Homemaking Homesteader

Leanne’s Mission Trip, Part One

06:07, 2008-Aug-18 .. 3 comments .. Link

There is no way I could give you a quick and simple overview of Leanne’s trip. Last night our family began the journey through over 900 pictures she took while gone! We made it half way through and it was time for dad to leave for work so we will continue our tour today some time. So what I have decided to do is to share with you about her missions trip in parts. That way I have time to digest all her info, resize pictures to post and share a little more detail with you. I hope you enjoy this mission trip to Egypt with Leanne!

Leanne began her experience with Teen Missions by leaving on a plane from the West Coast and flying to Orlando Florida. She along with several other who were on her flight were met by a Teen Missions representative and taken to Merritt Island Florida for two weeks of training that they call “boot camp”. The term boot camp has a couple of different meanings. One is simple and straight forward.. every team member buy’s a pair of boots and wears them. No other types of shoes are allowed other than water shoes. The other meaning is more like the military term in the fact that there is a lot of training and group work going on. They learn not only necessary skills for when they are on the field, but how to live without common luxuries like showers and toilets that flush, but they also begin learning how to work together as a team through a lot of physical training. Boot camp is primitive, difficult and according to Leanne was a real challenge to get through.

Here are some pictures of the kids arriving at boot camp:

They were issued a lot gear such as hard hats, water canteens, carry on bags, duffle bags, etc..

Here is Leanne’s some of Leanne’s team members assembled. There were 31 kids on her team.

Living conditions at boot camp were primitive. Here is laundry and bath day:

Here is the water used to flush the toilets:

There were no showers so they swam in the lake you see in the picture at the top until it got too dirty and then they closed it down and switched to Alligator Lake and no one went swimming in that one!

Much of their day was spent with classes in brick laying and cement. They never did lay any bricks but they definitely put the cement classes to use!

As I said earlier the only shoes they wore were boots.. 6 or 8 inch lace up leather work boots. Leanne took this picture of one of her team mates all dressed and ready for church in her work boots!

Now purely as a side note… the mothering side of me got a kick out this photo:

You see the brick in the girls hand? Well the kids could not leave their belongings laying around. If you did leave something behind the next day you carried a brick around with you all day long as a reminder to pick up your stuff.. I loved the idea and told the kids I need to come up with my own version of this! Think how this would solve the clutter problems! LOL… (they were not thrilled by my excitement over this new found idea..