Arriving at the IMC (International Mission Centre) was surreal... I had finally started by gap year, there I was with my Delhi team training. Everyone there was lovely - staff, MIFTs (Missionaries in full-time training - Adults who are going away for 2 - 10 years), and other action teamers. It didn't take too long to settle in and IMC became home.
I have an awesome team (nicknamed the Delhi Divas). We were the girlie team out of all 6 teams. Lydia, Tabi and Louise are the three girls I'm going with - they're all amazing and we work well as a team. One person's weakness is another's strength.
During the month we did:
- Devotions - Every morning we had devotions, each country team and the staff led these. Often included worship, a talk and a prayer activity. Sometimes a drama or a game. Delhi were the first team to lead devotions, and it was the same day as our 'culture day' (see later) and the day that the board of trustees were there (very very important BMS people) but it seemed to go well. I really enjoyed having this time every morning and it started the day off well.
- Team building - we did games and challenges, as well as learning how each person in our team works.
- Culture conscious - in these sessions we were made aware about how things can differ overseas. We didn't do any specific to India, but we were made aware to keep an eye open. As part of this we had a 'culture day'. During this day girls had to wear a skirt below the knees and blouse and guys had to wear suits. Girls had to do all the manual work, whilst the guys just sat there and did nothing. Males and females had to sit separate sides of the room and we had to address everyone by their surnames. It was an interesting day, and challenged us as some of these 'rules' we could well experience in India.
- Min-Y-Don - We spent 4 days at a christian activity centre in Wales. It was a hard week but I enjoyed it. We did crate building, hill walking, canoeing, problem solving, night line and low ropes. But I think my highlight was the second evening - at dinner time all the action teamers had congregated in the dining room all ready for dinner, only to be told that we had 5 minutes to get a cup, spoon, sleeping bag and one torch per team. We weren't allowed watches, phones or anything like that. Each team was then taken to a clearing in a wood, where we were given tarpaulin, rope and string to make a shelter.... my team just about managed this, but if it had trained then we would have gotten drenched! After making our shelter it was time to collect tea, which I thought would just be meeting someone who would give us some pasta or something, but nope... we walked to a lake where Tabi and I had to swim half way across it to a person sat in a boat who then gave us our pasta, rice pudding etc, we were also given a rabbit for tea. We then made it back to our camp where we built a fire, started to skin the rabbit and make some bread. About an hour and half later we finally had tea ready. The rabbit was ok... bit chewy and tasteless and still had some hair on it which was a bit rank! After we had eaten out 'delicious' tea we finally got into our sleeping bags under our 'amazing' shelter. However, after about half an hour of snuggling in our leaders woke us up saying we had 10 seconds to get out of our sleeping bags ready to walk. It turned out that we had to go and do some orienteering around the local village. At this time we all thought it was about 1am, turned out it was only 11pm. Our sense of time was right out the window. Then eventually at about midnight (which we thought was 2.30am) we finally got back into our sleeping bags and stayed there for the rest of the night!
- Training church - Two of the weekends we spent at our training church in Evesham. The first weekend we were there we were just able to get a feel for the church and youth group and how they did things. This first weekend all four of us were able to stay in the same house... a massive house at that. We were on the top/third floor, with two bedroom, a bathroom, kitchen and living room just for us. It was just like our own flat, and the garden was huge to! The second weekend we lead the youth group for yr 6 - 8s on the Friday night, as a team we were worried about this because when we had been before everyone was running round wild and it was insane. Luckily we managed to control them, and it seemed to go well. We also lead the church service on Sunday morning which seemed to go down well. After leading the service we stayed fora church lunch and went on a prayer walk with them (during which there was no praying!?!?) and ended up at a families house in a nearby village... This is when I met some more Burfitt's! I'd never met any other Burfitt's before so that was quite exciting. The Delhi team then led another, older, youth group. During which we were quizzed on a range of questions. On Monday we lead 2 year 9 classes and a year 8 classes. Overall they also went well - we did quizzes and questions, and got them to like about culture and Christianity. The biggest challenge with this was that we had planned to run the lessons all 4 of us together, we each had our own parts and were all included, but when we got to our third lesson the teachers in the school asked if we could split into 2 groups... so we went for it, we had to improvise a bit, and use our initiative but this also went well. God was guiding us for sure during this weekend!
Other highlights of the month:
- 'Walk thru the bible' - On one of the days we spent the day going through the whole of the Old Testament, learning it all with 77 phrases/actions. So I now understand the Old Testament a lot better now.
- First Aid - I am now first aid trained. I've wanted to do it for ages, and now I finally am. It was orientated for overseas, which made it slightly different. For example we were given scenarios such as... 'you're being driven along a dirt track, and you pass 2 guys lying on the ground covered in blood, both with machetes. The nearest hospital is 8 hours away. What do you do?'
- Talking to random people of the street - This was a particularly good morning for me. The theme of devotions that morning had been community and unity, during which we had to write down a prayer that would help us to help the community, and I wrote that I'd like the courage to talk to 'random' people, especially if they look like they're struggling... to make connections and relationships. And so that morning the action teamers were split into two groups - one group had to plan to run a pre-school session, and my group went into a slightly rougher area of Selly Oak, and had to talk to random people about community and church. Exactly what I had prayed that morning. We went round in pairs so Lydia and I ended up talking to an elderly man about what he thought which was interesting and then ended up talking to a group of elderly people at a local lunch club. They really enjoyed our company and want us to visit once we're back from India!
- Christmas Day - On our final evening the MIFT's had organised christmas day for us! An amazing christmas dinner, queen's speech (with lots of private jokes in), Father Christmas, Happy Birthday Jesus party bags, presents, party games, a nativity, christmas carols and watched a Muppets Christmas Carol. They worked so hard for us, and it was a very special last evening together :)
So that's my amazing month of training summed up in one blog. Obviously, it's pretty brief because we did so much and if I was to write in detail about everything then I'd be sat here forever.
Overall, training was amazing - at times it was hard, but I learnt a lot.
Just 6 days until I leave for Delhi! Feeling both excited and nervous...
Hannah x
Oh, and also you can go here http://www.bmsworldmission.org/ProfileContent.aspx?id=84900
Click 'sign up for updates' on the right if you'd like to recieve our prayer letter. Or click 'India Delhi Action Team Journal' on the left to read our team blog (when we get round to writing one!)
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