“Get out of the car! Get out of the car! We want the car!”
Although it was a training exercise, I was still spooked when out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly saw a man with his gun pointed at me, yelling at me to exit the vehicle. The tension grew as he pointed it into the air and fired off several shots. On the other side of the car, another man was telling Becca the same thing.
After we were safely away from the vehicle, the man in charge yelled: “OK! Academic Mode! What did we learn here?”
After several exercises like this that Sunday morning in a field in rural Missouri, we officially wrapped up our two weeks of Pre-Field Orientation and Security training.
Safely navigating a carjacking situation wasn’t the only thing we learned during week two of PFO, we also spent time tackling conflict management, team dynamics and crisis preparedness.
In order to maximize our influence on the field, it’s important to wrestle with these important subjects. In any cultural transition, conflict is inevitable – and in Haiti, so is crisis (political, humanitarian) – so rather than thinking strictly about how to avoid these things, it’s important for us to have some tools in our belt that will help us navigate them when they come.
After the security exercises wrapped up that Sunday morning, we loaded up the van and made our way back to Pastor Mark and Michelle McCune’s house for our final night in the Kansas City area. What a blessing it was for us to spend some more time with them, processing with them some of the lessons we learned at Crossworld.
The next morning, we hit the road heading towards Chicago. After stopping for dinner at a Giordanos south of the city, we continued on to New Buffalo, MI where we stopped for the night.
On Tuesday morning we drove to Grand Blanc, MI where we were able to stop briefly and visit Will and Heather Harrison and their family. Will and I were roommates at Columbia International University and have been good friends ever since. It was great to get to meet all of their kids and see where they live.
After our visit, we continued on, crossing into Canada and hoping to make it as close to Niagara Falls, Ontario as we could. After a smooth trip, we arrived Niagara Falls around 9pm. It was a sight to see – the city was lit up with casinos, restaurants and hotels and the falls themselves were lit with beautiful colors, too.
It turns out in the off season, some nice hotels there are pretty in-expensive and we were able to get a room with a beautiful view of the falls.
The next morning, with only 500 miles to go, we hit the road for home and arrived in NH around 9:30pm on Wednesday night.
Sadly, while we were in Michigan, our dear friend and surrogate grandfather, Charlie Snow, passed away suddenly in NH. I was honored to be asked to do the service for him and began preparing for that immediately after we returned home. On Saturday morning we celebrated his life at a standing room only service held at Danville Baptist Church.
What a whirlwind of a month November was for us! Thank you so very much for your prayers – the Lord was so gracious to give all of us good health, safety and focus while we completed this training and traveled back and forth to New Hampshire.
Some other pictures from November:
