One Body Many Parts

by Cammy Brantzeg   

God's plan is always much bigger and more amazing that what I can ever imagine.  As I look back on our mission trip, I can see how God was working in the big and the small moments to create something more beautiful than I could have ever imagined before the trip. As I reflect on this trip, I thought of the scripture below.  

1 Corinthians 12:27 (NIV)
All of you together are Christ's body, and each of you is a part of it.  

I want to start by talking about this mission trip team.  We all had a part to play on this mission trip.  We were constantly shifting roles where different people stepped to the front to lead while others fell back to support.  No one person was more important than any other person.  We all filled necessary roles throughout the trip.  Roles that included driver, jewelry store facilitators, soap instructor, lip balm instructor, encourager, selfie taker, vision board leader, bracelet facilitators, language expert, etc. 
One Body Many Parts

The next level of One Body Many Parts expands to the South African leaders that I work with to plan the details of the mission trip.  Meyer, Louise, Cornel, Stephanie, Carl, Estelle and Heidi all worked with me to come up with a plan using the gifts and talents of the mission trip team members.  They welcome our interruption into their daily lives and allow us to come alongside them.  I am always humbled by the hospitality that my South African friends meet our mission trip teams with.  Our mission trips would not be as meaningful as they are without their input and guidance. 
One Body Many Parts

Thank you to the Mosaic staff, Mosaic foster families, Ma's for Wellington staff, Avodah members, and Ma's women's ministry members. They welcome us with open arms.  They interact with our team members.  They allow us to come alongside them and learn from them.  They have helped me grow my faith in God through their example and I will always be grateful for their openness to me and the people I bring along with me. 
One Body Many Parts

   

Thank to the prayer partners, friends, family members and our church family that prayed for our team as we prepared for our trip, traveled to SA, were in SA, traveled back to the US and reenter our life in the US.  You all played a key role in supporting us by your prayers, encouraging words and notes/cards.  You were all were on the journey with us even though you didn't leave the US. 
One Body Many Parts

  

I want to thank everyone that gave us donations/items to take to South Africa. 
One Body Many Parts

Thank you to the Hopewell United Methodist Church congregation and Pastor Amy Banka!  My church and Pastor Amy share our passion for South Africa and the partners that we work with.  Their support is key for the South Africa ministry to continue to grow and evolve. 
One Body Many Parts

Thank you to all the people who have gone on South Africa mission trips the past 15 years.  This ministry could have died out over the years but God kept calling people to go on the trips and people kept answering the call. 
One Body Many Parts

It is so hard to explain how vast God's plan has been through this South Africa ministry.  Each and every person/group mentioned above played a part in God's big beautiful plan.  Each trip is a moment in time where you can see God moving but if you look at all of the mission trips over all the years you can see the magnitude of God's plan.  

We all are needed to make this world a better place.  We all have a part to play.  We don't have to be perfect.  We just have to show up.  

One Body Many Parts 

1 Corinthains 12:12-27 (NIV)

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 

13 For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.