El Refugio

Today we did training at El Refugio, a camp/division of Youth World outside the city. It’s a beautiful place where they do nature adventures and high/low ropes courses and leadership/teambuilding training. Fantastic!

We started out with some general teambuilding games, the kind of stuff you do at camp. We totally managed to cheat. I think at this point all the Interns have got it figured out that nobody cares who wins. Which is a good thing because we tend to end all our training games by everyone breaking every rule rather than someone winning. We did come up with a strategy they’d never seen to get out of a “burning building” with 15 people. It involved jump-roping. Both the game and our strategy.

Then we did the zip line.

Wow. I tagged along with Colin on the NHS band trip to King’s Dominion last week. We did the Drop Zone, the thing that just shoots you straight down from a gazillion feet in the air. You have so much more protection in that thing than a zip line. And for some reason I was so much less terrified on the zip line. And I was unanimously voted as having the most graceful landing.

After lunch (Ecuadorian goodness) all the Interns and Maestros and most of the QQ Staff went through our personality tests and talked about them and ourselves and got to know each other a lot better. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it was a ton of fun. Apparently I’m exactly the same person as Sara DeVries on paper. High five. It was really amazing some of the deep stuff, the trust issues, and the strengths and weaknesses that we talked about all afternoon considering that for the most part we’ve only known each other for a few days.

We finished off the main part of training with conflict resolution. Another thing I was not looking forward to, but got a lot out of and was actually kinda fun. I realized a lot about myself (I think we all did) and how to look at conflict from a Biblical perspective and to learn and grow from it. And it went along really well after having just done the personality conversation and led nicely into our quiet time this afternoon. We did about an hour of solo time around El Refugio, and I went up the mountain again, a little past the zip line start point to catch up on my intern devo and journal. (insert Minnesota accent) That place is sooooooooo gooooooorgeous. (end accent)

The night ended with a hot dog/cuy/s’mores roast. Rachel, the Australlian intern at El Refugio gave us directions. Dario translated. (Both were in English. It was hillarious).

Overall, bombarded with information again. And tomorrow is Team-Leading training and a visit to Carmen Bajo, one of the ministry sites, and where Jenny and Tory will be site hosts all summer. I’ve learned a lot today, about myself, about the other interns, about working together, about trust and forgiveness, and about the very nature of God and letting him be “mi Refugio.” We’re going to be so ready by the time Block 1 and 2 roll around.

Author: Danny

Occasional Ecuadorian View all posts by Danny