boot camp.

well, this week is boot camp week. oh my... they were so not even joking when they called it that. jason said that, in the military, boot camp is meant to transform civilians into soldiers--and that is exactly what we are doing spiritually. the leaders said that this week is meant to rid us of all of our "junk" before we actually dive into master's. if we have issues with no sleep--too bad! if we ever complain--you're doomed!!!! let me explain...
yesterday we spent four hours and learned an entire human video. it got kind of frustrating because after we did a run-through, we started doing "three strikes you're out." if brindy saw three mistakes, we had to start from the beginning, again. and again. and again. we got to know the beginning of the drama very well... :)
after that, we ate dinner in like twenty minutes and then came back to the church where we hopped on the "magic bus"...our fifteen passenger van...and headed down-town to the baseball stadium. when we got there, brindy read us the passage in the bible about how moses had to hold his arms in the air so that the israelites could defeat the amalekites... if he lowered his hands they would lose. but he could not do it on his own strength, so aaron and hur helped him. well, all of us master's students got to walk around down-town with our arms straight up in the air for over half and hour. we could lean against each other, but we were running up and down streets, lots of stairs, and never EVER lowering our arms. it burned SO STINKIN bad!!!!!!!!!! but afterwards, we all felt really bonded (dude, you held up my arms when i thought they were gonna fall off--thanks! :) ) and then we came back to the church where we were instructed to create our own human video. that took a long time, and i'm really scared to perform it because our group didn't really finish. :) then we all sat in a circle and gave our testimonies to each other. by the time we finished it was 1:30 in the morning, and i thought we were done. nope! then mike talked to us about the best ways to present our testimonies to an audience, and so we had to do it all over again after he talked to us. by the time i finally went to bed it was 3 am. but jason said that the point of this week is to push us right to our physical limits so that all we can do is rely on God for strength to take another step--and that was really hard this morning! i am so sore from yesterday (we do a "death drop" in our human video that kind of, literally, kills your entire body) and so i almost fell off of my little bunk bed this morning. i wasn't awake enough at 6:45 this morning to realize how sore i was, so when my knees buckled on my way down the bunk ladder, i seriously thought i was gonna biff it. :) i'm doing well right now, but we are about to take our bible memory test, so i gotta go! please keep me in your prayers!! i survived day one of boot camp week...only six more to go!!!! :) i know God's going to stretch me beyond what i think is possible--and i am so excited! i just pray that i will be able to keep a positive attitude through all things!!!! i'll try to keep you all posted!! :)