We'll start with pre-field training. The flight to Atlanta was short and uneventful. Found my baggage with no problems, then had to ask how to get to where I was supposed to meet the bus to get to Ridgehaven after having a go of it for 5 minutes with little success. Found some people outside who were also waiting....waited with them for 3 hours without sight of our bus, went inside when it started raining to a lobby of missionary interns...awesome. Then came the 3 hour bus ride to Ridgehaven which was well up in the mountains. I have to give props to our bus driver who pwned those sketch roads that wound up the mountain. Anyway, North Carolina was beautiful and the mountains were fantastic ( I might move there). As for pre-field training, they went over everything, adjusting to culture shock, recognizing the symptoms, dealing with conflict, creating and maintaining unity within the team, traveling illnesses and how to treat and prevent them, as well as handling our finances and various team building exercises. It was exciting meeting all the interns! There were people going to Japan, Thailand, Belgium, Kenya, West Africa, Mexico (Acapulco and Monterrey), Sweden, Ecuador, Greece, Slovakia, India, and the Ukraine. God is working in so many places it's amazing!
So among the team-building exercises were a high and low ropes course (we were at a camp you knew this was coming). High ropes weren't a big deal we went through it one by one...now low ropes on the other hand were and event to behold. We started having to climb over a 10-12 ft wall. The deal was everyone had to go over, only two people could be on top at a time and once someone went down from the top they couldn't come back up, and once over the wall they couldn't assist with getting the remaining team members up. First attempt, Caleb and I went up first and helped pull the others up leaving Matthew last. Our strategy was to hang me over the side and he would run and jump for my hands which didn't work, then he decided it would work better if he took his shirt off and I held it for him to grab and use for better grip. This didn't work either. The last attempt ended with him running full sprint, slipping in the mud and face planting right into the wall. I almost peed my pants from laughing so hard.
Another part was swinging across a series of tire swings. Some of us made it across ok. Then Emily tried and when reaching for the rope to the next swing lost grip and crashed to the ground. She ate it the most times during the entire course, and it was decided she was the toughest person on our team. She took the falls like a champ and tried again. Stinkin sweet!
Friday morning we rose early, packed everything up and headed back to Atlanta to catch our flights! Check-in went smoothly, for the most part, and then it was just waiting. I managed to get all my debit card issues handled while I still had a phone and say my goodbyes and 3 hours later was in New York. We ended up waiting about 20-30 min until boarding and settled in for the long haul to Dublin!!!
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