Day 1 of Training

This is Steve, just thought I'd let you all know that so you didn't have to try and decipher the differences in our writing styles. We flew to Denver,CO Thursday evening and got to the WorldVenture home office late that night and stayed in the guest rooms that are provided.

This morning we had breakfast and met the other Mid Term Missionaries who are also attending this training. It has been great to get to know the other missionaries who are at the same place of raising support. It was also cool to see the age range of the group. There is an older married couple, a couple with a 5 month old, and 4 single college-ish aged people.

We started the training getting to know one another, did a tour of the headquarters, and learned about all the different ministries and services provided by WorldVenture. We also met Hans Finzel who is the president of WorldVenture and Jonathan Finley who is the leader/founder of the Oikos House in France (the ministry we will be working with).

We were able to sit down and talk with Jonathan about the work we will be doing with the Oikos House. We will be language training and building friendships the first year and depending on how well that goes will determine the extent we will be able to serve with one of the 20 WorldVenture church plants.

Getting back to the training one thing that stuck out was we were asked to make a list of questions that would help us conduct a Spiritual Audit, questions about my quest to grow as a child of God. Here are some of the questions my group came up with.

-Is spending time in prayer and studying the Bible a priority?
-Am I investing time in others?
-Is someone pouring into me?
-What is my trust in?

These are the questions I will think about in how I evaluate where I am spiritually. In another exercises we were encouraged to start journaling as a way to express ourselves especially when we are entering a different culture where it will be difficult to adapt. Here is some of what I journaled during that time:

Today has been a great day of encouragement and challenging in preparing for missions and ministry. I"m not sure I'm ready to leave my friends and family to go to France, but I know that God will provide and He knows what is best for me. I am excited to see God work in raising support and in how He plans on using my Engineering before, during, or after France.

For being 12 hours of training with enough breaks, today has felt relaxing and encouraging.