Oz Death!

So I arrived back from Oz Quest on Wednesday evening and man what a crazy few days it was! A little background to what Oz Quest is and why its on the Discipleship Training school programme.

Its a three day adventure/torture trip where you are supposed to be physically/mentally/psychologically/emotionally/spiritually/sexually challenged. Ok not sexually but all the other ones! We left on Sunday evening and as Bear Grylls would say, it was relentless!!

We spend three days living in the wild in some forest and had to undertake a number of tasks. As a reward we could win money to buy our daily food. If we didn't win money, we had to go without eating. This was the biggest challenge for me because after a 22km hike with a backpack on back up mountainous terrain, I needed to eat. All we were able to get was half a tin of tuna. The people running Oz quest are supposed to treat you horribly throughout the duration of the trip and so its easy to get frustrated. We do daily punishments for lots of different things like being late or if at any time we leave our team members. Any distance more than 2 metres counts as leaving your team. You do all your toilet business with your team members and there is no toilets to use. We had quite a few interesting toilet stories over the three days.

We were awoken during the night after only 1.5 hours sleep to go on a hike and then back to bed for 3-4 more hours and then up again for punishment! It was exhausting and physically draining.

Quite a few members of the team were physically sick throughout. A few suffered dehydration, others collapsed from exhaustion, and others vomited the three days straight, such was the level of intensity. I had a bit of a fever the first night but was ok the next day and generally loved the whole experience.

For a few challenges we were put on the spot and given 5 minutes to prepare a 15 minute sermon and then deliver it to the rest of the group. I quite enjoyed this and when we go on outreach some tribes will expect us to preach on the spot so it was good practice.

So what was the point?

Well I guess, when you spend a few days living in close quarters with a team and learn each others strengths and weaknesses, you grow closer and have a greater understanding of what makes people react the way they do. We had a few arguments, a few tears and very little sleep but once it was all over, we knew each other so well.

We will be going on outreach to Cambodia in a little less than 2 months time. We will never experience anything as tough as oz quest during that time but some things will be the same and so we need to be prepared. We also learned how to deal with our frustrations and how to help each other along when people are struggling. I cant wait to go on outreach with my team. I love the different characteristics and strengths that people will bring to the team.

I really enjoyed my Oz quest challenge and would love the opportunity to do it again sometime, but right now Im just eager to get to Cambodia!