As I write this blog I’m in flight to LA! My first week has been amazing so far. We have been doing a lot of training and prep work for the past four days and today is my first day of seeing the kids since June! It’s been a crazy ride so far.
Monday started off with trying to travel to Alpharetta amidst all of the flooding going on in North Georgia!! Getting to Alpharetta from Toccoa went pretty smoothly. I didn’t have much trouble since I was able to stay on big roads. Alpharetta to Tennessee was quite the adventure though! Our first two days of training were scheduled to take place in a cabin on the TN/GA line about 2.5 hours northwest of Alpharetta. When we headed out, it was raining buckets of water and there was a lot of flooding going on. Grocery shopping for the cabin in the monsoon was awesome! We had two groups going up to the cabin because two of the interns had to fly into Atlanta so they were coming up with our tour leader from the airport. My group (the other four interns) headed up around 4:00 that afternoon. After many dead ends, roadblocks, and turn-arounds we finally made it to the cabin around 8:00pm. The other group wasn’t as lucky and didn’t make it to the cabin until 12:30 in the morning. This put a bit of twist on our scheduled training so we spent most of the day on Tuesday piled on the big comfy couch talking about who we were, what our fears and excitements were about tour, tour prep, and other stuff to help us get prepared for the BIG adventure. On Tuesday afternoon we had a break before dinner in which we all had planned to take a nice refreshing nap…but, the cupid shuffle came on the iPod and we couldn’t resist a dance party, haha. We turned the dining room/kitchen into a ballroom dance floor eventually and our tour leader (Christi) proceeded to teach us all The Waltz, The Rumba, and Swing Dancing! We had a blast, I was especially impressed with the two guy interns, Stephen and CJ, who were really fast learners and not too bad for their first attempts! We all enjoyed dinner together and had a great time bonding at the cabin. On Wednesday morning we packed up and headed back to Alpharetta where the 410 Bridge (Daraja’s mother organization) is located. We spent the rest of Wednesday and all day Thursday doing more training for our specific travel roles and doing errands around Alpharetta to get last minute shirts and pants for the kids. Our motto for the last two days has been “divide and conquer!” We spread out like little ants hunting down all of the Target’s, Wal-Mart’s, and Old Navy’s within a 30 mile radius around Alpharetta. It was great! :) I found out that my travel roles consist of assisting with the administrative stuff (receipts, donor info tracking, mailing, etc.), setting up the sound system (not running it, just putting it together), helping out with Bright Point (the sponsorship organization we use to help our kids get sponsors, it’s similar to Compassion), running the store after concerts, and there may be others I’ve forgotten.
I’m super pumped to land in LA today and see the kids. This will be the first time I’ve seen them since June. We are in LA to do a Youth Specialties conference. We will be there until Monday, when we will fly back to Atlanta. I’ve really started to realize just how limited my free time will be and how difficult it’s going to be to have quite time, time to blog and facebook, and time to talk on skype/ the phone. So please forgive me if I don’t respond super quick to your comments or encouragements. They mean the world to me, it’s just super difficult to respond to everyone, but know that I love them and NEED them, so keep ‘em comin’!! I’m excited to share this adventure and what God’s doing in my life with you guys for the next three months. I love you all so much and will do my best to update at least once a week. If you want to know about where we will be for concerts and stuff, just ask and I’ll do my best to get back to you on where the closest concert will be to you.
I want to leave you with a Swahili word of the day each time I write, this is the native language of the kids, even though they can all speak English, they speak Swahili regularly as well. Today’s word/phrase: Bwana Asifiwe = Praise God!
Until next time,
Allison :)
Allison :)
