Maps, Aggression, and other Halesowen Tales.

So Monday evening I was taught how to read a map and use a compass. Great. Then I and my teammates were given coordinates, taken outside at approx 9:30PM, and dropped off with said map and compass and expected to find girls (did I mention there were girls waiting at the coordinates?) and find our way back. Not so great.

It was the end to a long day anyway. We were already tired and had been attempting to pinpoint spots on a map for 2 hours in groups of three. Then suddenly our whole group of 12 was thrust together and given the task of finding these poor girls waiting in the dark and cold. Why? Ahh training week. This was the beginning of several crazy tasks we’d be given designed to test not only our personalities and stress taking abilities, but how we worked together as a group as well. Yikes. Like boot camp, but not. Eventually we did find the girls, and I got most of that ridiculous evening on camera…and its funny. This was the first time I met the rest of our leaders for Toolkit as well. And they. Are. CRAZY.

Toolkit training also involves inductive bible study, daily devotionals, an English culture class, evangelism class, group projects, and a time of debriefing everyday. I think the debrief is so your head doesn’t explode. Because lets face it, different personalities, language barriers, passive aggression + impulsive Americans = high potential for explosion. But I’m happy to say that by the time Tuesday and Wednesday rolled around my team had really learned to work together. We went geocaching again, successfully, and bonded over shared sleep deprivation and exhaustion.
Our days started at about 7:30AM and ended anywhere from 9PM-midnight.

Oh and I forgot the CHORES. Did I mention chores? Everyone cleans on a rotating schedule. YAY for toilets.

So, by Wednesday we got the results of our personality tests. This was to help the leaders know how to place us together on teams. Remember when I said they’d been watching us on all our crazy activities? That came into play too. So apparently I’m an Implementer. I’ll spare you all the details, but it means that I take other people’s ideas and make that shiz happen. Yep. So I got placed on the team that stays on base and I’m the assistant leader. Woohoo. Very excited about this.

Thursday ALL the teams in training, the GA-4s, GA-8s, and GA-12s hit the city centre in Birmingham for street evangelism. This was kind of new to me. I’ve done this with Parkland, but never in soo much depth. It was amazing. The new people were told to talk to people if they felt brave, or just watch. I watched. But the other GA-teams did skits and used sketch boards to share the gospel. It was really cool. They did these skits with no words, but that still got the message across…so it works for any culture really. And the sketch boards were paintings that explained the gospel very simply.

I followed a guy named Danny that taught our evangelism class. He’s very good at just listening to people and having real conversations with them. I stood and listened while he talked with a girl named Charlie. He answered all of her questions for 30min. I was very impressed. He didn’t pressure her or try and convince her of anything. They just talked. She said he was one of the first genuine believers she’d ever met. I would LOVE to be able to do that. Answer people’s questions. You really have to be on your toes here. This culture isn’t like American. Most of these people didn’t grow up going to church and they don’t know anything about it. And there are a LOT of Muslims here. So when people ask questions they ask the hardcore kind. So you have to be able to give them intelligent answers and you can’t wiggle out of it. I love it.

Picture: From Right: (I'll fix spelling later) My Training Team for ToolKit
Yung Min, Samuli, Me, Youn Sook, Michael, Winnie, Ulla, Sunhye, Rahel, Hannah, and Katrine.
(Also pictured: lady on the end, And girl on ground is named Eniko.) (Also Drew not in this pic)

And here's Lilamaria doing what she does. She's my team leader for the next 2 months. WOOT!

Geocaching

So I’m going to take you backwards in Time. Ooooo. So last Saturday, after I woke up I joined the other newbies for a bit of geocaching. This was the first time for all of us, so in case you don’t know what geocaching is either I’ll try and explain. It’s kind of a treasure hunt of sorts. You go to the website and get coordinates to a location. They do this all over the world btw. So you put these coordinate into a gps and you try to find this exact spot. Our gps wasn’t like the kind in your car it only points in the direction of the site like a compass would. Figuring out how to drive there is up to you. This was also my first time meeting several of my leaders for Toolkit.

Stefan, (Dutch) Paul, (English) and Kenny (English) and his wife Madu, took us and their families on this crazy drive through the English countryside. It was really beautiful and reminded me of parts of KY with the rolling hills. We got to our location after several wrong turns. LOL We were at a very old church. Like from the 1060’s or something. The funny part is that we rolled up to this place in ours jeans and tshirts and there was a wedding going on. HA.

So for this geocache you figure out the word clues and it helps you find the next coordinates. We ended up in the middle of this field behind the church. We looked forEVER and couldn’t find the cache. Bummer. I was really jetlagged but happy to be out, and at one point I heard an ice cream truck off in the distance. Weird. Very random too. Apparently there are ice cream trucks in England with the same music.

After we hunted around we talked with the caretaker of the church for awhile. Then after we realized we weren’t gonna find the thing we eventually headed back.

Sunday morning John (Dutch) took us to his church. It was pretty incredible. It’s a reformed charismatic church formed out of the house church movement in England. OK you nerdy seminary kids have fun with that. For the rest I’ll explain….it was a contemporary church service, informal, with about 70% of the population under 35. And it met…in…a…TENT.

The church is called Oasis and it meets on the site of one of England’s famous cricket pitches, Edgbaston. Although recently the church had to move to the parking lot (a.k.a “car park”). They meet under an ENORMOUS white tent. Like it has air conditioning and huge bathrooms. I really enjoyed the service, it reminded me of Sojourn Community Church in Louisville.

Afterwards we were treated to our first traditional English meal. Which so you know is meat, potatoes, and 2 veggies. And lots of gravy. Yum.

Sunday evening is when all the craziness began with the older teams arriving…
Then Monday morning bright and early….Toolkit began.

Destination: OM Lifehope: Halesowen, UK

Ok so last Saturday when I arrived, so did most of the other newbies. There were about 10 of us. It was all a little confusing at first but here’s how it works. All new people go through a training program at OM Lifehope, called Toolkit. Lifehope is the specific branch of Operation Mobilization that I’ll be working with for the next 2 months. The facility is here in Halesowen, UK about 45min outside of Birmingham. It’s a cute small town, and everything I could need, including a subsidiary of Walmart is within walking distance. J

So, it breaks down like this. Most of the newbies are here in the UK for 4 months. (I’m an exception I’m only here for 2 months). So they give us the title GA-4. GA stands for Global Action, and the number represents how long you’ll be staying with OM. During our Toolkit last week, there were also 2 more Toolkits going on, with GA-8 and GA-12. Now there are lots of different programs and lengths of time you can be with OM, so some of my new friends here are on the 2 year plan, and some may just be here for as little as 6 weeks. But every 4 weeks everyone descends on the base and gets more training. So the longer you’re here the more training you get. As you can imagine, it was kinda crazy last Sunday evening when this place went from like 15 people to about 35 over the course of 2 hours!!!

After a week of Toolkit training, which involves bible study, team building exercises and sleep deprivation, everyone is divided up into teams. Each team then moves off the base (except for my team) to another city where they partner with a local church for outreach ministry. The idea is that we help that church in any outreach…so kids, youth, homeless, drug-addicts, etc. etc. This is where it gets really interesting. Each team is made up of people from around the world. We all speak English, but for most it’s a second language. Each team lives in a rented house, they cook together, clean together, pray together and do EVERYTHING together for 4 weeks. They may take over existing ministries at their local church or they might start new ones. Then they come back to the base for more training and it starts over again. You may be in the same team the whole time, or depending on circumstances you might get re-assigned.

I’m on the team that will live on base in Halesowen, UK. So no more moving for me until mid-July! Woohoo. There are pros and cons to this living situation. The pros, I don’t have to move again, I get all my meals provided if I wish and spending money for meals if I don’t, AND access to all the amenities here including the library, internet, DVDs, and laundry. The library is good because they give us homework, and part of it is a GIANT cultural project due in July. Yuck. The con is this: the UK has really weird laws regarding kitchens, so none of us are allowed to cook. Yeah. That part sucks. We have a lovely man named Trever who is our full-time cook. He provides one hot meal a day and keeps lunch meat, cereal and fruit around for the other meals. This is wonderful, BUT I do kind of get tired of eating the same thing everyday. However I’ve been told that we get food money if we aren’t eating on base, AND it’s the church’s responsibility to find people to host you for at least 1 meal a day if you are too busy or far to make it back to base/team house. Oh yeah. The other con is that there are several rules for living on base, nothing major just like camp rules, like a curfew and quiet time, that sort of thing. No biggie.

Today is Memorial Day for you, but a Bank Holiday for England. So, we had a day off cause the church didn’t need us today. SO, I got to rest and update this blog. And I needed it. J

I'm heeeere!

So after 1 hour shuttle ride, 6.5 hr plane ride, and 2.5 hr bus ride I have officially made it to the LifeHope Center just outside Birmingham, UK. They are 5 hrs ahead of Eastern time here, which is unfortunate because I'm not sleepy and its 3AM. Oops.

I've already met 2 people tonight, a they were chatty and very friendly. I tried to sneak down the dorm hallway but my presence at 1AM prompted dudes that couldn't sleep to stick their heads out doorways. It was cute. I snuck a banana and peanut butter sandwich from kitchen and set about making friends. It kinda feels like camp/college a bit. Complete with bunk beds. I also met one of my roommates.

So I'm alive and well and I'll update sometime next week after I go thru orientation.

Thanks for all the prayers!!!

JFK

So I'm sitting in the airport at JFK about to board my flight to England. I just spent a really fun week in NYC with the lil sis. I managed to go jogging twice in Central Park, do a little shopping, and catch up with college friends.

BUT by far the best moment happened Tuesday morning. I was researching video cameras online while Emily counted up the last min donations and random cash I'd scrounged together. The Lord provides kids cause I ended up with more than I ever imagined and was able to splurge on a very nice little camera. This baby takes pretty video. :)

SO, tues morning in the rain I trekked to B&H Photo (aka Toys R Us of Electronics) and bought:

Canon Vixia HF S20
Hard drive
Xtra battery
Xtra memory card

And now I can document EVERYTHING. Haha. I've been toying w the concept for this doc for awhile now. This past wk I finally started brainstorming and wrote out questions. I'll give u a hint. Its about christianity&cultures.

Emily was my first intv/victim! She was amazing.

Ok that's good for now. I'll check in soon. I should be in Birmingham,UK by sometime tmrw!
Woot

T-Minus 7 Days!!!!

OK, so here's a long awaited update! I'm t-minus 7 days to go! Things are very hectic as I try and finalize things at home but I wanted to try and give a little more detail about the trip. I leave on Monday, May 17th for New York, and then May 20th for the United Kingdom. I'll be in Birmingham, UK for 2 months where I'll be placed on a community outreach team.

For the first 2 months I'll be working at the Lifehope/OM center. There I will train and work alongside one church, while reaching out to its neigbourhood through weekly kids clubs, youth work and other activities for adults.

During these two months, I will have the opportunity to help out in practical ways in the final preparation for the
Transit Challenge.

Later in July I will join the Transit Team in Italy. From there we will travel to France, Spain, Portugal, Bosnia and the Balkans. In each country we will partner with local missionaries in their outreach projects. I'm set to return the week of Christmas!

I am so very grateful for all of the support and prayers I have received from family and friends! From the travel shower that the ladies at Parkland Baptist hosted, the Dance Party hosted by Sojourn Community Church, the trivia night, yard sale and all the craft fairs in between! Everyone has been so sacrificial in their giving and I have been very blessed.

I've been asked by quite a few people this week if I still need anything. Honestly, at this point I need prayers for the logistics of the trip and that I will stay focused this week! There is sooooo much to do and it is overwhelming at times.

As for physical needs, the trip is finally paid off! And I've had a couple of friends offer to sponsor me with small financial donations while I am away. I'm still trying to raise a little support to just cover my health insurance and to purchase camera equipment. (Obviously the health insurance is the more important)

If ya know anyone that has an old ipod I could borrow/buy for cheap, that would be great!

That's all for now! I am hoping that I can update this blog overseas!
Any financial support given at this point should go through my Dad.


Love, Erin