Time for Training

This past week we were at the ABWE  head office in Pennsylvania for three days of training.  It was a great three days of classes, workshops, eating, laughing and learning.

When Nate went to Togo at Christmas, he met John, who quickly became a friend and kindred spirit.  John is also returning to Togo this year for a short term stay, so he attended training with us.  It was so great to meet him after all the stories I'd heard about this guy.  These two are two peas in a pod.

Here he is with Nate, and their new friend:

We had three days of intense classes on everything from finances, health/safety, moral purity, language acquisition, personality types, etc.  All of our teachers/staff of ABWE were excellent.  They were all such high quality people.

Here are two of my new buddies, Deb and Terry, who work with short termers to get them on the field:

We sat at the same table every day with other short-termers who were headed to Africa.  By far, our table was the loudest and had the most fun.  Here's a couple of pics of our group:

And here's me and Dr. Jim -- such a great man and fantastic teacher:

We even had time for some fun outside of the training!  Here we are at the Hershey Chocolate World:

(I had to hang out with these two!!)

(Nate LOVES having his picture taken.)

And look where the cocoa beans were from:

Nate and I had a great time.  It was so much information that we're still processing all that we learned.  I think, for me, it made this whole thing seem really.....real.  We're actually doing this.  It's really going to happen!  Which is fantastic and scary all at the same time. 

In fact, it's overwhelming.  The last morning we were all praying together and it hit me.  I know that I knew it before, but it really just hit me that we have a huge task ahead and an overwhelming feeling of humility and unworthiness came over me.  My biggest fear is that we would fail and bring disgrace to the name of our Saviour.  I so don't want that to happen. 

It's going to be hard.  It's going to test us and try us in ways we cannot even imagine.  But my goal is that we would cling so hard to God that when we complete the task and return home, the only explanation would be that God carried us through.  And that all the glory for anything that happens there would be His.