Sardines

**** WARNING *****

Please do not read this post if you are planning on one day attending training at MTI or if you might ever go to training down here. If you read the rest of this post, it will ruin a significant piece of your experience.

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So now with that said, I can continue. As I have popped up into Denver from training a couple of times over the last few weeks, several people have asked me how training has been going. My answer is usually: intense. Why is it so intense? Simply put, the first 3 weeks of training have been the most emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually exhausting experience I have ever volunteered for. Allow me to explain the capstone of the intensity.

I was locked in a 6' x 6' x 8' plywood box with 21 other people for over 2 hours in a simulated hostage experience at the end of which I was one of 5 men who were dragged from the box, pushed to the floor, and executed by a gunshot (they shot blanks) to the back of my skull.

I'm not sure I can type out the whole story with the necessary drama, but it was real enough that half of the people in the box with me were crying by the end, and I was praying with my forehead on the cold concrete because it felt so real.

Amy had a much different and worse experience than me in her box (what's worse than being executed you say? You will have to ask...). I will let her tell the story if she wants to.

The kids were off playing and had no idea what happened to us. But for us, it brought home the reality of some of the more extreme dangers of life overseas.

Although Mozambique has been at peace for over a decade, as Kenya demonstrated to the world just a couple of years ago, even the most peaceful African country can erupt into flames with one bad election.

For me, one of the most profound elements of impact was recognizing I was in the box with people going to Morocco, China, and other places where security is a real risk. It was a sobering experience to say the least.