Leader, Servant, or Both?

It is time for a confession.  A few weeks ago, a sense of frustration started creeping up on me.  I felt like nothing was happening, like we weren't moving forward in being able to offer certain services and therapies to the young adults in our program.  It is so easy for plans to fall through, due to this or that complication.  I get frustrated when we just accept it and don't try to move forward with a "plan B."  There is so much I want to accomplish, and so little time left in Romania.  If we allow our plans to be pushed back week after week, the summer will be over before we know it and nothing will have been accomplished.   Already I am very protective of the teens in our program and earnest in seeking out the best opportunities for them.  The idea that they might not be able to take part in a beneficial therapy or event because we weren't persistent enough is not acceptable to me.
So a few weeks ago, I started feeling a strong, internal pressure to become the driving force for the new program, to motivate the other staff to push onward with our plans and our agenda.  My frustration was urging me internally to force others into action, a fact I am not proud to admit.  I was racking my brain, trying to come up with positive ways to motivate the other staff not to "give up" so easily.
The light bulb came on for me the other night as I sat reading a book on cross-cultural education.  I'm ashamed at how quickly I forgot everything I've been learning throughout the past eight years.  The best way to be a leader, and the only way to be an effective and godly leader, is to be a servant first.  I can't force people into action, and even if I could, their actions would not be genuine and out of a heart of love for the people we are serving.  I need to take the time to demonstrate my appreciation and respect for the other staff members' knowledge and abilities.  Only when I choose an attitude of compassion, kindness, humility, and patience - the attitude of a servant willing to put others' before herself - will we be able to function as a united team. 

"Our responsibility is to love the people to whom we go and to give up part of our identity and [cultural] values for their sake to become effective servants of Christ among them." 

Teaching Cross-Culturally, J. & S. Lingenfelter

"So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.  Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity."

Colossians 3: 12-14