Who We Are (Philippians 2:1-5)

If you're going to join us on our EPiC journey to Belize, I suppose I ought to tell you a little bit about who we are before we dig into what we'll be doing when we get there.

We're a group of about thirty people.  We're young and, um, not-so-young.   Some of us are teens and others barely remember our teenage years. Some of us are experienced world travelers and some of us have never been out of the United States before.  Some of us are traveling with members of our immediate family, while others of us are flying solo.  Some of us are veterans of many missionary journeys, while this will be the first time to do anything like this for others in the group.

We come from various walks of life.  We're students, professors, teachers, salespeople, engineers, bankers, contractors and homemakers, among other things.  Heck, we even have a couple of ministers joining us.

We have very different skills and abilities.  Some of us are gifted musically; others of us can't carry a tune in a bucket.  Some of us are talented builders; others of us don't know which end of a hammer to use. Some of us are born teachers; others of us are deathly afraid of public speaking.   You get the idea.

Look at the picture above.  That's most of us. Handsome bunch, aren't we?

Even though we are of diverse ages, backgrounds and professions, there's one thing we all have in common. We all are Christians.  Being Christian doesn't make us perfect, far from it, but it does mean we each have a personal relationship with a loving and powerful God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

That personal relationship makes it our joy and our duty to share with others what we know to be true, and that's what is motivating all of us to give of our time and money to spend a week in a strange land doing our best to share God's love for us.

If you're interested in knowing what "brand" of Christians we are, we're Presbyterians--specifically we're members of a church that belongs to The Presbyterian Church in America denomination.  That church is Evangel Church in Alabaster, Alabama, a small city not far from Birmingham.  If you're near Alabaster on a Sunday, stop by and see us, won't you?  I promise you'll be welcome.  Here's a link to our website if you want to find us or learn more about Evangel.

Okay, that last bit was a little more preachy than I intended so early in the tale, but it was important for you to know who we are right up front.  As this adventure unfolds, you'll learn more about us as individuals, but it's good to begin the story by telling you about the thing we all have in common.  And that uniting thing is the most important thing in any of our lives.