My name is Laura Amendola and I live in Duluth, MN. I am 24 years old and have been active in the church now for three years. I've been asked to write a brief reflection on my time in Boksburg, South Africa for TEAM 2007.

TEAM stands for Toward Effective Anglican Mission. Many people have asked me how TEAM 2007 came to be so let's start there. Five years ago Boksburg 1 was held in South Africa. From this conference an HIV/AIDS toolkit was created to help people combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and Malaria. This toolkit has been used by many to do some terrific work in helping to combat these diseases.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) emerged from the work of the United Nations in 2002 and consist of eight measurable goals to be achieved by the year 2015. Every one of the 191 nations in the United Nations decided that these goals were indeed attainable and came up with the dollar amount needed to achieve the MDG's by 2015. From this dollar amount they discovered that if every nation in the United Nations would be willing to donate 0.7% of their gross national income, then we could indeed accomplish all eight of these goals. As of 2006 one year from the half way point, only 4 of the 191 nations were keeping their promise. (In the case of the USA, its share is one percent http://www.one.org/ and it yet it ranks 190th in giving).

At the 75th General Convention, the Episcopal Church decided that the eight MDG's nicely coincided with the mission of the Church: to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give water to the thirsty, etc. Despite the United States unwillingness to be accountable for their promise to the world, the Episcopal Church prophetically decided to start holding people's feet to the fire. The Anglican Communion has begun in small ways to uphold the MDG's. For some it is church forums, for others it is mission trips, I've heard of some churches gathering on diocesan and wider levels to begin discussing how the MDG's could be incorporated more fully on a personal/spiritual level, as well as empowering people to start asking our government why they were not keeping their end of the bargain up. (NOTE: If you are interested in doing something at your parish please visit http://www.e4gr.org/ for great ideas on what other parishes of all sizes from around the United States are doing.)

Ndungane, the Archbishop of Cape Town and Primate of the Southern Cone, about combining a conference that would encompass further development of the HIV/AIDS toolkit as well as the MDG's. Hence, Boksburg 2 or TEAM 2007 was created.

Throughout the eight days of the conference, each day tied to a respective goal, we studied the MDG's in a remarkably well organized fashion. We started with a panel discussion or a keynote speaker directly related to the MDG topic. Then we split into small groups that had specific objectives to address within the MDG at hand. For instance, on day 5 we focused Global Responses to Hunger: Towards Creating Sustainable Livelihoods. In the morning we had Ms Sheila Sisulu Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme talk with us about Goal #1 Reducing extreme hunger and poverty. Then we broke into focus groups that consisted of titles such as "Issues of food security and nutrition in conflict situations". It was a lot of hard work and a lot of information to process. The days were also spread out with wonderful meals, morning and evening prayer, bible studies, and after dinner fires with live music.

It was amazing to see the Anglican Communion gather in one place. Both lay and clergy were able to be together in a time of studying issues that really unites us a church. Discussions over meals and reflection times were done with people from literally all over the world. Throughout the conference Archbishop Ndungane often repeated this saying, "The Word did not become text, the Word became flesh". This is exactly what I saw at TEAM 2007. The face of Christ in every single person I met. The Holy Spirit working in ways that would knock the socks off of people had it been predicted three weeks earlier. If I were to speculate what the Kingdom of God looks like, I would say it was this conference. I can promise you that the things that took place at TEAM 2007 will change the world.

Thanks be to God!