1st Day of This Year's Training!

We started our training at the Center for Pioneer Church Planting yesterday morning! This week is orientation week, and we spent yesterday morning in worship, introductions, and guidelines. It was great to be surrounded by so many fellow missionary trainees. It was also a great blessing to hear the passion of all the staff as they shared during the time of introduction.

After lunch, the really fun stuff began! When I was here at the Center for Pioneer Church Planting previously, the classes were held in a building right next to the apartment complex that we lived in. To Every Tribe has now acquired another property called "The Inn at Chachalaca Bend". This property is ideal for missionary training as it sits on 50 acres, which obviously provides room for the school's growth, but also provides a place for outdoor training for us. Yesterday we did a team exercise that involved playing frisbee golf through the woods and fields. The catch? The person throwing the frisbee was blindfolded! All of the other teammates coached him or her on which direction to walk and throw the frisbee. It was a pretty awesome exercise as we all went tromping through the tall, wet grass as the sky drizzled on us. Good missionary training!

One of the other exercises involved breaking into teams and then walking around to 5 different stations on the property. Each station had a staff member who had a missionary scenario for us to quickly work through as a team, answering questions regarding how we would deal with the situation. For instance, one scenario was something like "One of the village men who has several wives has professed faith in Christ. Would you baptize him? How would you counsel him regarding his polygamy? How would you share your decision with the village? How would you share your decision with your sending church?" It was a great exercise!

The night ended with a pig roast that was served by the staff. It was a great time to fellowship with people and build relationships!

Oh and by the way, Sarah and Jemimah were there right alongside everybody else for all the exercises, loving every minute of it!