Staff retreat!

“So the last will be first and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:8

This year our school is focusing on service and will be unpacking this idea with students from PreKinder-12th grade throughout the year. However, before we can teach students we as staff must begin to understand as well.

This past weekend, Ed and I joined about 80 other staff members for a spiritual retreat. We headed out of Bogota on a two five hour bus ride (thank you construction zone!) to a small town. There we relaxed, played in the pool, and were challenged to understand God’s command of service at a deeper level.

One of the things that stood out to me most was the understanding that in order to serve, we must know who we are- sons and daughters of God. We looked at Jesus’ life and focused on the fact that in order for Jesus to be the ultimate servant (who died on the cross) he had to know that he was the son of God and that his Father had a purpose in his life on earth. In order for us to be able to really serve others, we must be focused on the Father and our relationship with him.

Besides teaching and learning- we also got to play a bit too. One of the highlights was seeing the collaboration of groups as we all wrote and performed songs outlining what we learned about service. Our group parroted the “We will rock you” song and switched it up to “we will serve you”. Ed and two of his groupies rocked it and now are considered rock stars in the ECA staff world.

We are excited about Colombia!

Just a little fighting...

And a lot of eating!

As well as rock starring

and naturizing

and maybe a little goofy-izing!