An Introduction to the Base

We're only halfway through orientation week, and wow, we've had some jam-packed days! I can't believe it's only Wednesday, and I've only been here for five days.

There are 18 people in our DTS, and five staff members. Sarah and Dan are the leaders, and they're from Ontario. Then we have people from all over the world. There are lots of people from Canada (mostly Ontario and Quebec). Four of us are from Canada and another country: Australia, Burma, Tunisia and Mexico. Then we have others from Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and South Africa. Other people on the base come from Cameroon, Ghana, France, and other places. It's such a neat international community! I'm learning a bunch of French, and a tiny bit of South African and German.

This week has been focused on getting to know each other, and getting to know the house and the routines here. We had an introduction to YWAM, and what our DTS will be like. We've had tours of the house. We've been assigned to different teams (I'm on dishes), and chosen our laundry times.

Today and yesterday we spent fifteen minutes each telling the other DTS members our stories, sharing about how we met Jesus, and what brought us to YWAM. It's been really neat to hear how unique and inspiring every person's story is.

We also have lots of fun here! We played Sardines a couple nights ago, in the dark creepy-ish basement that goes on and on and on. It was a good introduction to the house :) . The next day on our tour of the property we had an impromptu snowball fight. And last night we were told to dress up in crazy costumes, the crazier the better, and then we were going to drive somewhere. The staff didn't tell us where we were going. After about half an hour, we arrived at a bowling alley. It was grand fun bowling in our crazy outfits, hollering and yelling encouragements at whoever was up next. I'm not sure what the professional bowling league next to us thought. I'm terrible at bowling, but it was still super fun. We've also had times to sit and talk, and play card games.

My favourite thing so far is living in a community.

You probably want to see some pictures of where I'm staying. Firstly, go to  http://ywamdunham.com/photos.htm and look at "Our Property and Community Activities".
The pictures are like real-estate pictures, but in reality things are much more comfortable and less spiffy than they look in the picture. And yes, the Prayer Room really does have a prayer bathtub.

Here are some of my pictures:

 

The hallway in the New Wing where the girls live.

 

 

The front of the house.

 

 

The east (?) side of the house. The large grey part is the gymnasium.
Can you spot our mammoth?

 

 

The back of the house where the old, middle and new parts meet.

 

 

Artsy things on a random window.

 

 

The west (?) side of the house.

The room where Stephanie, Shaynna and I live is on the second floor of the New Wing.

 

The entry way. Note the heater under the YWAM logos. That's what helps keeps the house warm. We have an actually fire furnace, that burns wood. Because the house is old, it's fairly chilly.