Five Weeks of Training

How do we begin to tell you what five weeks of intense training through OC is like? It was an amazing summer to say the least. It’s called Internship and it is a jam packed five weeks with all the new Interns at OC. An Intern is an individual who has been accepted for missionary service with OC, but is not yet deployed to their country of service. They are still in the training period – like Lindsay and I. With 26 other Interns, 34 kids (20 of those kids being under two years of age), and 31 staff members, it was not a dull summer.

It was a summer of nonstop personal reflection, challenging truth from the gospel, demanding exercises in team building, conflict resolution, and missionary preparation. You may be thinking this training seems like a lot for us to do with staying in the US at the headquarters. But this was invaluable training for anyone – staying in the US or not. We had the opportunity to really learn deeply about ourselves, about each other as a married couple, and about the other interns. Among many other things, we learned how to effectively work on a team, how to truly extend grace to one another, and how to keep a healthy balance with ministry and life.

I think one of the coolest things was being able to go through the training ourselves. Being a recruiter for OC, both Lindsay and I will be assisting people in joining the mission, who will then go through this same training. Having this firsthand experience will help us in talking with people to fully explain what training with OC is like. This is a question we are often asked.

Another opportunity we had by going through this training was to be able to meet and get close with our newest missionaries going all over the world. What a great group of people! It is an honor to be able to recruit other new missionaries for all of the countries where they will be serving. It gets me excited for my upcoming task in Mobilization - recruiting missionaries to serve all over the world with OC International!

We want to thank you for supporting us with your prayers and financial gifts. We are encouraged to report that we are 35% funded!