Boot Camp -- Merritt Island, FL
My nearly 2 month adventure started on an island in muggy central Florida. I'd be lying if I said that I enjoyed all of Boot Camp, as Teen Missions admits themselves, Boot Camp is definitely no "pamper camp". It basically prepared us all for the very worst of conditions that we would experience on the mission field. We camped in tents, got up before the sun, used buckets to flush toilets, bathe, and do laundry (all with water from the slough), we ran a obstacle course every morning before breakfast and had classes all day that helped prepare us for our time in Zimbabwe (from music and drama to basic construction to evangelism).
It was hard being without family, and even harder not being able to talk to them, but it certainly taught me to lean on God and rely on his strength and not my own (I hardly had any). My team didn't feel much like a team at first; I think we were all trying to figure out how we felt about each other, but by the end of our training, after all we'd been through during Boot Camp, we all got along perfectly. There certainly were parts of Boot Camp that were fun, we had evening rallies and a pizza party and a beautiful commissioning service at the end of Boot Camp... pictured above is one of my favorite memories from Boot Camp. After bathing in (essentially) swamp water, we were all thrilled to see it pouring, so we grabbed our shampoo and our ponchos and took a clean rain water shower (it drenched through our clothes) and washed our hair right then and there. It was pretty fun!
It was hard being without family, and even harder not being able to talk to them, but it certainly taught me to lean on God and rely on his strength and not my own (I hardly had any). My team didn't feel much like a team at first; I think we were all trying to figure out how we felt about each other, but by the end of our training, after all we'd been through during Boot Camp, we all got along perfectly. There certainly were parts of Boot Camp that were fun, we had evening rallies and a pizza party and a beautiful commissioning service at the end of Boot Camp... pictured above is one of my favorite memories from Boot Camp. After bathing in (essentially) swamp water, we were all thrilled to see it pouring, so we grabbed our shampoo and our ponchos and took a clean rain water shower (it drenched through our clothes) and washed our hair right then and there. It was pretty fun!