YES! I finally got around to creating an update! Sorry it took so long. Well, so far everything has been great on Project so far, except for the fact that I broke my humerus and needed surgery and cannot work on Walt Disney World this summer (but more about this later). I have been fully supported financially with $3100 (although I kind of lost money because of medical bills needed for surgery... eh. I know God has a purpose for this so everything's fine. Romans 8:28). I know that the Lord will use all 59 of us in amazing ways while we are here in Orlando, Florida despite this setback. The theme of this Project is "Surfing every day," which walking with God is analogized with surfing so I will be using a lot of surfing terms to describe my summer. Anyway, let the updating finally begin.
May 29, 2012. Leaving for Project. I woke up at around five in the morning to get ready to leave for the airport. It was my first time dealing with airport situations alone without being an unaccompanied minor and it was a success! My first plane departed at around 8:30. I rode two planes on the way to Florida: one from Houston to Atlanta and the other was from Atlanta to Orlando. Throughout the way to Orlando, I started reading the Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler and being the extrovert that I am, I got to chat with both people that I was sitting next to on both planes. I was sitting beside a Texas A&M Aggie who was in the Corps and he has been studying for his field training during the whole flight while the person from the second plane was an old man who was a traveler/writer for a weekly newspaper in Vero Beach, FL. Their lives were completely opposite yet both were interesting and in that short amount of time, they sparked an interest in me to develop a stronger discipline of learning and perseverance and to whet my appetite of learning more about other cultures, which I knew I was going to have an opportunity to have while at Walt Disney World Summer Project. When I finally landed in Orlando, I saw an old friend and fellow University of Texas Longhorn, Grace McDonald, along with some WDWSP12 students! I was excited; this was the first group of people I have met on Project and a beginning of new friendships. There are four of us from the University of Texas that are on Project here at WDW: me, Grace, her brother Blake who is on student staff, and Travis Cook. After about half an hour of driving from the airport, we finally got to the Project housing in Runaway Beach Club. The Project staff greeted us as we arrived in the check-in building and we then headed to our own condos. I got to meet my amazing condo-mates: Chris Jones, Rob Scott, and Andrew Reinke. I don’t know how to explain how cool they are, so you should just Facebook stalk them. First night of Project we went grocery shopping as a condo. Each condo was accompanied by a Cru staff member and our condo was accompanied by Ethan Young, who as you will find out later, will become a pretty important person to me during Project. We had 93 shared items, totaling about ~$300. Out of all the condos that went grocery shopping, we took the longest and were the last ones at Walmart. We got home and placed all of the grocery items in their proper places. Evening came, and then morning: the first day.
May 29, 2012. Leaving for Project. I woke up at around five in the morning to get ready to leave for the airport. It was my first time dealing with airport situations alone without being an unaccompanied minor and it was a success! My first plane departed at around 8:30. I rode two planes on the way to Florida: one from Houston to Atlanta and the other was from Atlanta to Orlando. Throughout the way to Orlando, I started reading the Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler and being the extrovert that I am, I got to chat with both people that I was sitting next to on both planes. I was sitting beside a Texas A&M Aggie who was in the Corps and he has been studying for his field training during the whole flight while the person from the second plane was an old man who was a traveler/writer for a weekly newspaper in Vero Beach, FL. Their lives were completely opposite yet both were interesting and in that short amount of time, they sparked an interest in me to develop a stronger discipline of learning and perseverance and to whet my appetite of learning more about other cultures, which I knew I was going to have an opportunity to have while at Walt Disney World Summer Project. When I finally landed in Orlando, I saw an old friend and fellow University of Texas Longhorn, Grace McDonald, along with some WDWSP12 students! I was excited; this was the first group of people I have met on Project and a beginning of new friendships. There are four of us from the University of Texas that are on Project here at WDW: me, Grace, her brother Blake who is on student staff, and Travis Cook. After about half an hour of driving from the airport, we finally got to the Project housing in Runaway Beach Club. The Project staff greeted us as we arrived in the check-in building and we then headed to our own condos. I got to meet my amazing condo-mates: Chris Jones, Rob Scott, and Andrew Reinke. I don’t know how to explain how cool they are, so you should just Facebook stalk them. First night of Project we went grocery shopping as a condo. Each condo was accompanied by a Cru staff member and our condo was accompanied by Ethan Young, who as you will find out later, will become a pretty important person to me during Project. We had 93 shared items, totaling about ~$300. Out of all the condos that went grocery shopping, we took the longest and were the last ones at Walmart. We got home and placed all of the grocery items in their proper places. Evening came, and then morning: the first day.
Day 3. Walt Disney World Casting sign-in! (I’m holding off on Day 2 since it’s connected to Day 4.) After filling out paperwork and doing some fingerprinting and a lot of other official Disney business stuff, I found out that I’m working at Quick Service Food and Beverage. I later found out that I was supposed to work at Pinocchio Village Haus in Magic Kingdom! After that, each discipleship group had their “Soul to Soul.” I have a pretty solid discipleship group led by Ethan Young (I told you he would be kind of important.) My fellow disciples are Nick Bound, Benja Gooder, and Kevin Swinson. You should Facebook stalk them too because they are live action. The purpose of Soul to Soul is to share our lives, victories, struggles, sorrows, joys… pretty much become transparent and vulnerable with one another and how we are doing in our individual walks with God. It was such an intense, emotional 3-4 hour narrative about each of our lives. Through Soul to Soul, we developed a tenacious camaraderie, and this was just Day 3! This night concluded with all of us joining other discipleship groups and watched Magic Kingdom’s “Wishes” from the sandy shores of the Polynesian Resort.
[WDWSP12 students during training.]
Days 2 & 4. Surf Instructor Training and the Broken Bone. So these two days were dedicated to kind of like a crash course of how to live a Christian life. It was basically what I have learned in a ten-week Missional Foundations class back in the Cru in Texas squeezed into two 8 hour-long days. We learned a lot about what God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are like, “win build send”, relying on the Holy Spirit, planting spiritual movements, The Growth Model (Growth = (Grace+Truth)/Time)), and a lot of other things. We were also introduced to this devotional booklet called “Four Sevens,” which is a guide that takes us on a twenty eight day journey through the book of Luke to help us start or restart our quiet times with God. It’s been really helpful since it’s structured in a way that’s easy to follow (begins with prayer, reading a passage from Luke, meditating on that passage with the help of some questions about the passage and how it applies to our lives, ending with more praying/praising God/confessing sins to Him, etc.). I'm already on Day 17 of Four Sevens and the Lord has been speaking great things to me (especially during a time of trial... again more about the broken humerus later.)
Oh, and we also had a scavenger hunt in Downtown Disney to end Day 2. Here's some pictures.
Oh, and we also had a scavenger hunt in Downtown Disney to end Day 2. Here's some pictures.
After two long days of training, we celebrated this “graduation” from training by going indoor surfing! Indoor surfing... fun, yes... until something bad happens. I did pretty well on the first 30 minutes so I decided to go again for another round of 30 minutes! About 20 seconds into my second round of surfing, I fell of the surfboard pretty badly. Unfortunately, no known video recording is out there but from what I’ve heard from other people, it was a very bad wipeout. Unfortunately too, I signed a waiver with Fantasy Surf. :/ I thought it was a dislocation at first so I left the surf simulator area and told Andy May, the WDWSP12 director in charge of operations, that I needed to go to the doctor, so Andy along with student staff/fellow UT student Blake McDonald took me to the hospital. I had my x-rays done and the radiologist showed me the results--it was worse than a dislocation. I found out that my humerus was actually broken in half. I was scared. Satan began placing thoughts into my mind: “Maybe God doesn’t want me to be on Project,” “I’m probably going to be useless now with a broken arm,” and a lot of such thoughts. Blake and Andy kept encouraging me with wise words and scripture. Word traveled across the globe. My phone’s inbox and Facebook wall were inundated with messages from WDWSP12, my parents, other relatives, friends from Texas… a lot of people.
My mom and my aunts have been calling everyone they know around Florida/Cru staff they know to check on me. Prayer warriors were everywhere--see photo on the left, for example. While waiting for the actual doctor, the nurse informed us that I actually would need surgery. Knowing the gravity of this situation, ops director Andy propounded that I should probably go have the surgery back in Texas. He left the decision up to me whether I should stay on Project or go home. It was a somber night and one of the toughest decisions I had to make. After hours of prayers and waiting, the doctor finally came in to the room and apparently he has been talking to the orthopedic specialist and saw that I might not need surgery! They put me in a splint and told me to come back in three days. And so, after six hours in the hospital, we went to get my Oxycodone from the pharmacy, they took me to the student staff’s condo instead of my condo, and there I lay myself to sleep on Blake’s bed while Blake slept on the couch outside. And that was extremely rough day number four.
Days 5-7. The Aftermath. I had four hours of sleep. I couldn't sleep, the pain was too strong. Chad, Ethan, and Blake (guy student staff for WDWSP12 who are all living in that condo) woke up a few minutes later. Chad and Ethan saw me in a splint and asked me how I was feeling. Conveniently enough, my discipler Ethan just finished his undergraduate degree in Health Training so he has been helping me a great deal in my current situation. Really. He’s like Batman. I just have to flash the bat signal and he comes to me and aids me in rewrapping my bandages, putting Benadryl on my skin when I need it, positioning my body and my surroundings to make sure I’m comfortable when it’s already my bedtime, etc. He's wonderful. It was supposed to be evangelism training day but the staff told me it’s probably best for me to just stay home and rest. It was my first day back from the hospital so students and student staff visited me on the condo. Whenever I see a student/student staff/staff, they asked me how I was doing, how my arm was, they’re praying for me, and plenty of encouraging words. My mom too has been calling me a lot, worried about what's happening to me. I can say that I'm blessed to be surrounded by such a great community during a time of suffering for me.Days 6 and 7, we had two big guest speakers: Campus Crusade for Christ US National Director Mark Gauthier and VP of Epcot Brad Rex.
Gauthier talked about Crusade, Rex talked about Disney. We got the best of both worlds in two days to prepare us (well, them) for serving the Lord while in Walt Disney World. As for me, the staff has not quite decided yet what I’m doing for the summer. I just have to trust the Lord that He has something unique planned for me (Jeremiah 29:11). I think they’re certain that I can’t work for Disney this summer so they are brainstorming different ways of how I can still serve the Lord while here in Florida. We also attended church earlier in the morning of day 6 at Celebration Community Church. It’s a lot different from the Austin Stone (my church back in Austin) so I don’t think that was the church for me. We went to Harvest Bible Chapel the following week and… eh I’m okay with it. I do miss Austin Stone a lot. Whoa, that was day 13! I’ll talk about it more later but for now, let’s go back to day 7. Before Brad Rex’s talk, Demarick Patton, one of the staff here on Project, went up the stage and asked the students to lay their hands on me and pray for supernatural healing (Acts 4:30). The students surrounded me and began praying for me while they laid their hands on me. It was pretty cool, hearing everyone's prayers.
Day 8: Wish I Could Be Part of Their Worlds. Today, I’m supposed to be going to my first day of training at Walt Disney World. “Traditions” as they call it. But no, as you know, I broke my humerus so no working at the happiest place on earth for me. We went back to the doctor today to see what he says. The doctor gave me two options: Surgery (and if so, in Florida or in Texas) or wait for it to heal naturally. Both have its pros and cons: Surgery being … well surgery… but the bone will heal much faster and there is a higher recovery rate (95%). Natural healing will take a lot longer to heal (~4 months) and has a lower recovery rate (75%). It was a tough decision, especially since Andy brought up the same question earlier: stay on Project or go home. I once again became a lachrymose child, weeping. In only a few days, I have developed such incredible community around me and I have grown so much in my faith! I also feel that something is telling me that God’s not finished with me here yet and I just felt that the Holy Spirit has been telling me to stay. But at the same time, I was worried that I was becoming a burden to everyone on Project. Nevertheless, I stayed. Surgery happens. The Orlando journey continues.