Well, here I am! My parents and I made it safely to Lafayette, Indiana! We arrived Saturday afternoon and all stayed overnight in a hotel. We were able to attend Faith Church on Sunday morning together, which I am very thankful for since that is the church I will be attending this year. The service was great! I really appreciate Pastor Viars as he preaches the Word with boldness, unapologetically. He reminds me of my wonderful Pastor back home!
After the service I said my goodbyes to my parents and caught up with one of the current Vision of Hope interns. We had lunch with a fellow "newbie" intern, Helen, and then were taken to the house that we will both be staying at for these first two weeks. The family that Helen and I are staying with have been so amazing and encouraging. They constantly open their home to those who need it, and are also very active in Faith Church and Vision of Hope. This is truly a house of hospitality.
Monday began our first day of training. There are seven new interns including myself. So far we have been covering the application process that the residents have to go through to enter into the program, how the medicine closet works, the household cleaning and cooking, and lots and lots of policies! I have been very encouraged by the openness of the staff here, and how they have made it clear that they are never too busy for our questions. They understand that as new interns we will be making a lot of mistakes, and that's okay! Mistakes are opportunities to learn and grow, and they will lovingly correct us and direct us in how to handle the situation properly next time.
After training each day, I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with the other interns, those who are new like me and those who have been here a while. We've watched movies and floated in the river and...has anyone ever heard of slacklining? I never had, but one of the interns, Nickey, introduced us to it on Tuesday. Basically, slacklinging is where you stand on a cord that is suspended between two fixed objects, (trees, polls, etc.) and attempt to balance, walk, do tricks...whatever you can do. We are all at the "walk as best you can and try not to hurt yourself" stage, but who knows? Maybe at the end of this year we'll all be pros, traveling around the world to do competitions and become famous and...
Yeah, right.
This is me slacklining:
And these are the pros: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KTZlSwgoS4
Nope, I don't think we'll get QUITE that good.
I'm already learning so much. The main thing that I have learned so far is that loving someone doesn't always mean making their life easier or taking them out of situations that are hard and that hurt them. Many of the residents here have been through horrific, traumatic situations, and often struggle with flashbacks and panic attacks. These are so difficult for them, but this is something that they must work through in order to heal, and so in order for me to love them I must allow them to go through this hurt. Doing what makes others feel better isn't always the most loving thing that I can do. I think that will be a challenge for me...seeing the girls struggle and hurt, and knowing that this must happen in order for them to heal. I know that I will learn so much this year about showing the true love of Christ...and of course a ton of other stuff as well!!
Tomorrow is the last day of training and on Sunday we start job shadowing the current interns. We will job shadow until next Saturday, then the real deal starts on Monday! Please be praying for wisdom and understanding of the love of Christ and how to reflect that to others.
Thank you all SO MUCH for all of your prayers!! There is no way that I could do this without the prayer and support of all of you.
Love in Christ!
"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
-Philippians 1:6
(All of the newbies. Back row L-R: Sarah, Hannah, Helen, Me, Karen. Front row L-R: Janessa, Susan.)
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