The first week of training has been the most remarkable and rewarding in both learning concepts and applying in action. For the first three days of training we had classes about different worldview and principles that we will need to better serve in the mission fields, and for the other four days we went on a Crucible in a controlled wilderness

The Crucible is meant to push our physical and emotional limits as far as possible, and in those harsh environments we were expected to grow as a team, it is kind of like a simulation of how the mission field is going to be like and teach how us how to overcome with other missionaries. There were things like not being able to communicate with English when we built our shelters, and some heavy lifting that requires team efforts, oh, and eating exotic survival food (cooked). Each of us had a chance to lead out a given activity, and it was a lot of fun and hard work to accomplish them, especially when they required us to think outside of the box and learn the lessons behind. Sometimes we were expected to face failure and go through it with positive attitude, and consequences were shared among us such as doing push ups and squads, and other physical demanding activities.

After those four days of Crucible we were all exhausted but it is clear that the real Crucible is just about to begin. I am glad to get to know this group of people much better through the crucible, and more than that, I am thankful to be with such group of young people who are willing to sacrifice a part of their lives to reach the ones who are still in the dark.

• Twitter