Student Trainee Judy Painter grimly whacks off chicken’s head with machete as part of assignment.
Every summer a group of student missionary trainees from Ameri can schools scrambles down the ramp of a Q-line DC-3 in Havana and travels to a 33-acre farm in the heart of Cuba to tackle mission work in the raw. They play horns and preach in sleepy pueblos, kill and dress chickens, bake yeast bread and can some fruit or jam. They observe the work of native pastors and other missionaries. In classes three hours a day four days a week for two months the young people study Spanish, survival techniques for the tropics, cook ing, building and elementary medicine under the watchful eye of supervisors employed by Practical Missionary Training, an inter denominational, cooperative missionary agency with headquarters in Fullerton, Calif. They live in homes occupied the rest of the year by PMT ’s on-the-field staff which maintains the station. Practical train ing is available also in Mexico and Haiti. Total cost for Cuba and Mexico is $350 and for Haiti, $400. This real-life experience is winnowing out the tenderfoots and saving mission boards dishonorable dischargees because of broken health, spiritual defeat, incompatibility, inability to grasp a new language or adjust to a new culture and various other reasons. For a few the summer sojourn waves them away from persuing foreign mission work. But for others it increases their eagerness and equips them well to don the armor of the Lord and go abroad to give out the gospel that alone can deliver lands from error’s chain. Photo Story by Ed Oglesby
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