September 3, 2011
Hey Y’all, (in the words of my teammate Jordan, saying “Y’all” makes life so much easier. I never thought I would agree….And then I went Southern.)
Today is only day two with my teammates (Technically, I haven’t even been with them 24 hours yet), but we are already becoming a family. I arrived at the airport around 2 pm yesterday (September 2) and I was only the 4th person to arrive from my team. As more and more trickled in (there are 21 Guatemala team members and 2 leaders), you could immediately tell how well we already mesh. They are huggers; how beautiful. =D Once we all got together, our team leaders presented us with “Fun Envelope #1”! This contained enough money for us to ride the subway straight to downtown Atlanta, walk our packs through downtown (Yeah, we were quite the sight to see walking through the city just as if we were hiking in the mountains.), to where we were going to stay the first night. We assumed we were going straight to the AIM headquarters…Nope. We arrived at a homeless shelter called the “Safe House.” There we had dinner (PB&J, an apple, and chips. One of my teammates had never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before and another one has a legitimate fear of fruit and was unable to eat anything other than her chips.)
After dinner, we were told about stories of previous missionaries, from AIM and not from AIM, and we were told that our stories and invaluable. They are precious and unique. So, shortly after that, we opened Super Fun Envelope #2. This gave us directions to go out (between the hours of 9pm and 1am) to downtown Atlanta and hear stories. We were given the challenge to hear a story, tell a story, and to see how they connect with God’s story.
Well, this was no ordinary evening in Atlanta. This weekend Atlanta is hosting DragonCon. What is DragonCon? Yeah, I had no idea what it was either. Apparently it is this huge convention that celebrates comic books, movies, books. Most everyone was dressed up and when in doubt, dress as a zombie. I have a terrible time with going out and purposefully trying to talk to people and share Christ with them. So at first, I was just praying for my other teammates and my team leader Glenalyn introduced me to “prayer chatting.” This is where Glenalyn prayed out loud, but to everyone else it just looked as if she was talking with me.
Just being there intimidated me, but Glenalyn was telling me that those kind of events are sometimes the only places these people feel safe and like they belong. That hit me. I can make friends just about anywhere and the thought of only having ONE safe place astounded me.
This morning we packed back up, walked back through town, and got on our busses to come to the official training camp in Gainesville, Georgia. And it is HOT. I’m so stoked for my shower from a hose tonight!
I love you all and I can’t wait to tell you more about everything!
Love,
Jennifer