Training at HDC

I was nervous beyond all reason when I left for Harrisburg directly after the Sunday service. I drove through Ohio and Pennsylvania, searching for Christian radio stations, and trying to avoid thinking about the feelings of uncertainty that were dancing through my head. I felt insecure about driving by myself, and was worrying about the money I was spending on gas, and that I would mess up the directions. I couldn't figure out how to turn off the heat either, so I was rather warm.
But at some point on the four hour blur of the PA turnpike, I saw God in the sky. There was a cloud in the shape of an eye, and as the radio station I had currently found played a song of encouragement, I knew that God was with me, that what I was doing was good, and that I needed to stop worrying. I almost cried as I let God fill me up and encourage me. I stared into the eye until I had to focus on the road, but I had a peace about me. God was with me, I was going where he wanted me to go, and that's all I knew.
The egging worry that had been taking a toll on my head and my guts left when I turned into the HDC parking lot, one hour early, and was met by familiar faces. Margaret, Melanie, Jess, Rachel, and Dorrin.
There were two people in GO! training with me--Scott, and Elisa. Elisa I knew from EMU--she was one of  the juniors in the Pre-med program that were a part of the Organic Chemistry class that I was photographing for work study. Scott, who I met for the first time, was only introduced to me once, and I forgot that his name was Scott, and called him Eric in my head.
We played Scattergories, and that was a great way to get to know everyone (that played). I t was really chill, even though when the buzzer "clicked" stop, it was quite obnoxious, and a jumping experience for me more than one time. I won.. because I'm bizarre.
I had decided to just be vegetarian while I was there. It's too hard to educate people on Veganism 101, and then the discussions that ensued for the rest of the training were enough.
Monday morning training was good. It was quite an intense start, but it was still good. We did some prayer for each other--each of us prayed for the person to our left, and I prayed for Jess. We were supposed to ask God what he wanted us to pray for that person about. I had some words, but I had a melody stuck in my head for the part of the time that I was praying for her.
Elisa was going to Peru, and Scott, to Central Asia.
We were told to go on a prayer walk throughout the city, and I decided that I didn't want to walk around without a bag to pick up trash, so I brought a trash bag and picked up trash while I was walking. Twise people asked me if I was doing Community Service, one man asked me what "staff" I was with Convention, and one guy, all these people were sitting on their porches, said, "God loves you and I do too!"
The irony of it all is that later in the day, we went for community outreach, and we picked up trash, which was a group activity. It was more solemn as a group.
We had some reading assignments--and I walked up to the prayer room to do mine later in the evening, and Scott was already there, but the shade was open so I joined him. In an English accent, I told him I had a timepiece. (also known as my cell phone), so we went down stairs for supper at the right time.
Jamila, Taylor, and Tyler were all at HDC on Monday and part of Tuesday. They were working on some social outreach things, and so it was really cool for them to be there. I hadn't seen them all semester. Jamila braided my hair, and we got to hang out with them.
I was thoroughly enjoying helping wash dishes, and was helping put some away after dinner, when Dorrin thought that it would be a good idea to leave the silverware container out to put the dried silverware in, but he couldn't remember my name so he said, "Female!" and then apologized profusely...
Tuesday began with some great sessions. Chris led the session on Humility and it was a really great, rather informing session. Later, Ryan Showalter showed up and did another session on Why Missions. And informed me on some stuff about Queens, which was great--more information. Then we had a session with Clair Good about Contextualized something or other. He knew more about me and my parents and sisters than I knew about him.. It's always interesting when those things happen. He talked about how it's important to look for Christ in every situation, and when we witness to people, it shouldn't be to witness for God, it's God witnessing through us.
But that was a great session.
And then they sent us out on an "Evangelism Plunge", which was to go out and meet a person and have a meaningful conversation with them. We went as a group, and walked down Derry Street, and turned onto 17th street, and walked past this man, who Scott asked where the pharmacy was, and then we struck up conversation with him. We talked about where he'd been and where we'd bene and what his family was like and what he was doing now, and he brought us over to the pizza place where he worked and gave us pizza, which was sooo good and we continued to talk. It was great, and he was really nice.
We walked back to the house, and Elisa and I decided to go play soccer outside, and some boys from the neighborhood came soon after we started our volleyball and soccer playing. I taught them, and Elisa a little bit about soccer, and then played with them a little while. It was a lot of fun. Their names were Jay, Malachi, Will, and Shawn. Nice boys.
We had supper, and then commissioning prayer, which was great, and then we played Dutch Blitz while waiting for Elisa and Jess to get back (they had to drive Elisa's car to Salunga). I was playing against quite the pros, and I haven't had a lot of time to organize my strategy... Dorrin was rooting for everyone except Margaret, because she had some completely pulverized him in the past. I started getting better in the second game.
We went out for a low-cost treat--to ice cream, and their kid sized scoop was larger than any scoop that I would eat EVER in a normal sized portion... and I hadn't had ice cream since before Lent, so it was really sweet and rich... not to mention, I had the Chocolate Cupcake flavor. I forced my ice cream upon some... who forced it upon others... it really was the communal ice cream, because Marge, Elisa, and Scott all had some.
I had had a cup of coffee during the game of Dutch Blitz, and it made me really awake at eleven when i was going to bed, and I didn't sleep well. I was so awake that I thought about leaving then to drive home, but I didn't.
When I woke up in the morning--at five thirty to the alarm clock bird, I tried to fall back asleep, and stayed in bed until 6:15, and then I decided to pack and leave, because I was up and there wasn't any point.
I took two apples, (not realizing that I already had one in the car that I hadn't eaten), some apple chips.. got sick of apples. . .  and some mixed nuts, and figured that would tide me over.
Then I drove home, deciding halfway there that I was going to stop in Streetsboro and surprise and see people.
I did. It was great. But it's an entire other blog.