I made it to Phoenix with no problems, even managing to meet anther intern for FH on my flight. It was great to have someone to talk to on the flight over and to compare expectations. It was especially nice since we flew over cloud cover almost the entire way and so I didn't even get to see much of the country. And I'd been hoping for some real mountains.

Phoenix is hot. And flat. And really spread out. I think someone tried to build a real city in the desert (that is, one with buildings more than 2 stories tall) but once they had, it got so hot that it all melted and spread out flat. Everything is new and everything looks the same. Not that it's ugly, the browns and tans and burnt reds with the random cacti and palm trees is definitely beautiful. But it's beautiful in a look-don't-touch, 106 degrees outside kind of way.

We had our first day of training today. It was definitely good, at times inspiring, but generally just further built up my excitement and anticipation for getting to the Philippines. There are 10 international interns, 7 heading to Rwanda, 1 to Indonesia, and 1 Bangladesh, and myself, and about 20ish interns who will be based in Phoenix. I say "based" since it sounds like they'll get to do some traveling themselves. Particularly Mark, who "might" be going to Japan on Wednesday since he will be an assistant to the President of FH who is in Japan. Nothing like being told you might be on the other side of the world in 2 days. Or not.

It's definitely been a blessing to chat with the other interns, particularly those heading to other countries and the other 2 going on their own. And it was great to hear that I'm not that only one with a vague job description and little idea of what I'll actually be doing on a day to day basis. But even more than that, it was encouraging to hear that our job descriptions are vague on purpose. After all, who knows what God might have planned for us, why give us false expectations? Not to mention that the field offices are waiting to meet us and get to know us before they will know what ways they think they can best put us to use. I mean, I've spent the last two summers trying to get hundreds of teenagers and their youth pastors to be flexible, to not worry so much about what they're doing tomorrow as their schedule had probably changed, and had about a 50% chance of changing again. Time for a little of my own advice, no?

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the day was lunch, eating with Jim, a Rwanda intern, Mark (the aforementioned presidents asst.), Heidi the Bangladesh intern, and Dave the Indonesia intern. As we sat down Julie (one of the internship coordinators) brought over this gentleman named Mike who basically has started FH's study abroad program called Go-Ed. "Hey everyone, this is Mike. Dave, he lives in Singapore about half the year, and you've got a 24 hour layover there, you should chat." What followed was one of the most amazing conversations I've ever witnessed. Mike straight up offered his place so Dave could crash there and quickly began scrawling taxi directions, good places to eat, contacts to make, email addresses, and most importantly, how to get to the night safari (apparently, a must-see) on a scrap of paper. Absolutely incredible. I think I like this place already.