December 15, 2007
Sunday, October 7
Posted in ECMT Journal
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Sunday, 9 days later - near Gettysburg, PA Busted headphones at training camp I'm being realistic here - there's NO WAY I can catch up on nine days of journaling. I'll try to hit the highlights. So I haven't even STARTED training camp. Interesting thing was, we had zero songs that were polished [excellent, ready to present] by the end of training camp (except maybe Pledge to the Flag [a very easy song]... no wait, not that one either). We have a fairly extensive basic repetoire of songs we've at least started, though. Here's a list: Two Sets of Joneses End of the Beginning Forgiven Go Statement of Faith (new version) Gifter Be Still Truth March Voice of Truth Battle Hymn of the Republic Courtroom Via Dolorosa Champion Honor to Serve God Bless the USA America Again Pledge to the Flag Fallen, Not Forgotten Always Been the Soldier Virtuoso (new song) I Will Stand for You (new song) Sin Chair (learned today) Strings (learned today) Psalm 23 (learned today) We're doing Bible studies from scratch, so we've spent a lot of time on that. In fact, we're teaching it tomorrow and it's still not totally ready. I'm doing [a class on] public speaking [at the workshops] - aka dramatic reading/reader's theater - with Josiah Poch. Evidently he's taken lots of classes, but never taught it. I'd be totally OK if it was just public speaking [I taught the same class on my previous mission trip], but choreographing a dramatic reading will be interesting, so I'm kind of apprehensive. [We ended up doing choric readings - just speaking - instead of dramatic readings - speaking and acting - so it ended up being easier than I thought it would be.] |
December 14, 2007
Friday, September 28
Posted in ECMT Journal
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Friday, September 28, 2007 - 5:22 PM ET Near Seiverville, TN Current Music: ZOEgirl - "Good Girl" WOW - journaling two days in a row. That's really something. We'll see how long I can keep it up. Just picked up most of the rest of the team from the airport. Ryan and Courtney (YAY!!!!) [went with me on the California mission trip earlier this year], Brian from Delaware, Josiah Poch (the one Jared [his brother, former AIM intern] told me to keep in line  ), and Brooke, a girl who's never done anything with ACTION before! Plus Caleb from Colorado and his mom got in last night. She's leaving tomorrow, I think.Last night, driving into training camp, we got the bus stuck in a ditch and sustained a minor injury to the bumper. Kristi got to call Tess and Jory - a job I wouldn't wish on anybody. It was partly mine and Lauren's fault, but... that's a long story. Got to do casting [choosing parts for the mime songs] this morning. That was fun. It was especially fun trying to guess the strengths and weaknesses of people I'd never met. Also got seat assignments. I'm with Nicky, and the other four girls are in a row all across the back.We got REALLY nice, almost brand new, roomy blue backpacks. Good thing too, because the zipper on mine is now totally fried. The guys got the yellow ones. One had a ribbon tied on it, leftover from the Midwest Mission Trip. We gave that one to Jacob. Traveling with little kids is really interesting. Gabriel [Kristi and Jorge's 18-month-old son] is usually pretty sweet, but he is so annoying when he cries. He's also not talking yet, so it's really hard to figure out what he wants! Lily [their 3-year-old daughter] is OK - she gets kind of annoying with her endless knock-knock jokes, but other than that she's pretty cute. Nicky [age 5] is sweet too. But when he - or Lily - is grumpy, he's no fun. Our cabin at training camp is neat. There are six bunk beds - 12 beds total - in the main room, plus eight in the back - total of 20 beds. LOTS of space. We've been using the back bedroom as a private changing area, so we don't have to go to and from the bathroom - big, nice, warm showers! - in our PJs. I think Tess and Jory are waiting for us at training camp. That'll be fun - my first really INTENSE Jory experience! We don't have a whole ton of songs to learn, though, and the ones we do have are pretty basic. The Bible studies are going to be the really intense part. Well, we're almost there, and I'm going to get a bit more Sonlight reading done. I've got about the first three days done - OK, but could be a lot better.Signing off from the biggest tourist trap this side of Branson (that's Pigeon Forge, if you're wondering), Katie |
December 14, 2007
Thursday, September 27
Posted in ECMT Journal
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I took a 5 1/2 week mission trip with ACTION Impact Ministries (AIM) earlier this fall, and I'm going to start posting my journal entries for the trip. I'll include explanatory notes in [brackets], so hopefully you'll be able to kind of follow what's going on. Also, if you're interested in reading journal entries from my previous mission trip, check out CAMT Journal. Without further ado... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 3:49 PM CT Somewhere east of Knoxville, TN Current Music: Stacie Orrico - "(There's Gotta Be) More to Life" We just picked Daniel Reyes up from the airport in our WONDERFUL 21-passenger bus. There's two seats on each side, with an aisle in the middle. The seats are comfy (no seatbelts - yay!) and high, so my backpack fits COMPLETELY under the seat in front of me. And right now there are only nine people in here, so I have two seats all to myself. It almost doesn't feel like a mission trip, it's so comfy! I guess I should introduce the nine. There's Daniel - about 20ish, assistant director. There's the Madrigals [Jorge and Kristi - the directors of the trip - and their three young children, from Branson], me, Jacob [another member of the Branson team], and Lauren Wolfenburger, from Kansas. She signed up less than two weeks ago, so she was finishing her application in the van! She and Jacob (and Kristi!) haven't been able to do much on their homework [assignments to be completed before the mission trip], but they've been working hard. So I'm a student leader, whatever that means. All I know so far is that there are two - Ryan and I - and that Tess called as we were heading out the door and said for me to bring - are you ready? - a CELL PHONE! *gasp* Folks, we are witnessing a truly momentous occasion. [Cell phones are generally prohibited on AIM mission trips.]Mom and I got to Kristi's house at about 10:30, and I helped her with packing - especially reorganizing and inventorying shirts [AIM t-shirts to sell at workshops] - till we left at 1:30. Turns out I was supposed to bring a lunch, so Mom went to Country Mart and got me a lot of lunch food and junk food... including a Hershey bar! Since we were about to get in the van, that was breakfast. [Another mission trip rule: no chocolate in the van.]As I said, we left at 1:30. We arrived at the camp at 11:30, after sitting in a traffic jam for over an hour and making several wrong turns. We were all wiped. For a while, Jorge [the driver] and I were the only ones awake. We had fun though - rocked out to Veggie Tales. Good memories. Mission trip theme words: "discretionary" and "discriminatory." And maybe "spurt." Jorge is learning some new words. Jory and Tess [Rolf, directors of the national ministry, who were accompanying us for the first two weeks of the trip] didn't get in nearly as early as we did, sadly. They left Branson at - are you ready? - 10:00. Yes, that's PM. Evidently there were just a bunch of loose ends to tie up. I guess they pulled an all-nighter. I haven't heard the details yet, but they met us in Franklin to pick up the bus at 11:45 this morning, so unless they made REALLY good time (i.e. sped), they couldn't have had more than about four hours break, including gas/potty stops. I guess that's the highlights so far. I'm only writing the highlights - things I really want to remember, not just everything in chronological order. Oh, one more thing - I'm getting ahead on schoolwork. Done reading Module 5 (TOUGH!), and wrote an essay (I think it's really good) that I can use for both Wheaton and PHC [college applications]. This morning I had a really good prayer time. I'm really believing for a spiritual turnaround this trip. Signing off from the wilds of Tennessee, Katie |