Sleep & Luggage Simulation - October 11th

So you want to go to India with a GCC ministry team? Excellent! But before you go, we're going to make sure that we do everything we can to equip you not only for service, but for what you're going to experience physically while you're there. One of the ways we do that is through a combined Sleep and Luggage "simulation" beforehand. Here's what it looks like:

Friday Night - Sleep on your floor. No fair dragging your mattress onto the ground, but it doesn't matter whether you have carpet, hard wood or linoleum. The idea is that you will most likely be sleeping on the floor in India, so just changing your sleeping position and normal level of comfort will help you get a feel for what that will be like.

Saturday Morning - Wake up early and head to GCC to participate in 2nd Saturday. The idea is that you are dong something "active".

Saturday Afternoon/Evening - After finishing 2nd Saturday, we meet back at GCC, grab a quick bite to eat together, and then head to Potato Creek State Park with everyone's gear packed the way they're going to be taking it to India. At Potato Creek, the teams will hike (with their luggage) through Trail I for a distance over mud and trails of about 2.2 miles. It's not that big of a deal, but if you get tired of carrying your 26 lb makeup kit during that time, better to find out this side of the travel timeline than in India and having to toss it on the field. When finished, team members are dismissed to run home, get a quick shower, and head back to church, where we meet to sit together at the 5 pm worship service at GCC.

Saturday Night - Sleep on your floor...again. By this point, you should be a little sore from Friday night, plus good and tired from the day.

Sunday Morning - Wake up and see how you feel. Whether good or bad, it's probably a airly decent indicator as to how you're going to feel on an average day in India. Once you figure out how you're doing, send Jack an e-mail telling him such. If you're grouchy and sore, then you'll probably want to increase your physical fitness regimen before you go. If you're "just fine", don't get cocky, but be glad that you're on the right track.

The simulations are "required" and are not optional, and we are offering them for the December India Team window on three separate dates (each revolving around the Second Saturdays in October, November and December). For the October option, the following people participated (see picture above - left to right): Ron Twedt (Justice), Mike Ryan (Tech), Elaine Ryan (Construction), Ted Bryant (Justice), Jennifer Kukla (Water), Nancy Leist (Construction), Greg Schermier (Construction).

Dates to Remember...

INDIA TEAM…DATES TO REMEMBER…

Little India for a Day & Meal Simulation

*Individuals must choose one of the two options. Team Leaders will need to let me know which date the people on their teams plan to attend by Friday, September 12^th.

*Saturday, September 27^th, 8a.m.- 6p.m (Option 1)

*Saturday, November 15^th, 8a.m.-6p.m. (Option 2)

Immunization Clinic #1/GCC -Wednesday, October 1^st, 5p.m.-6:30p.m.

Sleep & Luggage Simulation

**Everyone must choose one of the three options for the Sleep & Luggage Simulation. Team Leaders will need to let Jeanna know which Simulation their team members plan to attend by Friday, September 12^th.

*Friday, October 10^th -Sunday, October 12^th (Option 1)

· Friday, October 10^th-sleep on the floor

· Saturday, October 11^th-meet at GCC at 8:30a.m. for 2^nd Saturday. After serving at 2^nd Saturday go to lunch as a team and then go to Potato Creek for the Luggage Simulation (will end between 3p.m.-4p.m.). Meet back at GCC for the 7p.m. service. Sleep on the floor Saturday night.

*Friday, November 7-Sunday, November 9^th (Option 2)

· Friday, November 7^th-sleep on the floor

· Saturday, November 8^th -meet at GCC at 8:30a.m. for 2^nd Saturday. After serving at 2^nd Saturday go to lunch as a team and then go to Potato Creek for the Luggage Simulation (will end between 3p.m.-4p.m.). Meet back at GCC for the 7p.m. service. Sleep on the floor Saturday night.

*Friday, December 12-Sunday, December 14^th (Option 3)

· Friday, December 12^th-sleep on the floor

· Saturday, December 13^th-meet at GCC at 8:30a.m. for 2^nd Saturday. After serving at 2^nd Saturday go to lunch as a team and then go to Potato Creek for the Luggage Simulation (will end between 3p.m.-4p.m.). Meet back at GCC for the 7p.m. service. Sleep on the floor Saturday night.

Passports & Visa Applications Due to Jeanna Tripp; as well as GCC Polo shirt sizes for your team-Monday, October 20^th

Partial Support Due ($2000)-Monday, November 3^rd

Immunization Clinic #2/GCC -Wednesday, November 5^th, 5p.m.-6:30p.m. #2/GCC

Full Support Due ($3000 + cost of any immunizations)-Monday, December 1^st

Financial Updates (Team Members can expect to receive financial updates on the following dates (I will copy the Team Leaders on each of these e-mails):

• Tuesday, October 7
• Tuesday, October 21
• Tuesday, November 4
• Tuesday, November 11
• Tuesday, November 18
• Tuesday, November 25
• Monday, December 1

Water Team Recon...

For those of you who are going on the December Water Team, you will be able to see a brief glimpse of what one of the villages where you will be working looks like. This village is called Kallavai, and it currently has between 65 - 75 families (300+) people in it.

Online Giving!!!

Crew! Wanted to let you know that we will be adding a great new feature to this team's blog! It will be the ability to direct supporters to this site so that they can give on-line through the following link: http://www.gccwired.com/missiontrips , or by just clicking here when they come to this post. You can also send that link to your supporters or friends via e-mail (how cool is that!?!?)

Once they get to the link, they will be able to specify you as the person they want to give to, and our internal systems will track their contribution from there, as well as automatically ascribe it to you. Later, you will see this show up in your support report, and can know exactly how much you have raised and where you are in the giving process. Our hope is that this will simplify things considerably as well as it will minimize the paperwork, stamps, return address labels, etc. that you may currently be using. We hope that this will help everyone (you, your supporters, our Accounting Teams, etc), and make things WAY easier, and all you have to do is direct people to this blog address to get started.

It will also help them to start thinking about coming here for information about you and the teams as we will be blogging everything from training to prep, travel and on-field activity. If you have questions about this process, or need help with it, please let us know through comments here on this post.

Welcome to the GCC India (Dec '08 - Jan '09) Team Blog!

Hi there! This blog will track the training and mission of people traveling from Granger Community Church to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ in Tamilnadu, Southern India, during our July - August '08 operational "window". In this window, three teams will be mobilized to aid church planters in a number of Southern Indian villages to do the following:

* Justice - Justice issues have become a pervasive issue in at least two of the villages where we will be working in '08. In one instance, there is a significant population of bonded child labor surrounding a brick factory, and in another, there is a prevalent "sex for work" scheme where young women are only able to acquire jobs to support their families if they are willing to sleep with the factory foremen. GCC teams mobilized in these fields will partner with International Justice Mission to provide "after care" for adults and children who have been liberated from the kinds of scenarios described above.

* Water - Clean water or issues related to water availability are major concerns. In these contexts, the teams will be able to follow up with contracted preparatory field work to significantly help the villages. Examples of this might include contracting to have a well drilled, but then building the taps and servers from the well when they get to the field, as well as train the people how to repair the taps themselves.

* Construction - In many villages, there is a complete lack of understanding for how to do basic home repair and maintenance (hey, i can relate... i can't even fix the handle on my kitchen drawer! I'm definitely NOT "Tool Time Tim"). This team will bundle with Indian families to both teach about ongoing repair and maintenance as well as partner with the families and church members to do the rehab as well.

* Technical - There are several “basic engineering” issues that have surfaced in many of the villages. For example, many people have gas stoves that are very simple in construction, but that when they break or malfunction, have no idea how to repair or maintain. They ran a “test” 2nd Saturday project for this issue and that people in the villages lined up in droves to have church members fix their stoves free of charge. It was a phenomenal opportunity to increase the church’s exposure as well as serve the community, and that they had a phenomenal opportunity to share the love of Jesus with people as they asked, “why are you doing this?” Similar kinds of issues could involve basic electrical work or plumbing. Most of these issues could be “learned on the field”, particularly with people who are already engineering or mechanically inclined, and would be hugely beneficial in a variety of contexts.

We hope that you will stick with us as we travel and engage the training process along the way!

All for One!
-"Samurai" Jack Magruder