Summer, Texas and the Return

This summer has been busy - I wish I could say that I just did not have time to write, but really, it was more laziness than lack of time :)

Anyhow, for those of you who I was not able to see while I was in Ohio for a whole 2 weeks, I was in Ohio for a week in June, flew to Texas for Gateway training in July and then back to Ohio/Kentucky for about 5 days before I headed back to Africa. A busy summer, and not so much relaxing vacation, but still a good time and it was good to have a break from ship life. Although it felt really good to come back after six weeks away.

Gateway was fun - it is a month long training that Mercy Ships has started to try to get everyone on the same page as far as philosophy and goals. We spent a week on spiritual warfare and faith foundations, a week on conflict resolution (very important in a small community!), a week on worldview and how it affects relief and development actions in other countries and then the last week was spent working on 'Basic Safety Training'. I think for most people, this last week was the most fun because we had some time in the classroom learning firefighting and sea survival, but also a pratical test putting out fires and having fun in a swimming pool. I don't know that I will ever really be a true sailor or be able to be on a firefighting team here on the ship, but it was still good information and will help me to understand what other people are doing better. In both fire and sea, we had suits and equipment to use - see attached pictures. The boots, pants, jacket, hood, helmet and gloves needed to be put on in one minute and the red 'gumby' suit in two minutes. Once you got all the fire stuff on, it was hot, but luckily there was a little bit of shade near where we were working. The gumby suit was fun because it makes you float like a cork in the water - the only problem was that they did not really fit properly, so it was a bit awkward moving around.

Anyhow, it was a good summer, went by way too quickly and now I am already getting ready to teach again. 10 crazy preschoolers - yikes! I am actually really looking forward to being back with this group again - most of them I have worked with sometime in the past year. It was nice to come back last week and have parents and kids be excited that I would be teaching. Pray for me the rest of the week. Tomorrow is the last day to prepare, Thursday we start and Friday we try to get settled in. Hopfully it all works out :)