Soldiers in Training

I have some time to recap my week at training so far.  This week has been very busy and its still hard to believe that in 4 days I will be headed to another country!  Sunday, I arrived in L.A. and met up with Jennifer, one of my teammates.  Her and I had been communicating the last month or so about the trip and it was so good to see her in person.  We caught a cab ride with Jose, the taxi driver I had met when I came to L.A. in March.  It was good to see him, too!  I arrived to the campus and was welcomed by those we had been communicating with for several months. It was good to put a face with a voice.  People were continuing to arrive all day, so we had a couple of hours of down time.  I wasn't feeling really great on my connecting flight from Phoenix to L.A. but figured it was motion sickness.

 Later that afternoon, we met up with everyone and made name tags to represent a little of who we are.  I made a butterfly, of course!  Then we had dinner on the lawn and visited with one another. It is so beautiful here!  There are beautiful flowers, and large palm trees with the mountains as a backdrop.  Did I mention how wonderful the weather is?

That evening, we all came together for worship.  There are teams going to 5 different schools this summer in Russia, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Next, each team came together to create an object that would be useful overseas using only scissors, newspaper, and duck tape.  We came up with a backpack loaded with essentials like a sleeping bag, food, a bottle for water....and because we are awesome, our team won!!

Monday morning was worship time with our team.  It was good to hear each ones testimony and what brought them here.  Our team is the largest, so it takes twice as long to get through questions and devo time, but we use our time wisely and continue where we left off.  During the afternoon sessions, I was feeling light headed, felt a little off, and didn't have much of an appetite.  I was a bit worried because I am usually never sick and didn't want it to turn into something serious that might make the traveling hard.  I didn't sleep well the two night before, so this was a concern.

I was one of the first teachers that had to teach a lesson Monday evening.  My lesson was on body parts, so I taught it with the head, shoulders, knees, and toes song(Jack Hartmann style). Even though I have been teaching for 6 years, teaching a foreign language is an adjustment for me.

I woke up this morning feeling like I had rested well that night and felt much better.  Thank you to those who prayer for me.  I had a little bit of dizziness, but not to the extent that I felt thrown off.  We learned about culture shock and what that might look like.  We zoned in on what type of characteristics we could see ourselves having while overseas.  I will admit that I feel it will be challenging for me to make those adjustments quickly.  I'm also nervous about living with people for 4 weeks, especially since I'm use to living on my own and having that time to myself.  I have a great team though and we have all been very open and honest about what we need for ourselves and from each other. Tonight, we went on a ice cream run and stood inside the store and had our team meeting on accountability.

This experience is so important to me.  I am ready for God to teach me more about missions and understand what it really means to die to myself daily.

Be blessed!
B