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Orientation week has flown by and all the interns are exhausted but looking forward to work tomorrow.

The second full day, Wed, started with a scavenger hunt around Orlando. It really did help us get familiar with the city. My group (Amy, Melissa, Katie and I) went to a church, a McDonalds with a golden Ronald, Walmart, Ikea and the Mall at Millenia. We had some items to collect too: business cards, price of an egg, photo of a bus and a bad parking job, etc. It was a really good time, which is a good thing because we definitely lost! All the other groups finished before us. We took full advantage of the photo opps though :) Plus I had loved being the navigator and map reader. In the afternoon, the activity teams met with staff for the first planning meetings. Our evangelism leader, Dan Dillard, worked for Campus Crusade for Christ and Wycliffe for a long time. He's a really awesome guy-really humble and flexible and gentle, but also hilarious! I know we're gonna learn a ton from him. And he's a UT alum too! In the evening a wonderful tradition started; almost everybody comes over to our house for ice cream sundae/movie nights! I like it, great practice for me as a hostess, finding the balance between serving and having a good time myself too.

Thursday we visited Universal Studios! It was great, buuuut all this talk about "sunny Florida" turns out to be bologna. Everyday it rains at least once, and that day it poured off and on 4 times! At one point on the way to another ride, it started raining so we ducked inside a cheesy Sinbad stunt show. As it went on people kept scooting farther from the open side of the outdoor theater where the rain blew in almost horizontally. And after it was over, no one left. We huddled in a mass and waited for it to pass while Karen made hurricane jokes, I asked our ride to come early (it was only 4 p.m.) and everyone shivered. Definitely not what I expected of Orlando weather. My favorite rides of the day were Men In Black, Simpsons, Rip Saw Falls and the most insane roller coaster I have ever experienced-The Hulk. We did have one assignment that day while at Universal: each person had to meet someone, anywhere in the park and just initiate a conversation. In preparation for the rest of the summer, we just needed to get comfortable talking to new people and stop seeing people as scenery.

Friday brought a bunch of information, but I enjoyed it a lot. We got the full tour of the Word Spring Discovery Center (where I'll be working), along with the headquarters grounds and all its departments. At lunch I met my supervisor, Pat, for the first time. Working with her will definitely be a happy experience, I can tell. And she gave me some relief by telling Claire and me that we'll first shadow tours for awhile and take on pieces little by little. A high point of the day was our evangelism training (which was really a discussion about what evangelism is and our experiences so we could agree on the message and why we'd even bother sharing it.) It was cool to hear from all the other interns. Martha and Jason had us over for bbq and we enjoyed some silliness.

Yesterday we slept in! It's been a complete miracle for me to be able to get out of bed so early all week, God really does give good gifts and that's one of em for me! Our first out-reach was at Florida Mall and we mostly practiced listening to people tell their story and how they're doing. We used a really simple, cool survey where you choose an image, from the set of 50, that describes you, and they're awesome photographs that can be interpreted a thousand ways. Everything from a flower to a set of bright, messy paints and brushes, a man with to-do post-its stuck to his head, scenes in nature, roads, a bridge, an airplane on the runway, some different animals, people, and a lot more. My favorite part is people can go online and see which cards other people chose to answer how they're doing and what represents something they wish were part of their life, etc. The website is: mysoularium.com

This morning most of us went to church with Karen to Cross Pointe. I enjoyed the service; it actually reminded me a lot of mine, Austin New Church. Sundays will generally be my free day, no work at least, so I'll be using them to catch up with yall back home. If you wanna call, that's you're best bet for an answer!

Thanks for reading my novel :) I'll be in touch sooner next time I hope!

Lovin and missin,
Joy