back from Ispland

so the font that i have but cant change makes my title look like it should read "lisp-land" but really it is "isp"-land...

We had a big training weekend for our International Service Project trip (ISP). We couldn't bring cell phones, we had to basically be able to carry what we packed, and when we arrived at our meeting point on friday evening, we were walking into the unknown. after all, how many of you have been to ispland? yeah, we went in blind.

ok maybe blind is not appropriate, but mute is. our first instructions were to go to the James building on campus, but we were told that we were no longer able to verbally communicate with our team. we had to go through customs etc, but total it took us 2 hours to get to the fourth floor, as we kept getting stopped or seperate or taken to rooms and interrogated etc. though it was extreme, they were trying to show us some of the things that could happen to us while traveling.
once on the fourth floor, we put our stuff on the floor. these were our sleeping quarters. the word sleep is being used loosely, as the only thing that seperated my hip bones from the cement base was a thin layer of hard, ugly, carpet and my sleeping bag. the first night was worse than the second because by saturday night i was dead tired.

and believe me, tired is also used losely becasue i was drained emotionally, physically, and mentally by sunday. i didnt think it would be bad at all, but we were definately challenged in alot of ways.

we did a ton of things but ill just brief you on a couple of them. we had to barter for food, we visited a nursing home that had people who were just old and could not walk, along with people who could do nothing but lay in bed with their mouths open and move their eyes back and forth. we watched movies about Rwanda, we ate food that i had never tried before, we prayer walked, we had underground churches, and we learned alot about the Islamic religion and culture (learned about and simiulated, which was alot more intense than i can even describe).

overall it was really humbling. that is the best word for it all. each session or activity taught me different things, but i think that was the feeling that made me a bit teary during our last meeting together as Kristen gave us time to pray. i had many more emotions and thoughts that i can share later, but most of them are not that important in the grand scheme of things.

sorry that this is just alot of general descriptions and alot of words, combined with absolutely no visual aids, but we were banned from having anything with an "on" switch, which unfortunately meant the camera was out...