Well, the first few days of training camp have been awesome! It's rained a good bit which has kept the temperatures cooler, but starting yesterday when the sun came out, it has been SO hot and humid. I've pretty much just resigned myself to being sweaty for the next eight months. Oh well...

It was really good to get here and see everyone again. I really missed them for the six weeks I was at home. It was good, too, to get to meet my team member, Cherise, who was not at training camp. She's really nice and fits right in with the group, which has been awesome.

The first morning we were here, we started our time with the spiritual discipline of solitude. So, for the first fifty-something hours here, we were not allowed to talk to, touch, look at, or otherwise acknowledge any other human being and just spend time with God. Some of you might think that would be really difficult, and it was for some of my team members, but it was a really good time for me. I got to rest in God, being still and knowing that He is God. In addition, I had tons of time to pray, read my Bible, and worship Him. I was really able to set the tone for this adventure for the next eight months. We also were assigned to read the first three chapters of a book that they gave us. It is awesome, and I would recommend that EVERYONE go get it to read. It's called "Exiles- Living Missionally in a Post-Christian World" by Michael Frost. Really worth the time that it takes to go through, I promise! I know I recommend a great number of books, but this would be at the top of my list for every Christian in America right now. Anyway, during this time God showed me some pretty awesome things. The biggest lesson I learned was when God prompted me to sit down one evening and write for two and a half hours. I ended up titling this composition "Big Brother Syndrome" and it will be my next blog post, hopefully here in the next little bit.

I intended to put up a couple of pictures of where we are in Mexico so you guys could visualize it, but the internet is pretty slow and they weren't uploaded, so sorry, but just know that I tried...