During certain seasons of the year, just before it rains, Guatemala is infested with gnats so small you can inhale them and never know they are there until you start to choke. They love white meat and will create a colony on your wrist or forearm without a permit or an invitation; but their favorite place is up your nose. Even the strongest North American insect repellents couldn’t stand a field trial against these buggers.
It was during this gnat season that a team of four of us were building temporary housing for earthquake victims. In just a few seconds these folks had been made orphans and widows. Our band of volunteers was working as a team to get 150 sheds up as fast as we could; for these nasty harbingers of rain meant we had to hurry to get the people under roof before the skies would give forth the chilling seasonal rinse.
Each building had two twelve-foot walls and two ten-foot walls. They were ten feet high made of rough pine 2×4 studs and 1×10 planks. The new homeowners could choose two doors and one window or two windows and one door. The building was erected on the cement slab of their former home. After completion of the walls, rafters were constructed and tin roofing affixed. Each place took about 3 hours to assemble as pre-cut materials were delivered to the sites by another part of our volunteer teams.
Two men worked as a team to construct the walls and upon their completion, the four formed a team to lift the wall into place. One person then held the assembled wall while three people lifted the second wall to prepare to nail the two together.
With both walls now vertical, someone had to let go of their wall, take up a 22 oz hammer and drive several framing nails to hold the two at right angles. Terrible communication often resulted in everyone letting go of the walls at the same time. The walls crashed down on workers testing the unity and Christian nature of the teams.
I learned to stand where the window was.
It took four people to lift one of these, so the person pinned under the wall cried out for the others to lift. Somebody had to hold the other vertical wall, so two would lift together to free the trapped worker. It was not a time for preaching. Often hammers were thrown and one or another worker would walk over to a private place to reconnect with Jesus and the purpose in being there. To this day I am amazed that no one was seriously hurt, no one was hit with a hammer, and by dusk, with three houses built, the team could laugh about it.
Teams succeed only when we all lift together.
I can not lift your part of the wall, neither do I expect you to lift mine. Galatians 6, the restoration chapter, instructs that we are to each carry our own load and then help another. The key to teamwork is to complement rather than compete. To release from entrapment rather than judge the fallen one. To focus on our part of the process, not another’s.
Nehemiah set the workers on the wall according to families. Each family was to contribute to the timely completion of the project. When they faced opposition or attack, they sounded a trumpet and the others came to their aid.
