Training camp was a challenging experience. A lot of new ideas were introduced to me, and sorting through the abundance came with difficulty. I feel very confident with where I stand spiritually, however, and am ready to go tell people about Christ.
Our team bonding was very beneficial. My team is so awesome! Each person brings something special and valuable to our team dynamics. We connected super fast and already call each other family (we have also adopted a mom, dad, aunt, and uncle at this point). In the middle of the attached photo is our aunt, Julia. She is our team mentor. She will be coordinating from Georgia while we are on the field, and will get to spend a week or two with us for a mid-trip debrief.
Unfortunately, one of our team members felt called by God to stay, and her parents came to pick her up shortly after. Our team was sad at the loss at our team member, but are 100% behind her decision and respectful of the courage to follow through with God’s direction.
As there are four other teams training here as well, we were able to get really close with the Peru team and ate with them almost every day. They left tonight to go spend the night in the airport before their 6:40 departure from Atlanta in the morning.
Tomorrow, we have a 4:30 wake up time to get to the airport in time for the staff at training camp to drop us off and get back to Gainsville before 9 am.
So tomorrow we have a 10 1/2ish hour layover before our first flight in Atlanta.
We are flying 8h 5m flight to London. In London, we have a 9h 50m layover before our 11h flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. We have a 10h 45m layover in South Africa before a 2h flight to Lusaka, Zambia. We are staying the night in Lusaka before an 8h drive to Livingstone. The time zone is 8h ahead from the Central Time zone.
Our whole team is so pumped to get going, but a little nervous about the obnoxious travel time! Haha
We are so so excited!!
Africa, here we come!
