Well this is me post for MTS (missionary training seminar). As i think Rae said we went up for the week. The camp was interesting its an old US army intelligence institution that's been changed and updated a bit. Everyone slept in these little rooms that had two sets o bunk beds one of the bottom bunks was about a full size mattress & the other 3 beds was twins. The rooms had aircons and a bathroom complete w toilet i know some of you think they don't get indoor plumbing here but they do, they also had a shower & sink now the shower was just a place in the bathroom w a drain in the floor & a water spigot in the wall (nice & cold). & places/people in the Philippines have this thing about not using toilet paper they have these extra water spigots by the toilet & they use a little hand held scooper thing to get water to clean w. still ain't figured out how that works. All of the rooms & building at camp had biblical names so like the room we slept in was The Way the Truth and the Life. Then since the camp is set up for groups they had rooms for classes that had tables and chairs in them, as well as mess halls misc buildings that were named things like Abraham, Adam or Luke. My silly wife loved the camp cause there was like 245,678 flowers other pretty things (& yes that is a made up number I didn't count them, way to lazy for that). They also had a basketball court a lot of the guy missionaries would go & play them some b-ball before supper. For some reason that is the big sport here everyone loves basketball which i don't understand.
There was 2 groups of missanrys there one group that had just started and another group who had beenraising money for the last year so during each session there was 2 classes & we picked one to go to.
On monday the classes we went to was all about doing deputation, big fancy word for going to churches & begging for people to give you money so you can start minitering to peeps. It was good info just on how to present to churches, mostly it was making sure that you communicate that this ministry is were you need to be but you need helping getting there and you are simply asking the people and churches to help gt you there. We then had a short session on prayor letters which goes together just talking about how you need to (once you get supported) send regular updates to peepe so they know you is still alive and stuff.
Tuesday was different they broke us into groups of men & female type persons. Then all of the classes focused on things like husband wife relationships, then we talked about things that men need to know about the female type persons. it was interesting getting the perceptive of a female type person whose been on the missions field for a long while. i think the silly wife of mine went to something about always listening to her husband or something (still ain't sunk in yet) hehe i kid. The husband wife stuff was very good it talked about whatever issues you have in your marriage will be magnified when you start ministry some info on keeping comunication open and sharing what you are going through. Also hit on how being away from things that are familer caues you to cling to & look for the familiar so it can drive you closer together of course of the wife (mostly) doesnt feel safe then she aint happy & everything falls apart. They had a very good illistration about how husbands & wives is different but i think my silly wife wanted to tackel that one. We also had a sessions on media presentations and designing printed material that wasnt very helpful for us because of how it was sturchered since we werent really in the training we was just eveadropping we didnt get the before emails and books, so we missed alot of that info & was lost during the classes but we got the book title so we can read it at some point when we get back to the stated because books very expensive in this country & we cant find libraries.
Wednesday we started w church planting once again in the little groups seperated by year. This was interesting because it talkd about how to start a ministry and kind of what that entials. Then they broke us up tnto men & female type people again. the guys we did preaching missions & it was the missonaries had submitted a sermon & would go up & give like 7 min worth then it would get critqued. so that was interesting just listening to so many different people preach ( all of the sermons that i remember were on faith promise) (i think thats what they was supposed to preach on) most of the info was just about how to connect w the church you is preaching at so they see your vision and what you are called to do. Just showing people where your heart is. We then attended missonary burnout this was interesting just some of what you go through during burnout and how to prevent it/overcome it. This was important because you have to know how much work to do but also how to take some time off & just enjoy were you are. Taking that day off is not going to ruin the ministry but will help it in the long run because you will be fresher.
Thursday we did a q&a section were the missonaries being trained just asked whatever mostof it wasnt to helpful to us but got some radom pointers. We went to section on spirtual gifts which it was a different take on them but overall it was pretty good. It was mostly about how we are all called to do everything in the church (or you can do everything in the church) but how your gifted in one area and thus you will be more drawn to that area, it wont feel like working in the church, and how each of the spirtual gifts has benefits but can also have shortcoming its was interesting. Next was coping w stress it was simpiler to butnout but more focused on some practial ways to releive stress/ know when you are stressed. One of the big things is having something you like to do outside of the minitry so you have an outlet (so see i can tickel rae all i want cause it relieves stress). We then sat in on missonary finances it was about making sure that you had enough support ministry support but also enoguh personal support because you can't be skipping meals all the time because the church needs something. The last section was on why missonaries resign & it moslty focused on missonaries falling into immorality, burnout, not having enough money, or people going when they arent called to go.
Friday we come home so that werent to exciting. between classes we helped in the kitchen cleaning & doing dishes & things & by doing that we got to go cheaper (so my cheap side won out over my lazy side...this time). That was some of the highlights from the week & we learned quite a bit. All & all a pretty good week of learning, well i hope you enjoyed reading & if you didnt well i figuer you give up by now so what difference it make oh just fyi im hungry.
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