The Sweet Spot (Dave Russell)

A few years ago I starting hearing a term in business called “The Sweet Spot.” This is a golfing term that refers to the exact spot on the face of the club that should make contact with the ball so that the ball will soar sure and straight down the fairway. Applied to business, The Sweet Spot is where your greatest talents and energies intersect with your client’s greatest need. When you’ve found the Sweet Spot, magic happens!
Personally, I am never more pumped than when my greatest talents and energies are focused on somebody-else’s greatest need, be it business or ministry (pardon the dualism). This is particularly true in my involvement with Vine. In Guatemala, there is no end of great need. Every container we send, every patient we see, every troubled soul we pray for is in our Sweet Spot –– we can’t miss.
If you can’t miss, if you’re always in the “zone”, if you’re always “on your game”, wouldn’t you play every day? This is our opportunity with this ministry. We are expanding the Kingdom by equipping fellow saints who are intersecting people at their point of need with their greatestS strength. Now, that’s SWEET.

Pallet Racks (Dave Russell)

I had an experience on the most resent mission trip that solidified for me our often confused idea of ourselves in Vine. I visited the new warehouse in Guatemala City for the first time and became somewhat overwhelmed. The place was brand new, secure and orderly. And it was clean -- no dust. We have a real loading dock and a truck ramp. We have an actual office and a secure, separate room for pharmaceuticals. It felt sort of like a new suit. I loved it, but it is so, well, “unVine”, if you know what I mean.
I looked up at our architecturally stylish roof/ceiling and asked almost audibly, “How can we have this? We have no money!” It is totally implausible that we would be in this kind of space. Bruce White would kill for this space.
I was standing in the office with Dennis, looking out into the warehouse when I noticed them. There they stood as testimony to God’s grace and provision. They were there as a monument to fourteen years of something vital and enduring -- something totally implausible: the very existence of Vine International. Rows of green pallet racks rose sure and strong from our new floor -- ebenezers of God’s faithfulness.
Those racks were built by friends of mine in our Mezate warehouse. I remember how Tim Carty told me with tears how “To the glory of God” was welded in to one of them. I remember sorting, categorizing and stacking those shelves for the first time with Woody in that awful dust trap of a warehouse! It was my first and last time to be dehydrated, every muscle and joint screaming with pain.
When our time in Mezatenango was over, we wondered if we should move the pallet racks to Xela, since they were so heavy and unwieldy. But move them we did into better quarters and cooler, cleaner conditions. Then we moved to Guatemala City for the sake of convenience and expansion and the racks went with us again.
I gazed at those racks and sobbed. Fifteen years of implausible expansion, growth and blessing flowing onto and off of pallet racks to those serving the poor in the name of Christ through medicine. We have become a Home Depot of sorts for God’s servants in Guatemala -- about 100 different projects, as a matter of fact. Dennis and Doris should be wearing little orange aprons! And the great thing about us that there is no checkout counter. “Es gratis para ti, mi hermano!” “It is free of charge to you, my brother!” “Go, heal the sick. Love well. Comfort the oppressed. Live the gospel. Earn the right to speak truth. Jesus has planted us for you. We are His gift to you because you remember the poor.”
To the glory of God, indeed.