Finally I have a spare minute to update everyone…

Monday the 13th was our first real day of Joshua, however we were woken up at 430, told to pack our things in 30 minutes for a week out in the woods. After wiping the sleep from my eyes I headed outside with my things and we all loaded up into vans and drove up the hill to Wildwood (code name for Leadership Training Camp). Wildwood is basically a place up at Hume that is removed from the outside world so that you can really focus on building relationships and re-evaluate your walk with God.
Once we arrived at the entrance of Wildwood we were told to grab a rock before we started our hike in to the camp. This rock represented our distractions and things that would inhibit us from seeing what God wants for our lives. So we all tossed our symbolic distractions into the river, and our Journey began.

The rest of the next couple of days were spent doing Group Initiative projects that brought us together as a team, broke us down, and exposed who we really are. A few projects included physically demanding tasks that would make us rely on one another and God to complete, as well as work projects and navigating the ropes course.
In addition to the Group projects we also had hours and hours of time alone with God where we would reflect on the year to come, journal how we felt, spend time in the Word, and pray. This solo time really changed me and I realized how shallow of a Christian I am, I do all of these things for the church and in the name of God, yet spend hardly any time with Him. I resolved to change that as well as a few other things.

My goals for he year are: to be diligent and habitual in my daily devotions, being able to pray as if God was right there, and read the bible with a new outlook; To be humble and accept all the new teachings I am about to receive; not to be arrogant or prideful when I think I know something. So if you would like to pray that I reach these goals that would be great!

The rest of the week was summed up by us doing many team building exercises that I cant really tell you about, (Wildwood rules) But in a nut shell I feel so connected with the 57 other students, its amazing that its only been a week. We all have different stories, but I am excited to hear how they all work out to make the Joshua story of 2010-2011.

This weekend I worked at the High Adventure Ropes course, which was a blast, and I am now almost certified as a High Adventure Guide (HAG) as we like to call it. But every weekend we get to work a different Job around Hume, which is really cool way to meet the community here and to get to know the area.

God has already worked in me so much and I can’t wait to write more about the year to come!!