Trainings

So turns out this valley is super famous for having the first evangelistic missions training like 800 years ago. Pre-reformation Waldensians were here; their main point was just that everyone should have access to the Bible. So basically the Pope's army hunted them down, there's a cliff right behind Forterocca (the building I'm staying in, means strong rock or fortress) where the Waldensians were brought to. They were told that they could either resubmit to the Pope or be thrown off; most of them chose death, and the river that runs through the town was red that day. We also went to their school (Colegui di Barba) where they would memorize scripture for 3 years, then go out into the towns basically until they were martyred. They took us to a cave where they would meet and where they were ambushed one day- craziness.

We've been working on teamwork ridiculousness. It's really frustrating at times, but it's really doing its job. Today we had about 4 hours of straight physical competition. On each team, one person was blindfolded, one couldn't speak, and one couldn't touch the ground. I ended up getting blisters from doing at least 300 pushups- at one time when we were about to pass out, Dennis (ex navy captain) told us to look up at that cliff where the Waldensians died, and asked what we would be willing to do. We did about 20 more then. Insane.

Food is still crazy good, although not enough meat as all us athletes are used to. I've also been meeting a lot of the people I'll probably be working with at least over the next year. They're all really awesome. Going into the market tomorrow & hopefully working on language!