Isabel Smith
Thump thump thump clap. The reverberation of the beats slapping on the tables filled the room. I looked across to my teammates, the ones seated at my table, and we smiled at each other, knowing that if we tried to say anything it would get lost in the echoes created by the dining room. This said dining room was, at that moment, filled with sweaty Indonesian kids and teenagers, making for a glorious combination of sounds and smells: loud, obnoxious, and beautiful.
On the Impact trip to Indonesia, not all of us could communicate in Bahasa Indonesia, so, one night, when having dinner with some neighbourhood kids whom we had played football with that afternoon, we used music, teaching each other different rhythmic patterns and handshakes that some grasped easier than others. Kids shouted back and forth to each other as they messed up beats and the slap of high fives in triumph added to the chaotic rhythm in the room. It felt like a blessing just to witness, because the pure joy and peace that we collectively felt descended the moment we decided to be silly and care more about connection than about maintaining any kind of image.
During the trip, the girls went to a home for pregnant teenagers, cast out by their families, and the boys went to a local juvenile detention centre to play football. As a team, we went on a hike with local youth groups, had neighbourhood kids over to eat and play football at the campus of the old boarding school we stayed at, and bonded as a team over awesomely bad singing contests and a lack of sleep.
“We are called to love God and to love people. I think that this year’s Impact team did that well,” says Jeremiah Worten (12), when asked what he thought about the trip as a whole.
The evenings were always rounded off with team meetings, worship, and a few minutes of goofy free time before bed (which we always went to on time, of course), which helped solidify the team spirit well. The team was encouraging, supportive, and easy-going, and if we hadn’t allowed the Lord to pour through us into each other, we would’ve been much more drained and much less enthusiastic about serving and loving the people we met every day. I am so thankful for the team and how much we all chose to serve, especially in the moments we weren’t asked to. Loving on each other and loving on the people we came across kept us seeking God’s heart for others and His eyes to see them; giving us moments like the one described above where we cared more about choosing to have fun and be silly with the people who were there than caring about looking put-together. This resulted in more peace and joy than we could ever have tried to conjure up ourselves.
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