Extreme Encounters
On the third weekend of our DTS (Discipleship Training School) we took place in what they call "extreme encounters weekend". Which is basically supposed to prepare us for outreach and bring up any issues we may have in our own hearts.
We had a list of things we could bring and things we could not bring. Anything that wasn't on the list we were not allowed to bring. The list included: one pair of pants, one shirt, one sweatshirt, two pairs of socks, one pair of shoes, one pair of shorts, a toothbrush, a sleeping bag, one hair tie, one pen, one notebook, a bible and a water bottle. Notice that there wasn't toothpaste, deodorant, toilet paper, makeup or anything else on the list. We had to be ready by 6:45 a.m. We met and immediately started walking outside towards our camping location. We met up with some IHOP people at the edge of our base. We warmed up by doing jumping jacks and lunges. We started walking to our "camp site" which was in the backyard of one the buildings on our base. We ate breakfast which was hard boiled eggs and peanut butter bread. We split into girls and guys and had to set up our tents. By tents I mean tarps, sticks and ropes. It was very interesting trying to set this all up with a bunch of females. 'Too many cooks' kind of thing. After 45 minutes we put together a very interesting sleeping arrangement. Our bathroom was a bucket with a garbage bag in it. The bucket was inside a really small tent for a little bit of privacy. We had one roll of toilet paper to last a group of almost 18 girls an entire weekend.....
After our tents were made, we split up into our groups for the weekend. We were given a garbage bag full of our groups food for the weekend. We were told to plan our meals for the weekend out of the food that was in the bag. The items in the bag included rice, canned chicken, chili, saltine crackers, pepperoni, trail mix, carrots, celery, a few small containers of jiffy peanut butter, cereal, dry milk, sardines, and can of what was labeled as dog food, but turned out to be beef and potatoes. There also was a small bag of baking soda to brush our teeth with. Each member of the group had to eat everything that was in the bag. So no getting out of eating sardines, unfortunately. We ended up making appetizers out of it. We put the sardines on the crackers and topped them off with the pepperoni. It ate as fast as I could and didn't try to keep it in my mouth that long. I may be a little high maintenance. Although I will try every form of food once. That's how I found out I like crab legs, sushi and shrimp. You never know what you will or will not like until you try it.
After our meal planning we had a few team building activities. Our group started in the section where one of our leaders was pretending to be a chief from a remote village that has never heard of God or Jesus. We had to try and preach the gospel to him. After explaining the creation, the death and resurrection of Jesus, His love for us and his eventual return the "chief" offered us food from his land. He opened the container and here are a bunch of shells with snails in them. At first site I thought they were alive. I freaked out just a little. I didn't want to offend the foreign chief, so I took it. We pulled it out of the shell. It was squishy. Out of the 6 people in our group, only 4 really ate it. One person spit it out, one person threw it in the woods. I swallowed it whole. I wasn't going to give it a chance to hit my taste buds. I downed a bunch of water after that.
We had 4 group activities after that, and I knew I could handle anything after eating a snail. The other activities consisted of trying to crawl through a big spider web with out any part of our bodies hitting the rope, getting through a maze, getting a golden egg (like Indiana Jones), and a plane food drop team effort. We set the record for the plane search and rescue. Go us!!!!
After our team building activities we took some alone time and wrote in our journal and read the Bible. We had some team building activities/games as an entire group. That was a blast. After all our activities we started to prepare dinner. We chose to do rice, chicken, one can of chili and some of the veggies. It was okay for camp food.
After dinner we gathered around the campfire and sang worship songs and prayed. We played a game that was kind of like Pictionary, but instead of drawing we made the item, name or situation out of clay. That was difficult. We ended up winning. Don't ask me how that happened because none of us really made anything good out of clay. We just knew each other enough to try and figure out what they were trying to make. Our prize was Oreos. Whhaaaaaaaat.
When our form of Pictionary was done we did a search and rescue mission. It was a lot of fun. we split into groups to try and locate a few kids that were being held captive by some of our leaders. We had a half hour to find them and bring them back to camp safely. It was fun, but annoying at the same time. we had about 26 people in the big group. Some of them didn't know how to work as a team. We did find the children and bring them back to camp. We went to bed around 11pm. I was so tired and it was getting cold. I believe the temp was about 38 degrees. I am used to cold, but sleeping in 38 degree weather with nothing but a sleeping bag is a little too intense for this girl. Finally I was in my sleeping bag attempting to get comfortable. Then the whistle blew. We had to get up. They were trying to show us that on outreach we wont be getting much sleep and the sleep we will get will be broken up. So we sang some more random songs. We went back to bed shorty thereafter. Another 15 minutes went by and the whistle blew again! UGH I like my sleep. We stayed up for another 20 minutes. We went back to bed for the final time. I got a really bad nights sleep. I woke up a bunch of times, couldn't get comfortable, couldn't get warm, I was using my extra clothes as a pillow. People were snoring, I was getting kicked by people who were sleeping next to me. It was not a fun night to say the least.
The following morning we woke up at 7am. Made breakfast, and prayed. Brushed our teeth with the baking soda. There were a few more team building activities. These ones were my favorite. We started off by shooting a bow and arrow. OMG love love love this. I totally felt like Katiss Everdeen from The Hunger Games. I missed a few times but got one on the board. One of my team mates got all three arrows on the board. She's amazing. Next up was knife throwing!!!!! I'm not talking about kitchen knives here people. I'm talking crocodile Dundee type knives. "Now that's a knife". After getting my feel for it I did get a knife on the board. I was like a little kid on Christmas. I could do that all day long. Then there was ax throwing. Yep you heard me right. We were throwing axes!! Oh yeah buddy. I was so excited when my ex hit that board and stayed on it. Yep I loved it!! It made me want to go to the shooting range right then and there. Awww good times. After we were done with the activities we gathered for a short teaching by one of our amazing leaders. We started tearing down our tent, and packing things up.
We did one last team building activity before we were done. We all had to stand on two small things of wood and walk as a team. One of our team members that was having issues all weekend had a really hard time with working as a team, but other then that it was actually really fun. Then finally we were done!!! We walked back to our building, some of us ran. A hot shower, and my bunk bed never felt so good. I was so thankful for my pillow.
All in all it was a great weekend. God didn't really bring up anything new that I wasn't already aware of. He is good at using other people to expose the crap in your life. God is so good.
