This post is part of a series on my adventure going to a year-long training program in the remote mountains of North Carolina. To start at the beginning, check out the first post in the series here: Adaptation And The Master’s Mission (Part 1: Initiation)

 

First Impressions

…After being accepted, I was excited but also had to come to the realization that in less than a month, I had to move to a place that I had never even visited. I didn’t know anyone there. I was unsure of exact living conditions. I didn’t even know what the curriculum entailed. I was jumping into something I had much less knowledge in than I originally thought.

But I was committed. I am not someone to back down from something when it becomes scary or uncertain. I was ready for the adventure.

One month later, I packed my car with most of my belongings, enough meals for three months, and started my 1,000-mile drive from the house I had known my entire life.

This was one of the very first views that greeted me as I drove onto the campus.

The driveway alone was a 15-minute drive, but the views once you are there are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen.

Once you get within 30 minutes of the campus, you lose all phone service. When I arrived, I had no clue where I was going. I drove around to one of the two buildings I saw and a truck chased me down from behind.

It was the moment of truth. Was I in the right place or was I about to be shot by some mountain native?

To my great relief, It was the Executive Director.

I expressed my gratitude for accepting me into the program and instantly went into quick learning mode as he gave me a tour of the huge campus. After the tour, he showed me where my cabin was and informed me that service the next morning was at the church at the bottom of the mountain, and then he was off. I was left at a cabin in the middle of the woods. No cell service, no electricity, a random barn with a couple of horses in the valley below me, and I wasn’t even sure which roads to take to get down from the cabin.

The adventure had indeed begun.

In the evening, a 27-year-old cabinmate joined me. I knew right off the bat that this was going to be an interesting year. My cabinmate and myself were very different kinds of people. I was more the “go get stuff done” guy, and he was more the “let’s analyze for a couple hours to see what needs to be done” guy.

Especially with him being almost 8 years older, I had to figure out how to balance friendship, while still respecting him as my elder. We laid out rules at the very beginning of what we both expected from the other person as far as upkeep of the cabin, and in the first night alone, we had discussed everything from who our parents were to our biggest fears and struggles.

I heard so many stories of people having issues and miscommunications with their roommates, so I wanted to start this friendship with as much open communication as possible. While we still had our struggles — as do any two people living in the same space for an extended period of time — we learned early on the importance of being honest with the other person and defusing conflict before it overcame us.

We rode together the next morning to church, and this was when I started to come alive. Almost everyone who lived on the mountain attended this church, so it was a great place to meet them and make some good first impressions. While it can be incredibly nerve-racking meeting others in new settings, it’s something that I love to do. In my mind, the second and third interactions are always harder than the first.

The first one you have no reputation to risk and the topics of conversation are completely wide-open. By being the person to initiate the conversation, you assert yourself as confident and able. It doesn’t matter if you are as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, all they see is someone who is friendly and open to conversation.

I met every single person who lived on the mountain that day, and while I forgot many of their names, I remembered every face and at least one thing about them. This goes a long way when having that second and third conversation and you are able to remember a specific detail about what they have previously said.

These first impressions were critical in my adaptation to this new world I found myself in.

Check out Part 3: The First Month to hear the next part of the story.