Graduation, etc.

Relaxing salt water pool

Eating watermelon at the pool

My graduation celebration!

This past week was the first official week of Gateway training, starting with orientation on Saturday and Sunday.  It's like being in school again, which is unfortunate because I thought I just finished school.  Class starts at 8am every morning and ends at 5pm for dinner, with an hour for lunch in between.  They feed us well and often here, although the food isn't great.  Just preparing me for college dining I suppose!  There's a lot of information crammed into each class session so I think my brain is sort of on overload at this point.  Days are long and exhausting and I'm finding it harder to wake up every morning!
On Wednesday evening some girls all got to spend sometime at a leader's house in her awesome salt water pool!  It was so relaxing a nice break.
Every Thursday is the weekly trip to Walmart, which I'm finding is very needed!  I never once in my life thought I would be remotely excited to go to such a place, but I have noticed that there's a lot of little things I need or miss having so it was nice to pick some stuff up this past Thursday.
Thursday, the 16th, was FHS graduation back home and I wasn't able to be there for that, so on Friday everyone surprised me with a celebration!  I walked into class and there were balloons pinned to the whiteboard and on the walls and pillars, a "congratulations" banner hanging from the whiteboard, and roses, a certificate, and chocolates placed at my seat!  I was then made to stand in front of the class while a sash was placed on me.  Afterward one of the speakers had me pull my chair up to the front of the classroom and everyone gathered around and prayed for me.  It was very sweet and touching and made my day!
Yesterday night we all piled in the vans to go to a cook out at another leaders house, and that was so much fun!  It was just nice to spend time with everyone, the Gateway crew, leaders, and more in a casual environment.  While we were there I had another certificate and gifts from the leaders.  So sweet.
This morning we spent four hours at Tyler State Park to have quiet time.  It was very peaceful and the nature was beautiful.  Plans for this evening include going out to dinner (it's been so long) and a music venue with some girls.  Can't wait!

Foundations of Mercy Ships, day 1

Today was the first official day of training under the "Foundations of Mercy Ships" program.  Basically, it consisted of a thousand different lecture sessions and I did feel myself starting to fall asleep once or twice... Not that it wasn't interesting, it was just long and everyone seemed to talk in the same monotonous voice.  There were a few group activities though, where each table had to make a poster and present to the rest of the groups.  Our group was labeled the "artistic group" because of the neat handwriting and creative drawings (it was all girls...).
My schedule today consisted of setting my alarm for 7:30am, thinking I pressed "snooze" when I actually pressed "dismiss" and waking up 30 minutes late.  The showers are very small and the shower head is probably about 5 feet off the ground, making everyone have to stoop uncomfortably low to actually wash their hair.  The first meeting began at 8:30, continuing through till 12, with one 15 minute break.  It was mainly just a powerpoint presentation with a few short video clips.  The projector shut down periodically though, no one really knows why.  Lunch was from 12-1, and we were shuffled back into the lecture room for more power points and video clips until 5, when we had dinner.
It's been an uneventful day, I made some new friends though!  The airports lost the luggage of one of the girls here, and it has just been located, so that's the talk of the town.  I met a guy from Saint Louise who has an interest in photography and so we've had a lot to talk about.  He showed me his portfolio this evening.  Taco's for dinner!

Kicking-off in Texas

Training center in Texas!

Today started very early, waking up at 5am in order to catch an 8am flight at Dulles.  Waking up early wasn't so bad though once I stepped outside and saw that my two best friends had snuck over in the middle of the night to write farewell notes on my driveway with chalk :)

The flight and checking in were uneventful for the most part.  There was a little nervousness when it came to weighing my bags, though-- one being 52 lbs. and the other 54.  The lady let the 52-pounder slide without saying anything but she was concerned about the 54.  We pulled the "I'm going to Africa for a year" trick out of the hat though, so she let it go, labeling it with a "HEAVY" sticker.  As for the flight, it was overbooked by 6 people.  Mom and I figured it would be okay to board later than everyone else because we knew we were in the very back of the plane.  Turns out, we were the last two people in the very last row and we were the last people to board!  The flight attendant told us that she was going to give our seats away in another minute if we hadn't showed up!  Phew!

We arrived in Dallas around 11am, claimed our baggage, then rode the shuttle to the rental car place.  We were helped by a very extroverted man from Guan named Kerry.  I know way more about him than I thought would be possible from chatting for a few minutes.  For example, his grandmother from Guam died in 2007.  Who knew?!  Driving here took about an hour and a half, shorter than expected.  We stopped at a Subway connected to a gas station for lunch, where they sell peanuts by the pound and cowboy hats on a stand.

After arriving at the Mercy Ships center in Texas (where it was VERY hot), I was given a room key and we went off too my room!  My roommate is Rebekah, a native Texan, is very sweet and knows a lot about the bugs to watch out for, and keeps track of the schedule for me.  She's only here till Friday though, for the first training session.  My room isn't too bad, there's wifi and plenty of closet space and outlets.  Rebekah did tell me that I should make sure I check around the bed for bugs.  Not too sure how I feel about that...

After getting settled into my room we were able to go on a tour and meet some of the people here, the long term stayers and those only staying through Friday.  Dinner followed, where my mom left from, and then there was a brief powerpoint on being called to do something by God, specifically being called to Mercy Ships.  It was well presented and the speaker's personal experience added flavor to it.

It's been a long day, though and tomorrow is an early morning.  Can't wait to learn more and get to meet new people!