Irving for Spring Break!

I'm in Irving till probably March 22nd, so send me a call (:

I want to be more specific about concrete ways I am preparing for the trip. We have a team meeting every Thursday to go over things Justin, the team leader, thinks we need for the trip. I will try to update every Friday if only to document to remind myself of what we went over.

This last Thursday, we went to a Thai cuisine place to kind of prepare us for some kinds of things we'll be eating.

Before that, there was a missions retreat the the weekend of March 6-8. Everyone who is going on a mission this summer with the AFC was required to be there. A lot of it was team building, getting to know the people I will be with this summer. There was also worship time, and then everyone interviewed individually with Kelly and Tracy, two adults who know what is needed on the trip and want a grasp of our perspective of the trip. That was all Friday night. The next morning we came early for breakfast where we video conferenced with one of their missionaries in South America and learned about his perspective of missions. Tracy, Kelly, and his wife Sarah also spent the morning basiclly teaching us to be "tough, flexible, and optimistic" this summer. One thing everyone stressed is to eat what you are offered so we don't offend any host.

This weekend was when I found out I definitely chose the right trip. At one point there was 6 of us going to Bangkok, but at the missions retreat we found out 3 of them couldn't go. So now it is me, Justin Kern leading, and Rachel, who lives in Leander. Less people means more work for me, because we will still have the same number of students learning English, just less people to teach them.