not-PMI: 2014

The event formerly known as Pioneer Missions Institute, which will be known as Resource, and is presently not known as anything, has just ended!
It's been a fantastically good time, the kind of fun that leaves you totally 100% exhausted afterwards (no, we're not finished packing...).
This year I was the Games and Activities Coordinator for the Children's Program. After designing most of the games and activities, I was on call all day in the event that one of the four classrooms needed me. In the afternoon, I orchestrated the larger games that brought all the ages together.
(The pinnacle of my efforts was the Paul's Missionary Journey Game which I will be posting about soon. Considering how much effort I put into designing that game, I figured I should share that with the world via the world wide web.) 
Jacob taught 3 short lectures for the Literacy continuing education course. The people in charge of the course said he did a great job. Unfortunately, this was right during the time of my afternoon games, so I missed them.

On Tuesday of this week, I coordinated the annual PNG Braum's Night (Braum's is an ice cream place found in this area), which really involved putting it on the schedule and making sure everyone had a ride from the rendezvous point to Braum's. (They did.) Hopefully the entire event won't collapse next year in my absence. (-sarcasm)

At 6:30 we met and then headed off for ice cream. I found myself sitting with a missionary who was on her way back to PNG after a stint off the field. Jacob was at another table with her husband. After we stood up to leave, we were invited to come back to campus and continue talking with them. We left their room at 2 am. While it was an amazing conversation that we absolutely do not regret taking the time for, we never actually recovered from getting only 5 hours of sleep...

The next morning involved me very frustrated from lack of sleep compounded with the cats having gnawed on our brand-new coffee tumblers in the night and me pouring boiling water over my hand as I tried to get coffee. (Luckily, Wednesday was a low-key game day...)

But at the end of all of it, the kids were raving about the amazing time they had had and how fun the games were, especially the Roman Soldier Game, which ironically had 3 emotional breakdowns during gameplay.

I'm almost sorry we'll miss it next year.