An Amazing Weekend
This past Wednesday through Friday we found out what teams each of us were on starting in January. After forming our teams, the leaders decided that we needed to bond by doing team builders. So…. at about 4:30 Saturday morning we were woken up and told we had five minutes to be outside with a sleeping bag, warm clothes, comfortable shoes and a water bottle. No sweets or luxury items allowed. After scurrying around trying to find all that I needed, I found myself side by side with my other Swazi team members in a line facing our new leaders. Colin, John, and Flaps (South Africans) told us we needed to find a few large rocks to bring along representing our sick teammates who were staying behind. Then they asked for two volunteers, who stepped forward and after some time, returned with two chickens-who were to be additional team members for the weekend. At five am , with chickens and rocks in our hands, we started on our hike. After crossing the street however, we were thrown another spin… the whole team but two were blindfolded! So we hiked up a hill, off road through tall grass and rocks, holding onto the person in front of us to find our way.
The journey up was definitely a small taste of our weekend to come. We were given many hard tasks the next few days. We were given a few tarps and string to make a structure, they branded an S (for Swazi) on us with spray-paint, and then we were fed some flakes for breakfast. After breakfast our team set out to do some “team builders”. The last one turned out to be a huge struggle for our team. We were given an impossible task and had to do various things in order to make the task possible. By the end of the exercise the whole team had run 3+ miles and done 150 push-ups. Some of us, however, did 300+ push ups, ran 4+ miles, and sacrificed showers and/or meals. It was intense! After a dinner of pop and sausage we were all more than ready to sleep but the leaders had different plans for us.
We were all brought up a mountain and left to sit by ourselves for a few hours. They gave us very little instruction- don’t sleep and don’t talk. So after sitting in the cold wilderness, dozing in and out of sleep and hallucinating for three and a half hours, they came back for us. It was then 1 in the morning. By this time all of our eyes were rolling back in our head and we were told that we wouldn’t sleep that night. We were given a brain teaser and had to “diffuse” a fake bomb to save the world! It was hard work to do at such a late hour but Ben and Vanessa definitely stepped it up for the team. After “saving the world” we reported back to Colin at 4 am for punishment we received earlier. We were given various physical activities to do before making breakfast to start our next day.
I will not explain the rest of the weekend but I hope that first day gives you a little bit of a flavor! I personally LOVED the weekend. Not only because it gave me a chance to get out and push myself physically but because it really made our team bond together quickly. Our attitudes HAD to be about the team and helping each other. It made us such a close family ridiculously fast. Even though it was miserable at times and there was often someone crying, I think it was an amazing example for our team. The truth is, that after going through that, I cannot complain at all- for I have seen the suffering that happens in the real world. I know it sounds super cheesy but if you think about it, it’s totally true. I can’t complain that I was abandoned on a mountain for three hours, when I have met children who have been abandoned for 40 days! I can’t complain that I didn’t get to eat decently, because children here go many days with out decent food. I also can’t complain about the physical exertion because the orphans in Swazi travel 5+ miles to a carepoint each day to get a single meal,and then turn around & travel five miles back! I have nothing to complain about, especially because the whole time I was doing this, I had God in me giving me strength and encouragement & many of the children in Africa don’t have that strength backing them up!
