What's it like to train as missionaries?

What our days are like...South Africa training team 2009

We are fine - but busy and very tired in the evenings so we generally just go to bed. Usually by 9:30. Tony is waking up at about 4:30 so that he has some time to do his devotions. I get up at 5:30 with the sounding of what is left of the wake up gong - I am thankful that it doesn't wake all the kids. Wesley once woke up enough to tell them to cut it out and went back to sleep. I wake up with enough time to just wake up - sometimes shower and make it to the lecture hall by 6 am for morning devotions time. I am not a morning person! But am learning to be.


Then we are suppose to have until breakfast at 8 am to spend time in devotions alone - but Lucy generally gets up sometime between 6:30 and 7am and the rest of the kids get up no later than 7:15. Wesley is usually next up and we sometimes have to wake Irina up. They are playing hard every day with the other kids that are here.

There is a kind of routine to our day -
On Mon, Tues, Wed - we eat breakfast at 8 am. Then about 8:45ish we have team devotions - where someone on the team shares a devotion time. Then there is a break then we spend the rest of the morning in about 45 blocks of time doing classes on something related to personal development or what it is to be a mission etc. There will be many different types of topics. Then at about 1 we are done for the day. We have lunch at about 1:30. (Lucy has been taking a morning nap at around 10:30 or 11 until lunch time. I've made this kind of a set time as it is easiest for us for her to nap in the mornings and since she is waking up so early it works for her as well. I had been waiting until after lunch but by then she was just so tired she sometimes fell asleep in the backpack then we woke her up for lunch and then trying to put her down again wasn't working. The rest of the day we rotate between
1- Rest and reflection time - you can do whatever you want really - do your own laundry, read, sleep etc.
2- Practical work
3 - Mall Day - because of the number of groups every few weeks you won't get to do this and there is only 3 days with 4 things to rotate
4 - Care time - where you talk with one of your Care Team Leaders about your concerns, prayer requests, struggles.

Every 8 days we are also on Kitchen Team where we are responsible to prep and prepare the food for the day. Breakfast, lunch and Dinner and clean up after dinner making sure that the kitchen and eating areas are kept clean.

We were on Kitchen Team this Monday so we will be on next Tuesday. It is kind of funny - because we have kids the other team members are always telling us we can leave if we want and both Tony and I are actually kind of enjoy the whole kitchen process. We also have more experience than most of these "kids" doing the kitchen prep kind of stuff. We end up telling them that no - we don't want to go we want to work. I remind them that until we came there not only did I do all the cooking I also had to clean the rest of the house as well. Some of our team members are right out of high school so they are finding some of this work very challenging.

Lets see after lunch if it is your mall day - you go do that. If it isn't your mall day than you do one of the other 3 things. Practical work - Tiny whose real name is Peter and who isn't really tiny at all - he is 6 feet 5 inches tall. He tells us we are his slaves - with this huge smile. He is kind of like the friendly giant. He gives out tasks to do and we go do them. Like pick up trash, clean and mop things, fix something, mow the lawn etc. I actually don't have to do Practical work because of the kids. This week I didn't because I went to the mall to get Wesley a birthday gift. His 6th birthday is this Sunday. Tony of course does practical work and Wesley is always very excited for Practical work and really likes to help out. Irina will help out a bit but then usually runs off to play with the girls when they get home from school.

Practical work is from 2:30 to about 3:30 - 4 depending on what you are doing. Then you have free time really until dinner. They encourage everyone from about 5 pm to dinner to do some kind of sport activity. Today I did a dance aroebic class. It was really a good workout. Leann (Tiny's wife) leads it. Since Tony ends up watching the baby if I do it and then he can't do anything so we will try to switch off who gets to play and who watches Lucy.

After that is dinner and then depending on the night - we have different things to do:
Mondays 7:30 we have a bible study with our Care Group
Tuesday - is a free night - the team staff coffee house is open from 7:30 to 9:30
Wednesday - Care Group night - a night where we can talk, play games etc
Thursday - is a free night - the coffee house is again open but not as late only 1 hour - Tony is there right now.
Friday - we will have whole team activites - that are to be anounced - we haven't actually done this yet this week will be the first time.

Thursdays and Friday's are a bit different.

Thursday we have the devos at 6 am still but breakfast is at 7:30 because at 8:30 the whole OM staff comes here for a Prayer meeting. We have worship and then we talk about the different activities that OM is involved in and pray about them. Like last week it was about AIDS HOPE and today was focused on their Teen ministry - can't think of it's name right now.

Then we have a class then it is lunch time then

Then after Lunch we have classes - again until Sport time. Then we have Sport time then dinner and then it is the free night I told you about before.

Friday's is pretty much just like Monday - Wednesday - only after Lunch we have free time for the rest of the day until after dinner when we will have some kind of team activity - it might be watch a movie, or have a game night or something but I guess we will try and do it all together. Probably not going off the base as there are so many of us. I will see how this revels itself over the next few weeks.

We do our first out reach March 19 - I guess it is the hardest as it is in tents and in a rural area - generally without modern bathrooms and no running water. I did see a photo of what they do for bathrooms. You dig a hole and then they have this contraption that is fitted with a toilet seat and there is a kind of curtain that goes around it so that you can sit there and do your business into the hole in the ground. I guess after awhile you fill in the hole and dig a new one. I am sure we get to take turns doing that job.

Pray that Irina won't have a problem using that toliet. I am sure Wesley will think it is cool.

They like to do the hardest retreat first. Everything will be made a little bit harder with the kids. My goal for the rural outreach is to stay at long as possible. I want to stay the full two weeks, if things are going really bad I can come back after a week, but pray that we are able to make it the whole time. I think that the kids will learn a lot from this and I really want them to get the full benefit of it. I don't have many details yet what we will be doing there - I will let you know more as I get more information.

Saturday is an off day - free day. As a family we have permission to leave and go out if we can arrange for a car or something. Last week we went to the mall. We don't have any plans to go anywhere this weekend, but we will see.

Sunday - we have church here at 10 am. They are going to take a few people out to another church - we will all get a chance to go to church off site. If we had a car we could go off on Sunday's too but Tony and I decided we wouldn't do that every weekend we want a chance to be able to bond with those that are here as well.

So that is our week - hope you found that interesting.

E-mail me back at this address if you have any questions.

Sharon

Jones Sharon
sharon.jones@tt.rsa.om.org