The most painful 4 days of my life...= Min-Y-Don.

Before I begin I think it would be best to explain that Min-Y-Don is a Christian Adventure Centre - if you have ever experienced any time here, you would understand the pain that I have gone through in the past 4 days. Basically, they spend the 4 days that action teamers are there just pushing us to the limit so that we each get to know each other even better and know our strengths and weaknesses and how we can best work as a team. Sounds fun? Let me give a brief overview of my four days there:


20th - 

• failed one of the problem solving games they set us so we had a forfeit... Crawl down a muddy, stoney, holly leaf covered path ON OUR BELLIES, just using our arms to pull us along. 
• Learned grid referencing
• (10.30pm) - Got set another challenge- orienteering in the pitch black.
• Got back at midnight.. Bed.

21st-

• Spent the morning on low ropes getting covered in paint (we won though!)
• Played the smuggler game.
• Went to the dining room for dinner and got told were not getting given food, and we have 7mins to get a sleeping bag and the money we won from the smuggler game and meet our leaders outside, wearing the clothes we were standing in.
• Got taken to a random place in the woods
• Had to build a shelter from a bit of rope and a piece of tarpaulin (Ellen learnt about this in bushcraft whilst I was learning grid referencing)
• Got taken down to the lake and told that 2 people from our team had to swim out to the boat to get our dinner, so me and Ellen did that... It was freezing.
• In the bag of food we got was pasta and a tin of peaches.
• Got back to shore and Josh showed us what else we had for dinner.... Opened up a bag and inside... A dead rabbit.
• Spent the fake money we won from the orienteering in their fake shop and bought soup, tinned fruit and hot chocolate.
• Ellen skinned the rabbit (I couldn't watch!)
• Made rope out of vines from the tree to tie the shelter down.
• Made a fire.
• Stuck my hand in a bucket of crabs to get a dingbat style thing to work out (Josh put his hand in a tub of slugs, Naomi put her hand in a tube of worms and Ellen had to find one in a bucket of horse manure.)

22nd-

• (1am) Slept under the shelter .. Hardly slept and woke up covered in bites!
• Woke up at 6.30am and cleared everything up.
• Had breakfast and then made packed lunches.
• Hiked in the hills for 4 hours collecting empty ice cream tubs in various locations on a map (this is where my new found talent for grid referencing came in handy!) 
• Had no time to eat lunch.
• Got back and got told to get changed into something we don't mind getting soaking wet.
• Went out on canoes and played the captains coming game... but when they said man over board... one of us literally had to go over board. 
• Made to capsize. (freezing water)
• Got 10mins to change before having a debrief.
• Took 3hrs to warm up.
• Had 1hr off so showered.
• (9pm-ish) - Night line- Me and Ellen were blindfolded for half and Josh and Naomi were tied together all the way through and we had to follow this rope through the woods through various obstacles and stuff. Then I got unblindfolded and Josh was told he wasn't allowed to talk so I lead the way for the rest. It was pretty funny but not an easy task.
• Got to bed at 11pm - we were all pretty suspicious of the fact that we were allowed to go to bed at 11 so half of us slept in our clothes! 
• There was an alarm at 4.15am but it was just in our room and it stopped after a minute so we all went back to sleep. 

23rd-

• Crate building (towers of crates falling on you hurts)
• A lot of debriefing and team time.
• 5pm= HOME TIME! 

Happiest day ever.

I collected over 16 bruises, a fair amount of cuts and grazes, and many bites. I was so tired by the end of day one, so fell asleep pretty much instantly when we got on the coach.

I'm so happy to be back at IMC!! 

"Errrm.... Can I borrow some Pj's?".....

Got back from our weekend away at our training church in Coventry today. The people were lovely as expected. On Friday night we witnessed the hundreds of youths (mainly doing D of E) that take over the church and run riot! Friday night madness! My host family were a lovely couple called Geoff and Lizzie who were very hospitable and not only did I trade in my bunk bed for a double bed for the weekend, I also got bacon sandwiches both mornings- Bliss! The only slip up I had was forgetting to bring my pjs...... After knowing this couple for less then 2 hours I had to ask Lizzie if I could borrow some pjs... I stood in my room umming and ahhing over what I should do but finally decided that I just had to man up and ask! Luckily she had a new pair she let me borrow! Then Saturday we met the Minister Keith, who gave us his 'words of wisdom' for the coming 9 months, then gave us a tour around Coventry. Hes like a hyper child- so funny! 

Old Cathedral. 

Saturday afternoon we had free so Judith (the lady organizing everything with the church for us) took us to Stratford Upon Avon which was lovely. We visited Shakespeare's birth place.....

I think I make a good Shakespeare!

Then dragged Josh around all the charity shops :) His first real glimpse of spending 6 months with 3 girls! We may leave him behind when we go sari shopping! 


This morning we went to church and got asked the same questions by every member of the church... Suppose we better get used to that! After being humiliated (I embraced it but others were slightly embarrassed) by having to stand up in front of church and sing (and do the actions!) to Our God is a great big God- we then went out to the various younger groups to see what happened out there. We spent most of it with the youths which was great. You can tell that its such a safe place for them. Many of them make their own way there as their parents don't go to church. Such an inspiration. After church we went back to a couples house for lunch then headed back to IMC. Our home away from home! Its kinda nice to be back with everyone and we had a lovely worship and prayer session this evening where one of the team going to Peru (Rob) asked me if I have been feeling like I kinda need to look after the team and make sure everythings going to plan and if I had been worrying about it and stuff (which is correct) and he said that when we were praying he felt like God was saying that I don't need to worry about sorting everything out cause thats his job. I just need to enjoy it. It was great to hear that. I prayed yesterday for reassurance that doing this year is the right thing to do, and that I need to know Gods in it and that I'm not going in blind and alone... and then today Rob said that to me. Praise God. :)


Anyway I was meant to go to bed almost 2hrs ago but got distracted... Quite a long post today so I hope its not too boring!


Lots of love x

Getting to know the team

Its day 4 (I think) of training here at IMC (International Mission Centre) and its going great. The people are lovely and its so refreshing to be around like minded, good hearted (is hearted a word? its coming up with a red squigly line under it haha), faithful Christians. We have packed so much into these past few days it almost feels like we should have been here 2 weeks already! We have had lessons on talking to groups of people (telling a story etc), deep faith, cultural awareness... and today we pretty much went through and learnt the whole of the old testament... Intense. 
I may have mentioned my team previously but they are all lovely. Heres a picture of our smiling faces: 

Ellen, Naomi, Josh, Me.

And heres a picture of all of us:

We have a couple of days starting tomorrow at a training/placement church in Coventry (me and the India team). We have 2 weekends there in total, this one and one in 2 weeks times. This Friday (tomorrow) we will attend the youth evening thing and get to know the youths, and the weekend we will just be chatting to people and getting to know the church and stuff and then in 2 weeks we will be doing more hands on stuff... don't quite know what yet... Could be interesting! 

I'm not taking my netbook to Coventry with me though so I'll report back on Sunday evening or Monday! 

x

"Team time"

Our first 'team time' session.... Most people spent it getting to know each other, their new language, talking about mission and God, praying.... we spent it making this....

First day at training...

After getting over my headache from holding back the tears, I set out on my way to Birmingham. My case weighs a tonne.. which resulted in a bit of embarrassment on the train when it got stuck in the holder thing and NO ONE offered to help! It also caused to me to get blisters on my hands from pulling it to IMC.. the walk here was much longer than I thought it would be!! Never again. I did get to the IMC and realise I actually packed a lot more then I will probably need haha. Oh well I shouldn't run out of clothes!
Meeting the people on my team has been great. They're all lovely and I look forward to spending more time getting to know them in the next few weeks. One thing we found out today which I'm NOT happy about..... Breakfast is at 7.45. SEVEN FORTY FIVE! Who gets up at that time?!
Anyway, seeing as I have a mental start in the morning I better get to bed. I won't write on here every day but I'll do my best to keep you posted :)
Peace and Love x

And so it begins!

Just a small post to say that tomorrow is my first day at IMC in Birmingham to begin my training for India. I'm looking forward to meeting my team, but gonna miss all the amazing people back home. I'm in Birmingham for a month so will do my very best to blog at least once a week (twice if you're lucky). 

Being the organised person I am, I started packing 2hrs ago.... One suitcase might not cut it... My wardrobes half empty now but that's probably a good thing as its less things for mummy and Rosie to steal whilst I'm away! Better hide my shoes and bags too!! 

Anyway, I just want to say thank you so much to the people who helped me get this far, you are all A-MAZING  and I couldn't have done it without you. 

Lots of love xx

The end of adventure number one!

I did try and write a post when in Lalibela but after walking what felt like a mile to an internet cafe (located in a tiny little shack with very minimal light), and spending 15 long minutes checking and replying to only 2 emails... The electricity died. So I can only apologize for my lack of blogging in the last week.
Lalibela is absolutely beautiful. You are surrounded by mountains, going as far back as the eye can see, it is so green and fresh, the houses are the cutest little huts which just complete the beauty of it all.
However, the people in Lalibela are no where near as nice as those in Addis. They're not horrible, but they don't see you as people, they see you as foreigners with money. Every single day without fail we would have at least 4 people come up to as and say the same thing.. "Hello, welcome to Lalibela... What is your name?... Where are you from?" Then all of a sudden its "MONEY? CHOCOLATE? BOOK?". It totally puts you off feeling sorry for them, and the last thing I would want to do is give them money! But saying that, there were some amazing people there whom I have great admiration for. The people of the church for example. Lalibela is dominantly Orthodox, so Christians get a lot of grief from the people there. There is one tiny church, which 40 people attend every Sunday, and a few of them sleep there as they have no where else to go. Every Sunday they have people throw stones at the church and jump on the roof trying to stop them and damage the place, yet they continue, and they're there again the next week. They are such an inspiration. We were even warned against going to the church (to paint it)- but we went anyway and the people were so blessed. Their faith is so strong its such a wonderful and refreshing thing to witness and know about.
We met a man in Lalibela who is to scared to go to church because he was previously persecuted for his faith, and had to leave everything he had for 4ish years. Its such a sad thing to hear.
What else can I say about Lalibela? We visited the Rock Hewn churches which were beautiful. I had a day of being very sick (Just when I thought I was doing so well!) We climbed a mountain... I have no idea how Maurice does it every time he goes, I was exhausted after 5 mins!! I can safely say I'm not the mountain climbing type.... But the view and sense of achievement you get at the top was worth it!
We flew back to Addis on the Sunday and just spent the day together relaxing, then on Monday we flew home! Being back now it feels like I never left! Whilst I was away it felt like it was quite a long time as we fit so much in, but now I'm back it feels like I was away 2 minutes!
First adventure done, Second adventure starts on Monday with training for a month in Birmingham to prepare for India!


Can't believe how fast times going!

A few of our team with some of the Compassion kids

The minute the camera comes out everyone comes running! They love it!