First day of the 5 Levels Of Leadership training

Today was a wonderful productive day! The alarm in the girls room didn't go off when it was supposed to and luckily Danielle woke me up and asked what time it was and I didn't even realized we were waking up late. I was grateful for the 15 more minutes of sleep and we got ready with enough time. I knew after that it was going to be a great day.

As we got to REAP today Dan was setting up for the first day of teaching the 5 Levels of Leadership and we all worked to make sure we had everything good to go for the day. We got to start the day there with a lovely breakfast of oats, boiled eggs and Liberian doughnuts! The doughnuts were delicious! As the seminar was starting people started to trickle in starting off with one woman who slept there stating that she wanted to make sure to not miss any of the teaching. I was excited again to be able to greet our guests, take their photos and show them to their seats. There were many familiar eager faces from the day prior and some new faces as well.

When the seminar started we had already passed out most of the books and workbooks covering the material. I started off at my table from yesterday but then realized people were still coming so I needed to get back to sitting by the door and signing in more people that were coming in. We then ran out of books and work books and were starting to run out of room at the tables! We all gave-up our books and I gave-up my seat because we ran out of chairs, it was awesome! I really enjoyed using my greeter and usher skills to help people feel welcome and get everybody the materials they need and a place to sit. We ended-up with 43 participants as we started off the seminar!

Today our group mainly consisted of people from the church such as deacons and also some people from the education field as well. Just like yesterday I was awed by the knowledge wisdom that the participants exemplified throughout the day. I feel as though I learned so much from them. It was also amazing to see how engaged and enthralled they all were throughout the time. Dan did an exemplary job teaching the overview and the first two levels of leadership. It was the same training that our team received from him in May(when he decided to join our team), but it was impressive to see how he changed things such as examples so that the Liberian's could relate it to their everyday lives and culture and it went over very well. One of the activities that they did was the values cards, where you start off with about 32 cards with different values written on them such as integrity and wisdom. Then you slowly narrow it down to 5 cards to exemplify what values you care about most and then finally pick your top value. It was beautiful to see everybody discovering their values through the cards. We then had a moment where we walked around and told our top values to people individually and described why that value matters to us. I found it very intriguing and personal how while we were going around meeting different people to tell our values to they would shake hands and keep holding the persons hands throughout the discussion and always look your straight in the eyes.

We also had a chance to do an activity where we would decide whether we are more production oriented or relationship oriented and each group went to one side of the room and wrote down positive and negatives of the other group. All of the participants got really into it, it was a great unifying experience and also triggered a very lively discussion after wards. The seminar ended shortly after that with everybody eager to come back tomorrow to finish learning the 5 Levels of Leadership.

As we were driving home we saw a bad motorcycle accident where the driver did not survive. It was a very eye opening moment of the blessings we have in America of just having access to things such as helmets. We then got back to the compound and all seemed to get very much needed rest and quiet time. At dinner I was so excited to see pasta and mango juice and of course the regular delicious cornbread, chicken and pineapple. After dinner we ended-up having a very God-driven prayer time where we prayed over our time here and prayed over individuals of the group who needed prayer. It was so freeing to have the team pray over the worries I currently have in my life.

Now everybody else has gone to bed to get some rest for the finishing of the 5 Levels of Leadership training tomorrow. Please pray for the attendees to continue to grow in their leadership throughout the training and to continue to be such encouraging participants. Also for our team to continue to follow to Holy Spirit fully throughout our trip and that we will have unexplainable energy and enthusiasm tomorrow that could only have come from God. Guess it's bed time for me now too :) Thank you all for your continued support and prayers. God is shining through in miraculous ways!!

God Bless,

Amy

Dan and Philip before the training began.

Ester the amazing, who has such a beautiful spirit, cutting the pineapple for lunch.

Danielle looking over the value cards that two participants were choosing.

Some curious onlookers, waiting outside of the door peeking into the seminar.

Two participants discussing their values with each other.

The relational group overlooking the productivity groups positive and negatives about them.