The awakening has been good…full…but good. It has been full of a lot of things.
– New People. There were 3.5 squads at The Awakening. O-squad who is into their 8th month, I-squad who is going into their 10th month and a team from T-squad who was helping staff one of the hotels where the event was held. And then S-squad…obvi.
– Full Days. Our days start at 8 or 8:45 depending on your breakfast time slot, immediately followed by a morning worship session. As a member of the worship team this meant I was usually helping with some last minute preparation or helping to lead. Then we had break outs throughout the day. The thing that made it the most tiring were the ‘breaks’. We had hour or half hour chunks of time that were just kind of open. They were usually filled for me by needing to prepare from the next worship session in some way or other. Our days were not usually over until about 9:45 or 10.
– Conversation. This goes along with there being new people. But even just within my squad there was a lot of conversation about how their months of ministry went as well as the team changes that are looming on the horizon. Talking about all the other experiences between squad was very enlightening and encouraging, but also exhausting.
– Infestation. Between ministry and the awakening, we stayed in a hostel for a night. We were leaving early in the morning so we decided to spend the night at the hostel instead of trying to make the trek early in the morning. We have since payed for it. From said hospital, we had now picked up a case of bed bugs. We found one on a bed when we got there and immediately checked all the other beds to no avail. They all looked clean. No signs. Come to find out we were wrong. One of the girls on the team found bed bugs in her stuff when we got to the Awakening in Siem Reap and had some bites. What does that mean? It means that we all have to bag up everything remotely washable and send it to laundry regardless of whether or not we had found bugs in our own stuff. It means everything else that is not washable gets put in my airporter and set out in the sun in an effort to try and bake the bugs out.
– Infestation x2. To add to that between two of the sessions Amanda, one of our amazing alumni squad leaders and a registered nurse, found lice on one of my team mates….and then me. I’m sorry…what?!?! I was so careful! I had my hair up every day! I used tea tree oil (which lice hate) and I wore a headband that covered my hair line! I didn’t even get that close to the kids because we KNEW some of them had lice! AHHHHHGGGG YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!
So I abscond some lice shampoo to go and try and scrub the buggers out and go back to my room only to remember that….oh yeah, my towel is in the bags waiting to be laundered because of the bed bugs. Great.
So now I am sitting in a coffee shop in someone else’s clothes, trying not to be paranoid about my head itching and praying that all of this is resolved by the end of debrief.
So that’s how awakening was for me…now for team changes. Whoop.
until next time, Gig’em and God bless (and curse lice!!)
-Mags
