This one week class is devoted to learning what you need to know to survive in the event things go wrong and disaster strikes, either personal or global. Scripture says that during the end times there will be 64 life-threatening events to threaten mankind including, but not limited to, fire, flood, famine, and plague. Even if these aren't the end times, all you have to do is turn on the TV or read a newspaper to hear some city or town in the US was burned out or flooded. So, this can help you NOW.
Survival is more than rhetoric, slogans, running around the woods with a rifle and bragging about what you'd do if they came for you. It's a commitment and way of life. You need to know what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how to do it - each and every day you'll have to make such decisions. You ask most people what their plans for the future are, not even mentioning disaster or the end days, and you get a series of responses from "I haven't given it any thought," to "God will take care of me and mine," to "When it happens, it happens, and I'll worry about it then," to the ever popular "I don't have to worry about the end times... I'm leaving in the Rapture." Let's try this on for size. Last month the US economy collapsed, last week the dikes on your local river burst, your house is underwater, there's no food to be found, the government's not coming in to pass out money and food, and the Rapture occurred in December, 1996. You haven't eaten for a week. What now? This part of the class includes a list of the 64 life-threatening disasters from Scripture and what to do to survive each of them. It also includes information on what you need to store for such a rainy day, where to store it, and how to store it. You'll learn to plan for the future, taking any contingencies into account. If you're on a floodplain, plan for floods. If you're in Seattle, plan for tsunami or volcanic eruptions. Each person will make a list of the most likely local disasters, most likely national or global ones, and formulate a step-by-step plan for dealing with each.
Subsistence is the second part of this class, and is equally important. Using our hypothetical flood as an example, it's two months later, your house isn't underwater anymore, but there's still no government money, no local job market, and winter is only four months off. It's decision time. You need to know what to do to stay alive after the immediate emergency, which is as or more important than surviving the emergency. What good does it do you to survive a nuclear attack if you die of starvation or a plague four long, miserable months later because you didn't have any food or shelter? This part of the class includes such basic items as planning a diet, storing and rotating food (bet you didn't know you can't long-term store tomatoes in cans), canning food including meat (Jackie's the only person we know who cans meat regularly), butchering animals, dehydrating food, planning on how much you need to store and what you need to store... we could go on all day. Let's just say that you'll learn what you need to know to start picking up the pieces of your life after a disaster.
In Scripture, there's a parable that fits this scenario, that of the wise and the foolish virgins. The wise virgins went and bought oil for their lamps and conserved it so that when the bridegroom came they were ready. The foolish virgins didn't get any extra oil and fell asleep, so when the bridegroom came they weren't ready, and their lamps were empty. They asked the other for help and were told that if they shared, no one would have enough. It's that way in a real life disaster... if you can't stay alive, the odds are your neighbor isn't going to share what little he has just so both of you can die. We're not saying you're due for a disaster next week, next month, or, even, next year, but you never know when one will come knocking at your door. Don't be like one of the foolish virgins. Do something. Learn to can a cow.