A Whole New World

This one might be a long one, so let’s strap in and go for a magic carpet ride.  Two days ago, we went to Disney University and were enrolled in an 8 hour “Traditions” class (aka Disney orientation).  It was a lot of fun.  We learned about Disney’s history and procedures, had our class interrupted by a surprise visit from Mickey himself, and even went to the Magic Kingdom and the tunnels underneath the park.  If you didn’t know before, for efficiency, the Cast Members at Magic Kingdom use this set of underground passageways to get around the park without “ruining the story” (basically the reason why you don’t see Jungle Cruise skippers walking around Fantasyland or Tomorrowland).  It was SO cool!  I’ll be getting to use these tunnels all summer!

Also at Traditions we got our official nametags

as well as our Cast Member IDs.  We obviously use these IDs for identification purposes, but they also act as our admission to the theme parks.  So with a free afternoon/evening and a freshly printed ID, what else is there to do except go to the Magic Kingdom!  We were there from about 4:30 til 12:30 (the park was open until 1AM), and we all had a blast!  Rode some Space and Splash Mountain, met Mickey Mouse and 3 of the princesses, and saw the Electrical Parade and the Wishes fireworks spectacular.  It was the first time for one of the girls in my group, and it was just the coolest thing seeing her reactions to all of the rides, shows, and Disney magic.  It really was a whole new world for her.  Here’s a pic of all of us with Mickey and Minnie.

After coming back really late, I crashed hard.  Yesterday, we got to do amazing things too!  We visited the national headquarters of Campus Crusade for Christ.  Yup, it’s here in Orlando.  It was pretty sweet, nbd.  We got a tour and a presentation about the “Jesus film” project.  Basically, they made a 2 hour movie about the life of Jesus and have translated it into over 1000 different languages, and they have mission trips where people will go to different countries and show it in that native language.  I think that’s really neat.  Although maybe I’m just an ignorant American, but I had no idea that there were that many languages!  And it’s not even in all languages…yet.

Then for dinner/afternoon we went over to the national director of Campus Crusade’s house for socializing, a BBQ, and swimming.  Nbd again.  It was really fun, and they encouraged us and shared with us part of their life stories. 

First day of training tomorrow!  Prayers welcomed!