Work with Others
Working with others is the synchronization of individuals coming together as a unit to accomplish a common goal, utilizing each person’s strengths, intelligence, and efforts efficiently. Working with others requires each person to play a unique role, but doing so in tune with the group: a symphony made entirely of flutes does not sound as beautiful as a symphony with many different instruments playing together as one.
Patience
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Ethical Practices
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Vision
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Individuality
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Living in Community as a Lifeteen Missionary
In the summer of 2011, I spent a month living at a retreat center and traveling New England with fourteen Lifeteen Missionaries. As missionaries, we lived off of donations of generous benefactors, working together to create and build summer camps for Catholic teens in the area and ministering to the local community.
My freshman year of college, a dear friend who was a few years older than me encouraged me to apply to serve as a Summer Missionary with Lifeteen, Inc. Lifeteen is an organization that seeks to build up Catholic youth through developing resources for youth groups and individuals. I had never heard of the organization before, but my friend told me it was an experience I would never regret. So I applied and my life was changed forever.
In July 2011, I flew to Boston, Massachusetts not even knowing if someone would be picking me up from the airport. But as I came down the escalator that led to my bags, I heard the sounds and cheers of my new family who was waiting for me to arrive. I was the last to arrive of a group of 15, and thrown into the back of a 15-passenger van to begin my month as a missionary.
I have never lived a life of anything close to what this summer was like. I am an only child, and have never shared a room with anyone before except at Girl Scout camp and sleepovers. Here, I was the youngest of the 15, shared a room with another girl, and spent everyday with my new eight sisters and six brothers, living in community. We had dinners of HotPockets and microwaveable peas, went to a laundromat to do laundry, and lived as simply as we could to devote our greatest efforts to the people that we were serving.
We were challenged to create a week of summer camp for middle schoolers, and another for high schoolers, out of the little money and supplies we already had and with the retreat center we were living at. We were given themes for each week ("Xtreme Sports" for the middle school week, and "Epic Adventure" for the high school week) and tasked to create a set, curriculum, and activities for the week that our teens would spend with us. We created the most beautiful and fun weeks out of what seemed like nothing. Each person had something to contribute - designing sets and building them, creating skits, mentoring teens and even youth ministers! I was challenged in so many ways, but in the end, we produced fruitful weeks that strengthened our teens, their youth ministers, and ourselves in our faith.
No one person was more important than another - we had to pool our talents to create this gift for the people we encountered this summer. There were definitely moments when I desired solitude and moments when I was challenged by the amount of people that I lived and worked with each day - ranging from 14 missionaries to over 60 campers in one small building! However, I know that this was not work that one person could accomplish on their own, and that summer was much more beautiful because of all the hands that played a part in creating it. We were focused and prayerful, and that made that month so precious to all who were a part of it. It showed that the sum of each of our efforts was much greater than what we could do on our own. We constantly built each other up - it was a requirement of our job description as missionaries - and it gave me a great perspective on working with others and trusting others.
I know that when a group works together with purpose and with a mission, that if they can lift each other up and encourage one another, that even though their work may not always be easy, all of their efforts will still be worthwhile. When you truly trust and rely on others, sharing responsibility produces a shared love and motivation for your task at hand and produces fruitful results.
In July 2011, I flew to Boston, Massachusetts not even knowing if someone would be picking me up from the airport. But as I came down the escalator that led to my bags, I heard the sounds and cheers of my new family who was waiting for me to arrive. I was the last to arrive of a group of 15, and thrown into the back of a 15-passenger van to begin my month as a missionary.
I have never lived a life of anything close to what this summer was like. I am an only child, and have never shared a room with anyone before except at Girl Scout camp and sleepovers. Here, I was the youngest of the 15, shared a room with another girl, and spent everyday with my new eight sisters and six brothers, living in community. We had dinners of HotPockets and microwaveable peas, went to a laundromat to do laundry, and lived as simply as we could to devote our greatest efforts to the people that we were serving.
We were challenged to create a week of summer camp for middle schoolers, and another for high schoolers, out of the little money and supplies we already had and with the retreat center we were living at. We were given themes for each week ("Xtreme Sports" for the middle school week, and "Epic Adventure" for the high school week) and tasked to create a set, curriculum, and activities for the week that our teens would spend with us. We created the most beautiful and fun weeks out of what seemed like nothing. Each person had something to contribute - designing sets and building them, creating skits, mentoring teens and even youth ministers! I was challenged in so many ways, but in the end, we produced fruitful weeks that strengthened our teens, their youth ministers, and ourselves in our faith.
No one person was more important than another - we had to pool our talents to create this gift for the people we encountered this summer. There were definitely moments when I desired solitude and moments when I was challenged by the amount of people that I lived and worked with each day - ranging from 14 missionaries to over 60 campers in one small building! However, I know that this was not work that one person could accomplish on their own, and that summer was much more beautiful because of all the hands that played a part in creating it. We were focused and prayerful, and that made that month so precious to all who were a part of it. It showed that the sum of each of our efforts was much greater than what we could do on our own. We constantly built each other up - it was a requirement of our job description as missionaries - and it gave me a great perspective on working with others and trusting others.
I know that when a group works together with purpose and with a mission, that if they can lift each other up and encourage one another, that even though their work may not always be easy, all of their efforts will still be worthwhile. When you truly trust and rely on others, sharing responsibility produces a shared love and motivation for your task at hand and produces fruitful results.