Orientation July 6-18

It has been some time since the two weeks of orientation - seems like much longer with all the activities and travel since then, but I'll try to recapture some of the essence of what happened during those two weeks.

Contemplating the Schedule

It was a wonderful experience for us, full of new challenges, inspiration, and relationships and many new friendships.

The first week of orientation included all in-coming MCC staffers, both domestic (USA and Canada) and international. We met in session during the day with our evenings free for visiting, reading, or optional group activities. Children had separate sessions - yes, MCC provides quite intentional orientation for children as well, realizing how important it is to prepare them for the experiences to come.

The second week was specifically for staff with international assignments, a smaller group, although still one of the largest orientation groups in recent history. Sessions were focused on preparing a fairly diverse group of folks with a really diverse set of assignments for that next leap - into another geography, another culture, another living standard, another language.... all those changes that we will each face in the next couple of weeks. Not scary stuff - really good stuff - but a lot of stuff so that by the end of the week my brain was just stuffed. I made our daughter Rachel promise we would have no deep discussions or serious input when we arrived at their house after orientation. (Note: we didn't manage to stick to that plan!)

In addition to the official orientation sessions, we found the rest of the time to be very healing in preparation for leaving. After months of preparation and weeks of insanely hectic activities, we were suddenly in a place where we had free time, our meals were prepared for us, we had a chance to relax and get to know new folks going through the same experience. It was not unlike two weeks at summer camp, only with a more grown up crowd, and without playing walk-a-mile.

We met many new friends, but especially got close to our Latin American/Caribbean group of orientees. Some we hope to see during our travels to Central America and Haiti, others we probably will not see again in the course of our assignments.


Our Latin American/ Caribbean group, heading to locations like: Mexico, Honduras, Paraguay, Haiti (just a few kilometers down the valley from our previous international location), Columbia, and Bolivia (x3)


For more detail see individual photos, including some other players such as, Vic and Christina, who although heading for another continent (Africa) shared similar characteristics such as age (older), children (scattered), and birdwatching (of course).

And for additional photos of the orientation location at the MCC Headquarters in Akron, PA. - check out this blog by another orientee..... Kathy (Boliva) the super-blogger. Scroll around her descriptions of the orientation experience for another perspective, including that of her children.

It was indeed a great way to begin our MCC experience. Next step before we leave for Honduras.... K.R.T. (Visiting the Kids Road Trip).