The Awesomeness That is My Affinity Group

At FPO (Field Personnel Orientation), they divide us up into affinity groups. An affinity group is a "people group," not necessarily a region. So, you may be going to Europe, but it's to work with South American immigrants...so you would actually be in the American Peoples affinity group. I am in the Sub-Saharan African Peoples affinity group. All ten of us will be working with Sub-Saharan African people groups...but one couple is actually going to Europe. Kind of confusing, I know.

Anyway...once they have divided us up into affinity groups, they then divide us into small groups, but our affinity group was small enough that we were all in one group the whole time. These are the people I spent most of my time with. We had Sunday morning worship together...or "quad church," various meetings, fellowships, and assignments, and after two weeks, we started meeting for "quad church" on Tuesday-Friday, as well as Sunday. We prayed together, praised together, and dug into the Word together. We also laughed together...a LOT.

One of our assignments was to prepare 2 meals completely from scratch (the African way). We did this on a Sunday, starting at 8 am. By 2 pm (or maybe closer to 3), we had prepared and eaten breakfast, met for church, prepared and eaten lunch, and cleaned up. We had pancakes, syrup, and omelets for breakfast (I was on omelet duty)...all homemade. And chicken, japatis, mango rice, and fruit for lunch...all homemade. It took forever, but we had a blast doing it. We also learned how to cook actual African food together at a local church, and went to an Ethiopian restaurant. And one time we went out for Indian because apparently there's lots of Indian food in Africa...fine by me!

One week of FPO was Affinity Week and we had all of our sessions with our group. Prior to that week, we had to read a book called Foreign to Familiar, a very quick and easy-to-understand read. Each of us was assigned a chapter to teach the rest of the group in a creative way. There were several hilarious and entertaining approaches, but one guy wrote a song for his chapter. And then we, of course, decided that a music video needed to be made. I tried and tried to upload it here, but I guess it's too big. I will be happy to show anyone I run into on my iPod, though.

So these nine people are pretty amazing. They love the Lord and follow hard after Him. They are smart, talented, and gifted. And I really can't even tell you how much fun we had together. I can't wait to hear more from each of their adventures and find out how God has used them in big ways.

All 10 of us on the day of commissioning.

This book united us at the beginning and became a launching pad for many good times and inside jokes. Each of us now has a copy. Holy...Holla....Hola.

These are the 4 Journeymen of the group. Ridiculously fun people.