Mission First. People Always.

Recap of 5/31-6/5

First of all, I really had no idea what to expect from LeaderTreks training weekend in Manchester, KY. What I got out of it though was incredible. My roommate and other friend from Cedarville are both doing LeaderTreks too, so I knew that I would get to catch up with them and we would have a good time, but the other interns are AMAZING too. There are six female and six male interns this summer and I am so glad God selected us few to go on this adventure for him this summer.

Training essentially looked like a mock LeaderTreks trip which meant that we stuck to the schedule and protocols of a typical trip. Breakfast was at 7:15am followed by 45 minutes of devotion time and then plenty of leadership team activities and becoming knowledgeable about our various tasks and roles this summer. By far, one of my favorite activities I will call the team HonDayton Lowe's challenge. (Team HonDayton is the team of us that will be serving in Dayton, OH and Honduras this summer). We had to go into Lowe's home improvement store and become knowledgeable enough about a specific home improvement project so that we could present the project step by step to the whole group along with a price projection and timeline as if we were completing this project with groups of students. My team was given the task of residing an entire house. I learned more about siding, j-channel, fascia board, soffits, and Tyvek than I ever thought I would. It was very exciting to learn about something I never thought I would and to be able to explain it to our group. This is similar to actual tasks and projects that LeaderTreks teams will be doing all across the world this summer.

Another of my favorite parts of training is the encouragement circle during team time. Every night after dinner the whole team goes over the devotions from that morning, the growth journal that assesses how you did in the past 24 hours and also evaluates performance as a team. At the end is the encouragement circle where students and staff encourage one other person in the group with either a leadership, risk taking, service, or compassion bead. It is really neat to see people encourage others publicly and to feel the confidence and love when someone says something really sweet and sincere about how they saw God working in your life. It was honestly the most encouraging feeling and made me even more comforted and confident that this is where God specifically placed me this summer.

So now I am in Dayton, OH really close to Cedarville staying at a church and prepping for the first team of students to arrive on Sunday. I am really excited and also nervous about this week, so keep me and my team in prayers. This is a fantastic group of people that I'm working with and I can't wait to see how God uses us in these students' lives this next week.