The Warden Family: MTI Training

We just finished our first week of training at the MTI facility. It has been an amazing experience so far. We have been challenged in ways we never imagined, our emotions have been put through the ringer, and we've met amazing people and started new friendships. This has been an invaluable experience and we so much appreciate the opportunity to have this kind of training. We spend time all together in a conference room in large group sessions. We also have small group meetings as well as meeting individually as couples with our 'training coach'. Here are some of the topics we've covered so far:

Values Awareness - Discovering what our values are and how they may differ from values held in other cultures. (Family, independence, loyalty, respect, order, effective use of time)
Cultural Differences - Discovering how to deal with the known, assumptions, and unknown differences we will face living in another culture.
Building Community
Expectations - Learning how to deal with expectations from ourselves, our supporters, the nationals we will be working with. How to deal with unmet expectations and how to set realistic goals for our ministry.
Lifestyle Choices - Coming to a realization that some of our personal expectations, desires and dreams (community, intimate relationships, job fulfillment) may be at odds with the reality found in our host culture. In other words we may not find our expectations being met. The challenge is coming to grips with that and trusting God in is promises.
Conflict Provides Opportunity - Learning that dealing with conflict is the number one issues that missionaries face today. We did several exercised to help us discover our individual styles of dealing with conflict and how we can improve our skills in this area.

One of the most impactful lesson I've personally taken away (Jennie) from this week of study was this quote:

"The key for successful personal relationships and ministry is to understand and accept other's as having a viewpoint that is as worthy of consideration as is ours."

This seems so simple and easy to incorporate in our relationships. It is hard to realize how much cultural and personal values bias our perspective in everyday situations we face!

One lesson or principle that God has used to challenge John over the past week, is the reality of God's promises. The only sure thing in our journey to come is that God desires to mold us into deeper communion, trust, and relationship with Him. There are no guarantee's of health, personal fulfillment, ministry effectiveness, salvation stories, or even that we will all come home. We can rest on the fact that God is good, He will be with us, and that this journey of faith will sharpen us for his glory.

Here are some pictures of MTI.