the adventure begins...

Three weeks have flown by here at TREK.

Arriving here on the first Sunday was perhaps one of the most nerve wracking experience of my life! Thankfully sixteen of the other trekkers are pretty great people, and we all clicked right from the beginning, and it didn't take any time to get started. On Monday night we read through the entire book of Mark with Steve Klassen- an incredible man who runs the Mark Centre where we are staying.

After barely settling in we headed out right away on Tuesday to Whistler for a retreat where we looked into the topic of worship, and dived into getting to knowing each other, and participated in some fun activities. (The picture on the left is of me and some other trekkers participating in a photo scavenger hunt). I came back on Thursday loving the people on our team and pumped to get going on the rest of TREK.

The rest of week one and all of week two were spent in sessions discussing various topics. We had talks on hearing God's voice, prophesy, relinquishing our rights, and many other things. I've been in information overload, but slowly I'm processing all the information that's coming in.

This last week we went on a silent retreat, we left on Tuesday and participated in complete silence until Thursday afternoon. It was time to listen to God, and spend some time totally focused on him. I really realized how much we miss out on in our culture, running from one activity to another, with all the hustle and bustle around us. It was refreshing to get away, with no agenda and spend time in prayer, reading my bible, journalling and taking long naps. I really got to communicate with God, and hear some things from him. Once again it gave me a lot to think about and process, but I left totally refreshed and excited for what God is going to do this year.

Yesterday was the day everybody had been waiting for since TREK began. The day when teams were announced. And I am headed off to...drum roll please...THAILAND. I'm going with a team of all girls, who I am really excited to get to know. We had our first team time last night, where we shared testimonies, were honest about our feelings about the impending trip, and bonded over Starbucks and Quizno's.

So...I hope all of you are doing incredibly well, and want to hear from everybody. If you have time send me an email and let me know what's going on in your lives- jill.wiebe@gmail.com!

I also have some prayer requests!! First of all, everybody around here is pretty overwhelmed, finding out teams was an emotional experience, and now begins the process of applying for visas(I started my application today!), learning about the language and culture, and getting to know each other better. You can pray for us for good rest. Also, you can pray that we will start getting a hold on the Thai language; one of the hardest languages in the world to learn (they say it takes up to twenty years before you can be fluent). Also you can pray that as my team researches Thailand, gets in touch with the missionaries there and starts preparing to leave, God will birth in us a deep love for this nation, and that we will be ready to go and SERVE.

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!