MTI Week 3

The final week of MTI wrapped up with discussions about lifestyle choices, stress, loss, moral purity, language and saying good goodbyes. We talked about how we will live in our new cultures and all the people who are stakeholders in how we live. We made a list of all the different categories of people who will be looking at our lifestyles. A partial list: field leaders, neighbors, ministry team, supporters, family, etc. We learned we need to consider more than just our comfort, but also the implications our lifestyle will have on those around us and our ministry. We must prioritize these interests when we make decisions...God first, then look at the context and then ourselves; we want to make sure we will thrive for the long haul!

Stress: we learned it is normal! We discussed the types of stressors we will likely face, symptoms of burnout and coping techniques. I learned in going through the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale that I have been under "severe" stress in the last year! We are usually unaware of the cumulative effects of the different stresses in our lives! We learned what stresses us individually, what our warning signs are and that we need to have a plan to deal!

Loss and saying good goodbyes go hand in hand. We discussed that loss doesn't just involve the death of someone close to us, it also involves loss of relationships, loss of home, loss of status, job, stability, etc. Even though we choose some of this, we also still feel the loss of these things and if we don't recognize and deal with the feelings properly, they can tear us up inside without us knowing why. We learned 3 important principles for healthy hellos and goodbyes:
1. Choose suffering over safety
2. Express a desire to bless the other person
3. Healthy goodbyes are part of wholesome hellos.

Moral Purity: purity indicates a state of the heart where there is complete devotion to God.
Key principles: Hate sin - anything that mars your devotion to God, listen to your conscience, confess in community, flee & pursue (flee the evil desire and pursue righteousness). Underneath temptation to go away from devotion to God are longings that are godly; we need to look underneath. We talked about how the devil gets to us personally and then wrote letters to God telling Him what we will do to stay devoted to Him. This was a difficult module for me!!

At the end of the week we each went up in front of the class and told in more specifics where God is sending us and what we think we will be doing and stated our prayer requests and someone from class came up and prayed for each of us. Then we said individual goodbyes to every person in the class. Whoa, an emotional week!! I hope y'all enjoyed hearing about this important training. I learned lots and made close friends; it was awesome to hang with missionaries for 3 weeks!!