[thenightwriterblog] The Reverend Mother: Before you get to Romania, you have to survive Texas

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Posted by The Reverend Mother:
Before you get to Romania, you have to survive Texas
http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1164646024.shtml


   Night Writer note: The Reverend Mother is one of the adult leaders of
   the Global Expeditions-Teen Mania youth mission trip to Romania. As
   such she had to report to the GE campus a couple of days ahead of the
   young missionaries for special training, though she wasn't sure what
   this was to entail. Apparently she's found out, and files this report:
   Our team consists of about 10 people. Two Project Directors, four Team
   Leaders and about six Missionary Advisor Candidates. The actual
   Missionary Advisors (MAs) will be chosen during the training by the
   Project Directors. Our leader is a runner and in very good condition.
   I estimate him to be about 40. He made us do a light jog to the ropes
   course, about 1/5 of a mile. I'm no runner, but at least I didn't keel
   over or anything, even though it's very hot.
   The first exercise required us to lift a tire from the ground off of
   an eight foot pole using nothing but ourselves. The tire and our
   bodies could never touch the pole. The facilitator of this little
   piece of torture would also give us random limitations, such as some
   of our group were blind or missing limbs, or couldn't speak. It was
   frustrating, but we did it. We decided as a group that what we needed
   to take from that activity was teamwork and communication.
   The next exercise required us to escape from a roped off area between
   four trees. The rope was about waist high and was 'electric' and below
   the rope was invisible razor wire so it was pretty deadly. If any
   parts of our bodies touched the 'electric wire' that part was gone. We
   lost some legs and arms and one guy lost his back. That must have
   hurt. Then a few of us, including me, ended up blind for some reason
   that I can no longer recall. We were at the mercy of the facilitator.
   Ultimately we made a "step" on the inside of the enclosure and got the
   first person out, then that person became a "step" on the outside and
   many of us were able to 'walk' over with a great deal of assistance
   from our team mates. I was 'blind' when I went over. The biggest
   challenges were getting our 300 lb team member out and getting the
   last person out. We did have the use of a four-foot long 2x4 and got
   her out using that. Two guys held it above the wire across a corner
   and she managed to hoist herself onto it and then they shifted it over
   far enough for her to hop down on the outside. It was much more
   difficult than it sounds, because at no time could anything touch the
   wire.

           Here is most of our group, Sunday night after dinner.

   The last activity required us all to scale a ten-foot wall using only
   our bodies and again some people 'lost' the use of limbs at the
   discretion of the facilitator. We didn't manage to get everyone over
   within the time-frame allotted, but we did get Dan, the big guy, over,
   which was nothing short of miraculous. We got over by climbing up two
   of our team members who stood against the wall and then others hoisted
   us each up till we could gain enough purchase to stand up on their
   shoulders and then reach up to the people above us so they could pull
   us up. Once you got up onto the guy's shoulders and reached up you
   really didn't have to do much but just allow yourself to be pulled up
   and over. The first person however, had to get themselves up there
   with no one to pull him. Obviously, that was one of the more athletic
   guys in our group.
   After each activity we would discuss what we had done, how we could do
   it better, and the things that we needed to take away from the process
   to use when we get on the field. I guess I can see the application to
   the team work we will be involved in while taking sixty 11 - 13 year
   olds to a foreign country. Btw, this is the first time GE has taken
   people this young abroad. I'm trying to gear myself up for a lot of
   work. The missionaries are arriving today and when they get here its
   going to get very hectic!

References

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