It has to start somewhere...

Hello everyone! I know anyone who would be reading this already knows the basics about what I'll be doing, but I figure it's a good a place to start as any.

I'm currently at training in Stony Point, New York, to become a US-2 through the United Methodist Church. Basically that means I was admitted to a program through the General Board of Global Ministries to work as a missionary somewhere in the United States for two years.

Once I agreed to that, I took a placement site at Hagar's House in New Orleans, where I'll be going in a little over a week now.

But for now, life in training is great. We get a lot of sessions. Some are wonderful, like a very spirited conversation on diversity in theological ideas this morning. Others not so much, like getting binders full of papers that don't even apply.

Even the parts that are less-than-awesome become better-than-awesome because it's shared with such a fantastic group of people. I reconnected almost instantly with the people I had met before. I'm still getting to know some of the other people, but what I know so far has been amazing.

On the other hand, after I say goodbye I'm not going to see any of them for two years, if ever! (Except Bethany and Jen, who both say they'll come visit in NOLA. Yay!) So that might be a source of reluctance as far as "closeness," but it hasn't been yet. We all have a lot in common right now--similar fears and excitements, passion and beliefs. It makes sense that we'd get along so well.

We're only in day 3 of training, so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully we won't all be sick of each other in a few days...: p