Sawubona, (hello in Siswati)
It is day 11 since we started our first day full day together as a team, but it feels like weeks.
SWAZI SOUL SISTERS.
Our team is 15 girls, plus our leaders Pamela, Sydney and Erica so 18 females all together. Insanity and awesomeness put together for 3 months. A lot of patience and chatting and sometimes crying, but it’s so beautiful to see all the bonding and growing and opening up, and it hasn’t even been two weeks!!!!!!!!!!
Nicknames have been made.
Mollie – Momma M Julie – Alaska Beth – B-paw / pops Brooke (me)- Texas Carly- Tyra Bailey- Champ Amy- Glutton Laura – Big L Lindley – Biggie
Abby – Baby girl Faith –Twiggy Jenny- Picasso Ashley – Aggie
Erica B.- Sunshine Rachael – Barnum Pamela – Sydney- Erica Z. –
I already love all of these girls sooo much!!
Now let me tell you in the shortest way I can what we have been up to.
Training camp in Georgia September 8th-12th.
Tuesday we got to camp met our team ate dinner and played captured the flag!!
Wednesday at training camp we focused on surrendering. What we personally needed to surrender for this trip and something’s to surrender for our team like a shower every day, evening snacks or privacy. We got up at 6:30 am for morning exercise and then a lot of team time and worship which defiantly opened up emotions that night. We had a beautiful sun rise that morning and a powerful thunderstorm that night, for all of us girls that were nervous in coming into this alone God really showed himself that day in so many ways. Our theme food that day was Central America.
Thursday at campwe really focused on community which is what we need to have as sisters in Christ. We played this game with the goal of going faster and faster every time you did it, so we’d come up with insane ideas to get there. We did really well at cutting our time from a minute and 40 seconds to 10 seconds, we were totally celebrating the team work there. But then they asked how well did we do at everyone having a voice and we realized oooo maybe we didn’t do as well as we thought we did. Then it was time to talk about our visions on change, and success and accountability. What is our team’s goal? Where do we want to be in 3 months? So as a team we have agreed that everyone having a voice is a very important thing. Community is what we REALLY want. Everyone needs an opinion and everyone needs to be close. Believe me it‘s a lot easier said than done, but as a team we are going to fight for that. O and the food theme was India.
Friday at camp we talked about adapting to another culture then we got to put it into practice by half of us being village/tribal people and the other half being missionaries it was so fun and yet a big learning experience too. So interesting!!! Then we talked about serving, then got to put that into practice, our team went to the boy and girls club, we got a tour of the faculties and then the kids came. We all made little buddies right away, had a little dance party and got to just hang out with them. Time to go came to fast. Ok so then that night since it was Friday night we got to just have a family fun night. We played Pictionary, andthe game where you have to guess the name on your back except we were being each other and then we had to do imitations or explain this person when we knew who we had (so many girls on this team are soooo hilarious) and then charades and we had popcorn!! WOOOHOO huge blessing we were craving junk food!! Hahaha. Oh and the food theme was Africa.
Saturday …AMERICA FOOD DAY. Haha we had French toast for breakfast, we were so happy about that. That morning we talked a lot about what things may be like on the field and what things we need to know example drama, blogging and sermons. But then after lunch they rewarded us to a day at the park, we just chilled outside at a lake for a few hours, it was nice to just chill. Then we went back to camp packed up and an awesome worship service preparing our hearts for the next day, LEAVING FOR OUR DISTANATIONS!
I would love to keep writing about what has happened in this past week but I’ll leave that for another girl to do!
For family and friends of girls on the team I love your girls so much.
Thank you for your prayers and support!!!
And mom, dad, Lorren, Jordan, Maddison and Thomas I love you!!!
Love
Brooke!!
Psalm 27:14 “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the lord”
