History and Then Some

The week before last was uneventful in light of the things previous and the things to come. A normal week. Workout and class and nightly sessions and stuff. I made some very sweet commitments with God and had some great conversations with friends. The one thing that did hit me hard was while I was reading in one of the Gospels and Jesus says of John the Baptist, that he is the greatest man   that has ever lived. Woah… Greater than Moses or Daniel or the Patriarchs and such. These are the people in the bible that are looked up to, not so much J the B. But he was greater. It got me thinking… What does and what would Jesus say about me? Would I be in the crowds listening to him commend someone else like that, or would I be worthy of such lofty words? But it also makes me wonder, does God look at the weight and size of my ministry, or at the weight and size of my heart and motives? John prepared the way for Jesus to come fully to others, but does my life prepare others to come fully to Jesus? Snap! God just gave me that. That’s deep…

So outside of that experience that I still can’t wrap my mind, heart and life around, the week after was pretty great too. We took a little trip down the road for History. History was basically Mexico training. It was amazing. So much to talk about, and so little time to type…

We started with a night of worship and teaching on Monday. They gave us our team assignments and showed us the dramas that we will learn for Mexico. We learned and practiced said dramas in our teams and really started to get to know our teams. We then broke for dinner and assigned roles in our teams. Things such as a team medic, photographer and food and water. Just specific roles that each member is required to fulfill in History and in Mexico. I got the role of Equipment/Back-up Rear Guard. Basically I haul all the stuff that needs hauling and my secondary is being a rear guard, which is sweet. I basically get to be a protector of my team. Making sure that everything is in check, that people are where they need to be and that the people on my team are safe. Dale (the main rear guard on our team) and I get to do this. I’m so excited that Dale is our main Rear Guard. I trust the lives of our girls in his hands. That’s a good feeling. We then had some worship time and got some of the Word from the Missions Pastor. Really good stuff. Talked about how when Saul was searching for donkeys, a boring and humiliating task, he was anointed to be king. Think about it… ha. Then we got on the bus with all of our hundreds of dollars of gear and hit the road, not knowing where we were going. We only went about 10ish miles and stopped, arriving at some random camp spot in some random woods. Still not sure where we were, but it was very nice. Slept that night…

The next day we split up into 3 teams, made up of 2 teams of the 6 teams formed the previous day. My team, team #1, Teal, teamed up with team #2, Orange. Team team team. Starts to sound weird huh?  …..

(The following 1500 words were removed for the protection of those who may or may not attend DLA in the future )

So that night we ate some more and then got to go to Revival Town. Basically the best night around the church that there is. It’s always so amazing. We then came back and went to sleep. The next day our teams got to go with Mr. Joseph Couch and do the hike. It ended up being an 8 mile hike with all of our gear on. We’re talking a lot of gear here. I have no idea on the weight, but mine was pretty heavy. (Removed for the ever watching eyes….) We then finished up the hike and went back to camp.

The biggest thing that I got out of the hike was that I can encourage people outside the normal realms of “encouragement”. There were a few people who were struggling during the hike. Just being able to be there for the girls on my team and encourage the other team when they were struggling. There were a few points when we would be going over some pretty difficult stuff, and I would be grabbing the pack of the girl in front of me and grabbing the hand of the girl behind me to make sure that they were ok and able to make it through. Also when we weren’t hiking, we were having our last meal of the trip and a girl on one of the other teams was convinced that she wasn’t going to eat the food. Her partner was telling her she could, and then I went over and started to talk to her and encourage her. I then just told her that at that point it wasn’t about her anymore. It’s about the people of Mexico and that she could only rely on Jesus to get that food down. And she did. Just things like that. That I really can be an encouragement and that people do listen to me when I encourage. It was huge for me.

After the hike, everyone was then told to get all that we had and get on the bus to go to _tag. Why we needed everything we had no idea. After _tag we went back to the camp site and were served another meal, while Ben Johnson (one of the 3rd years) talked to us. All the while different teams were being told to finish their meal and get in a van. Teams were all being separately shipped off. Ben started talking about the call and how we are always supposed to be ready to answer the call, no matter where we are. He then told the last two teams remaining, team 1 and 2, to go in and set up for bed and get ready to sleep. We set up all of our stuff and about 10 minutes later Ben comes in and tells us to pack everything back up. We have been called. The two teams got in separate vans and we took off, headed to who knows where.

(The ending, most amazing thing ever removed. Sorry people. Call me if you want to talk about it. It was epic. )

Basically History was amazing. I can’t say a lot because there are things that need to be kept a secret from people who may go to DLA in the future. All for the experience. Sorry people. That 3000 word blog just got scraped to 1100. haha.

Finally blogged,

Morgan