Annette, the Apathetic Traveller

At 10 p.m., exactly 12 hours before we'll walk out the door en route to Mendoza, Argentina for the Youth Specialties International Convention, Annette exasperated with having to pack yet again, walks into the office and says,

For a while i thought I was getting better at this traveling thing, but now I realize that I'm just becoming apathetic. Maybe it's like having your fourth child, you're not really a better more experienced parent, you're just too tired to care any more.

Peruvian Ground

[click a photo to biggie size it]

“Well,” he said shaking his head as he printed our boarding passes, “You’re going to have to run. Once the gateway doors close we can’t open them again.”

I thought he was speaking metaphorically, “You need to really hustle”, but, no, he meant literally that to reach the gangway in time we would have to run because the gate, number 13 which we’d never flown out of before, was in another terminal about a half a mile away.

The next thirty minutes were incredibly tense. How we got through them is a whole other story. (click here for the full story)

A few days into our time in Peru I saw that just like we’d gotten lulled into complacency about travel, we’ve gotten used to smoothly run conferences where we know what is expected of us and how long we have to teach weeks before we arrive. Not so in Peru.

The day before the conference began, we were told of a previously unstated expectation that we would - that very night - prepare 50 conference volunteers. "You have 90 minutes," they announced. Needless to say we scrambled a bit but it worked out.

The conference stood out in some positive ways too. For example, this was also the first Raíces event where we were given time to facilitate some learning activities we have been developing over the years. We’d never done them with such a large group so there were times when we felt overwhelmed by the chaos but feedback from various leaders reminded us that creating ways for learners to engage experientially with the material is worth the chaos.

Despite the emotional rollercoaster of the conference, we have no doubt that it gave both vision and tools to those who attended it. One cell group leader said, “We thought we didn’t need any more training, but this weekend I’ve seen that there is still a lot we need to learn.” And the organizing committee asked us to return and help them teach it throughout the rest of Peru. But now that they have with the book, the animated classes, and a new crop of trained leaders they have the tools to accomplish that goal whether we make it back or not.

[click here for the in-depth version]

GuateMALA was BUENA

Participation is essential to our RAICES workshop
Annette's turn (above), Tim's part (below)

We dropped into bed this morning at 7:50 a.m. after 19 sleepless hours of travel home from Guatemala. But it was well worth it!

The convention was a huge success - 3200 youth leaders from 12 countries, 150 volunteers, and over 50 workshops. When it was all done, the organizing team had a celebration dinner where we read thousands of overwhelmingly positive evaluation forms.

Lots more happened in Guatemala. I'll write about that later... after a good nights sleep.

Supernatural

training in Mexico - Feb. 2001

youth leaders convention in Guatemala 2006

More from Cochabamba

When he met us at the airport River was distracted. The main speaker, an internationally known recording artist, was supposed to arrive on the flight with us but the airline said that he hadn't boarded his flight in Madrid, Spain. River was holding out hope that he had gotten on at the last minute and it hadn't been registered in the system.

If you're interested in more details about what happened in Bolivia, click here to read Annette's report from Cochabamba.

How'd it go in Bolivia?

As you can tell from the photo, we enjoyed getting to be
part of the national Bolivian youth leaders convention.
There were youth workers from every part of the country...
some travelled more than 20 hours by bus to be there.
[We didn't take this photo, it just seemed like
we needed a really Bolivian looking shot :-)]
River Claure (far left) is one of the founders of the
Bolivian Youth Leaders Network, the director of
the convention and a wonderful friend.
Thank you for praying for us. The feedback from our workshops
was very positive, Annette and I felt better about
how we worked together than possibly any
other time and we were invited back.

Cochabamba, Boliva

Beginning tomorrow (Thursday) Annette and I will be in Bolivia for the national youth leaders convention: FeExtrema.com (Spanish)

We have great things to say but we don't always say them great... er, um... what I mean is that our content is perfectly good but we're not perfectly content with goodness of our presentation. You get the picture :-)

So we would love it if you would pray for us this Friday, Saturday and Sunday that we would be able to help these young Bolivian leaders.

Transitions

Yesterday we were learning here (Bear Trap Ranch, Colorado)
Today we are repacking and preparing here (Buenos Aires)
In a week we'll be teaching workshops for youth leaders
here (at a camp outside of Cochabamba, Bolivia)
These images reflect the geographic and relational transitions we're making this week. [click here for more pics or here for more info]

45 Years Later

We're still in Colorado doing our apprenticeship in mentoring.
Here we are with a group of proteges and our coach.
Last weekend my father was in Colorado for work.
He stayed an extra day and we all got to hang out
together at Bear Trap Ranch where we're living
during this month's assignment. In a very cool
coincidence... Dad told us that in 1963 he and
Mom worked a month at this very camp.

Our Curriculum Arrives Today

For a week we've been learning how to use life mapping, reframing, and personality matrix assessment tools but when Greg and Jennifer, Jeff and Lisa, Paul and Susan, Elliot and B'linda, Pete and Cheri, Denise, Andrew, Annie and Emily arrive at Bear Trap Ranch this afternoon they are the curriculum. Their needs and what God is doing in their lives as he prepares them for their next step with OC will dictate the flow of this summer's OC Internship.
Learner driven training forces us to really listen to those who are being prepared and to be sensitive to God's leading...which is much more challenging than merely moving through a lesson plan. We're particularly excited to work through this process with a great team of our OC colleagues, some of whom we'd never met before even though they've been with OC even longer than we have (they were in Asia and our paths had never crossed in the last 14 years, until now).

As our fearless leader Steve Aldrich says, "It's gonna be a GREAT summer."