"simple living" is not so simple!

So, how was our two weeks of "simple living"?  It was challenging but so much fun!  

Like I described in my last blogpost, our class called Simple Living was to "expose us to living with less than we are used to."  So like, we could only cook from scratch, we couldn't use any appliances, and we had to do lights out from 8pm to 7am every day.  And for those two weeks, our classes were chock full of practical skills.  It was a very fun couple weeks of classes!!  

We learned how to navigate using coordinates and a compass (which is waaaaaay more difficult than it sounds, believe me!!)

We did a supply buying simulation (which is very normal for tribal missionaries--they will order their supplies via a supply buyer, and the supply buyer gets the groceries and supplies for the tribal missionaries.  Then the pilot will fly the supplies into the tribe.  So this is how it works in the tribe, and we just did a simulation here in our classes).

Here is our group, ordering our supplies through a walkie talkie to the other team...

Nathan was one of the supply buyers from our team!  He went to the store with his friend David to buy all the supplies that were ordered by another team.  I think he only made one mistake--one student ordered a trial size hair spray and Nathan accidentally got her some shaving cream instead.  Lol...I guess that's what happens when you send two men ;)

The guys had a lot of classes on building, plumbing, and practical skills like that.  However, it was optional for the ladies to go to those.  We could either go to those building classes, or we could go to electives on cooking and things like that.  I chose the cooking classes :)  We learned things like how to do canning, how to use a pressure cooker, and  how to take care of nasty bugs like cockroaches.

We also had classes on bread baking...

We learned how to make some foods from certain countries...talk about a fun class!  We just cooked food together...and then we ate it!  It doesn't get much more fun than that!

We learned to make tortillas...

One of the days we got to go off campus to a staff couple's house.  They taught us to "bake" over a fire.  So cool!  We made pizza and cinnamon rolls, all in cast iron skillets over a fire.  It was so good, too.

All the ladies who were there that morning :)  I love these ladies so much!

The pizza that Nathan and I made!

Outside of the actual class times, we had "simple living" at home, too.  Our kids enjoyed the lights out after 8:00 :)

We did a LOT of cooking!  Nathan made homemade pizza...

Layla was my little helper :)

I baked homemade bread for the very first time!  I know, that is so crazy considering I am 32 years old.  Pretty sad, right?  But I am happy to report that I tried it and it isn't as hard or scary as I thought it would be!  I will be practicing lots and lots, because in the tribe that is the only way we will be able to have bread--to make it myself (or teach my daughters to make it!).

So Layla and Daisy thought it was the coolest thing ever, to knead that dough!

We could not believe how much it rose!  I think I may have done something wrong...oh well, I will keep practicing!

The finished product!  If you can't tell by this picture, the loaf was MASSIVE.  I was kind of proud of myself :)

We had a 24 hour period that was supposed to simulate "dry season"--in which we could not use any water in our house at all.  If we needed water, it needed to be hauled from the "river" (aka the washhouse down the hill).  Ha!  Needless to say, we were soooo much more thankful for our running water after those 24 hours!

Then we experienced 2 1/2 days of "rainy season"...where we could use NO electricity at all.  The evenings are pretty depressing when it gets dark at suppertime!  But this was to simulate rainy season in which the clouds prevented our solar panels from generating power.

Well, there ya have it...probably more than you wanted to know about our Simple Living class :)  There was also another big part of that class though--which was our 4 day camping trip.  I will blog about that next :)

This Simple Living class made me appreciate modern conveniences, and appreciate and pray for those missionaries around the world who deal with this stuff daily!  It is a bit sobering to realize that our future will hold all of this.  It really makes us realize that we will be daily trusting God to give us joy, no matter what our circumstances are!