DBC WDTP—First Meeting

Tonight was the first night of the DBC Women’s Discipleship Training Program (hereafter referred to as “The Program”). I was a little nervous going into it but not much. I was actually more apprehensive about the drive to the house where we met than the evening itself!

We had received e-mails telling us to wear clothes we could get hot, dirty, and wet in and to bring a water bottle and wear good shoes. The reason for this was that we did a combination “Amazing Race” and scavenger hunt. It was fun.

My team called itself the “E” team. Why? Because all of our names ended in an “E” sound. Brittanie, Maggie, Abby, and Patty. Somehow we got called the Puerto Rico team by those running it off though. I think they thought Patty’s shirt said “Puerto Rico” on it. (It didn’t)

Task the first was a relay race. I carried an egg in a spoon in my mouth, Patty shot a basketball while singing “Jesus Loves Me,” Abby tossed two water balloons into the bucked that I held, and Maggie fished a piece of gum out of a plate of flour and blew a bubble with it. And the race was on.

I raced inside to grab my purse while the other three ran to my car. We piled in and took off. Turned the wrong direction, made a u-turn, and got back on track. Our clue told us to perform a “Noble Feat” at the Golden Triangle. Said feat was to make as many words out of “discipleship” as we could in five minutes while sitting at tables outside the Barnes and Noble at the mall. I think we came up with thirty.

Our next clue led us to the town square. We beat everyone there—despite being the last to show up at B&N. There we were given various handicaps and had to make it from one side of the town hall to the other. I was mute. Patty was blind. Maggie was blind and couldn’t use her arms. Abby was blind and couldn’t use her legs. I am very glad I was not in Abby’s position. As it was, Patty quickly grabbed the other two blind girls before they could wander off and I picked up Abby (Piggy back style) and we took off. It was hilarious. They were asking questions about where we were going, what were we doing, am I to heavy, what now, etc. and I couldn’t answer them because I was mute. We raced around the building got to the other cone—and no one was there. I left my poor, blind teammates for a moment and looked around to make sure there wasn’t another cone. They were thoroughly confused. Then I broke silence and told them what was up, just as one of the leaders raced around the corner. We had beaten them there. Ha.

Clue in hand, we ran back to the car and headed for our next destination. We also started looking at the list of “extra” things to do to earn points. At the park, we found five green objects (among which were a lei and spray bottle) and completed that task. While there, we did some of the extras. Patty spoke to a man in Spanish and he responded and she talked to his six-year-old and got his life story. Then we found some picnickers and sang to them.

Since that was our last destination and we had 45 minutes before we had to report back, we decided to do some more extras. Stopping at a pharmacy, we grabbed a half-gallon of milk and I started drinking (I had to drink a quart for the points). We headed for a Wal-Mart near the finish line, spotted some longhorns along the way and hopped out for a photo shoot. At Wal-Mart, we danced the congo down an aisle, Abby sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” to an older couple, Maggie jumped into a kiddie pool (no one said the pool had to have water in it), and Patty modeled a dress for a short photo shoot.

With 15 minutes to deadline, we headed back to the house. Somewhere along the line, Abby called my mom for an embarrassing story. At the house, we decided not to report in yet, found our list of extra things to do (we’d been working off a picture of the list) and did a few more. Abby, Maggie, and I did a cheerleader stunt while Patty took the picture. Then we all climbed a tree (no one said we had to be in the tree at the same time). And Abby managed to contact a friend and play a prank on her.  In addition, I had been careful the entire time to not go over the speed limit.

That, we decided, was enough and we trooped in to turn in our sheets. We showed off our pictures and laughed at others while the leaders calculated the totals. Turns out, one of the groups did a wheelbarrow with their blind and lame member while the other team had someone crawl with them on their back. It’s no wonder we were faster since we all were walking.
And the drumroll came….Team Puerto Rico was victorious! By a fair margin it sounded like. Our prizes were water bottles. Nice ones too.
After declaring the victors, we all lined up for ice cream and peach cobbler. Good stuff that. Then we just hung around and chatted. A fair number of the girls had brothers or brothers-in-law that did Tommy Nelson’s Young Guns and heard about The Program through them. It was kinda neat.
Tomorrow night is our “Creative Introductions” and the beginning of an in-town weekend retreat. It should be fun. I really liked the girls I met tonight and look forward to getting to know all of them better. I think it is going to be a great nine months. Difficult, perhaps, but good and well worth the time.
Until later!