our Indonesian staff. It might be a friendship or professional skills.

We are there for two weeks on the ground and we give everything we have in those limited days. It can be exhausting and is filled with a lot of new experiences. The food is good, the people are humble and the work is rewarding. It is well worth the investment and many miles we travel to get there and to get home.