Hey guys!
This week, we have been preparing for our first international trip: the Dominican Republic (DR)! This Sunday, we’re flying out to serve alongside full-time Students International (SI) staff in Jarabacoa. I will be serving on the Applied Technologies team, working to create better water treatment so that people can have safe, clean water to drink! I expect it to be a lot of hard, manual labor, but I am so grateful to have the opportunity to serve the body of Christ in another part of the world. I am excited to see what else God has in store for this Joshua class while in the DR!
This week, we had a very special speaker: Dave Hansen, the CEO of SI! I had the opportunity to ask Dave about the DR and what to expect while serving there. It is very evident that Dave has such a fiery passion for the people of the DR. Dave also challenged us to open our hearts to God and ask ourselves, “Are we truly all in for God?” This question has been on everyone’s mind since the beginning of Joshua, and now it’s about to be even more amplified as we go do the hard work God is calling us to do.
For me, being all in, as our former speaker Brian Holland would say, is “being faithful in the mundane”. Even when we don’t feel like doing the hard work, we simply just have to obey God and be willing to let Him work in us through the tough times and trials.
I am praying that students and staff are fully prepared for this trip, and I hope that we find a bigger God at work, the same God in the Joshua building who also exists in the Dominican Republic and on all ends of the earth.
Cheers,
-Jakob G (Current Student)
Hello again!
This week was a wild ride! Last weekend, I had the opportunity to work my first winter camp! If you haven’t gone to Hume Winter Camp, you are for sure missing out! The weekend is full of fun, exciting activities, snow, and spiritual growth. My job site was Tube Run! Shout-out to my Tube Run team for being so energetic, friendly, and hard-working! I got to learn many names and meet a future Joshua Student! Her name was Aspen! Hello, if you are reading this!
The week was a rollercoaster ride. We started the week with a 5:30 am wake-up for chores, in which we cleaned the whole building. Then we got another 6 o’clock wake up for chores once again. Pair that up with a 4-day winter camp weekend, and many students were quite tired. Today on Friday, we got to have a sleep-in day till 10:30! Man, do I feel well rested!
I cannot end this blog without including the best part! For the first time ever, the Joshua students played the Hume high school in an epic broom hockey match! It was the closest and most fierce broom hockey match I have ever played! I had a blast! Unfortunately, team Joshua lost to the Hume kids 8-9 in the epic. I will say that the Hume community has made us Joshua students feel right at home over this year.
This week has been full of fun, early wakeups, and incredible matches. But the best part about it all is that I get to be surrounded by my Joshua family amid it all! See ya!
-Ethan Carpenter (Current Student)