We would like to get a little better in blogging about things we are learning, and not just posting pictures of our sweet babies (although 1/2 of you are just interested in that!)
After a weekend in Oklahoma and hanging out with friends and family, we realized that what we are going to be doing (missionaries!) is impossible to explain in such a short time. So we are going to “attempt” to explain what we are learning in the training, what we will be doing overseas, how we will be living, and much more!
Here is my first attempt…
The past two days in training, we have been rotating to different hands on labs. One of the first labs was plumbing. There is a tech team, here on campus, who know all the in and outs of living in a remote jungle, how to get the best equipment for the cheapest, and how to save you time (so we can be out teaching the Bible).
During this plumbing lab, we learned about several different ways to get water. The way that we will most likely get water is from the rain. The picture above shows a huge bucket on the left. The rain falls from the sky, rolls off of the roof, and pours into this bucket. There are several hoses and pvc pipes that connect from this bucket and into the house. We also learned about different ways to filter this water so that it is safe for us to drink!
Another lab was washing our clothes overseas. This is a picture of a twin washing tub. We will most likely take this overseas with us. This washer uses either AC or DC electricity. In the tribe, we will try to use DC power most of the time, because we will get the electricity from our solar panel system. This twin tub system was really neat to learn about.
Our teacher washed a load of towels for us and explained the whole process: The first load goes in the left side with the soap. It takes 7 minutes to wash. Then you transfer the load to the right side, where it spins it super fast for 30 seconds, wringing out the clothes. Next, you put your load in a sink full of clean water to rinse out the soap. After that, you put the load back in the spinning cycle for another 30 seconds. The clothes will come out practically dry.
Last, you would hang them up on a line to dry! The best part about this whole process is that all of this laundry only took 0.5 of a kilowatt hour. This is huge for us, because we are going to have to be very mindful of how we use our electricity.
We had two more labs. One was learning how to make concrete (sorry, no pictures) and the other was about technology maintenance. This lab was showing us different things to check on our batteries and fuses when we have a problem. They gave us a mock problem where a lamp would not work when plugged into the converter.
We had to check all of these things such as: is the battery working? Do all the cables run? Do the fuses work okay? etc. This is helpful when we do have a problem with our technology and we contact the tech support team, we can rule out several problems if we know generally how to work the system.
We are learning so, so much here at the Missionary Training Center. We feel so blessed to be able to train here and learn all of the practical life skills, so that we can SOON bring the Gospel to a tribe that has never heard of Jesus and does not have the Bible in their own language!
Thank you for your continued love, prayer, and support!
Learn more about missionary training