Last Tuesday, November 13, the students at the Université Paul-Valery, Montpellier III voted to officially go on strike in response to some reforms Président Sarkozy is making to the French university system. They held some general assemblies and then barricaded off the entrance gates and all of the building entrances with piles of tables and chairs. They then guard the entrances to ensure that no one gets on campus or into their classrooms. In response to this, as is traditional in strike situations, the president of the university cancelled all classes for a week to ensure that no one got hurt trying to get to class and to make sure that no property was damaged (aside from all the graffiti all over the place inspiring everyone in their strike efforts).
Usually, even when the University goes on strike (which happens about once every two years. If you've never gone on strike for something, you're not actually French. My friend's hostmom said when she was a kid her middle school went on strike. That's right, a bunch of 11-year-olds.), the IEFE, the international student program, still goes on as normal, because we're not actually involved in any of the politics of the strike. But the president decided to go ahead and shut us down too, for security reasons, I believe. Which would mean no class for a week.
So we had no class on Wednesday, which didn't affect me anyway, because I never have class on Wednesdays. But I got an email from one of my teachers saying that the situation had changed somewhat, and they were restarting up classes for us international students. Somewhat disappointed that we didn't get a week-long vacation like the regular French students, we went back to class on Thursday.
Friday morning (at 8.30 in the morning, no less), we got to campus to find out the police had barred it off and weren't letting anyone in. Apparently about 20 students were occupying campus and the president decided enough was enough, so he had the police come in to get them off campus, which is a big deal to everyone on strike, because it's like the police have now invaded their sacred ground. The police have evacuated the 20 students and shut down campus to try and avoid any backlash from other students. They don't want a riot. Normally I guess they just let the students have campus indefinitely (a few years ago they went on strike for most of the semester), but this time they decided they want to try and keep the students from taking over campus again. I'm not sure if this means whether they've dismantled all the barricades or not.
About 20 minutes later the directrice of my program called to make sure that we were okay and not stuck in the middle of anything on campus. She said now we're not sure what's going on with class. Some students may rebel against the police being on campus and things could get pretty serious, so the president may just decide to keep everyone off campus, or they could have us start classes back up this afternoon. We're not really sure what's going to happen. Hopefully not a riot though.
I figure I'll just stay away from campus and see what happens. Apparently these things occasionally get pretty ugly. This strike isn't supposed to last that long, and I don't think the movement is that strong, but the president of the university is taking a pretty strong stance, and Sarkozy has said he's not giving in about his reforms, so we'll just see.
The trains are also on strike, because of retirement reform, which means instead of it's thousands of daily trains, France has only hundreds. This Tuesday all of the civil servants are going to go on strike, which will affect trains, trams, buses, and any other government job, such as public pools, libraries, the post office, etc. Pretty much everything will be shut down. And a bunch of the pre-school teachers are going on strike next Tuesday, too. It's getting kind of crazy over here. Everyone is striking. Maybe I should find something to strike about. Maybe I'll go on strike over the strikes. ;)
16 November 2007
07 November 2007
Toussaints: Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, Normandy
November 1, All Saint's Day, is a national holiday in France (but they don't celebrate Halloween), and my professor canceled class for that Friday, so my friend Heather and I left Tuesday night, Oct 30, for Berlin, then went to Hamburg, Paris, and Normandy, then got back Monday morning.
I loved Germany! Berlin is a beautiful city, and I love how full of history it is. We visited the largest section of remnants of the Berlin Wall, which they've turned into an art gallery by having a bunch of people paint things along it. Contrary to popular opinion, the Wall is actually two walls, one on the East side and one on the West, separated by a few hundred yards of empty space. Most of the Wall was destroyed, but they've marked in cobblestone where it used to be all around the city. Since the area in between the walls also started growing things and got somewhat overgrown right after Wall fell, the city is also endeavoring to turn all of that space into green space, with walking and biking paths and gardens, etc, all across the city. It's actually pretty cool.
Berlin is a gorgeous city, very clean. I liked it a lot. Heather and I did a lot of walking around, not really looking for anything specific. We went to the IMAX theater and saw the movie Trade (in English). I thought it was very well done. It's about sex trafficking in the United States. Definitely a very intense movie, and one I wouldn't take your children to see, but it brings up some of the hidden crimes in the States, the ones no one hears about but that are becoming more and more common.
We also went to the Berlin zoo, where I got to see lots of fun animals. It was very exciting.
Next we went to Hamburg, where we once again didn't really do much except walk around and look at it be pretty. We wanted our trip to be kind of leisurely and relaxing, not running from monument to monument or anything like that, so that's what we did.
Then we went to Paris, where we went to see a ballet at the Opéra Garnier. It was actualy two 40-minute ballets, both of them modern, and the first one was pretty good, but the second one was really cool. I love watching people dance. Ballet is easily my favorite form. It's so gorgeous, I nearly start drooling whenever I see a good ballet dancer. I was really glad I got to go see one in Paris. The Opéra Garnier is a gorgeous old opera house too. It looks like something out of a movie. We were in these little six-person boxes, all done up in red velvet and gilded everything. We had good seats too. It was awesome.
We then went to Normandy for a day and toured Pointe du Hoc, Omaha beach, the American museum, and the German and American cemeteries. It was really neat. Pointe du Hoc is still filled with craters from all the bombs and everything, and you can see the nearly-sheer cliffs the Rangers had to climb to get to the German cannons in an attempt to incapacitate them. Omaha beach is huge, five miles long, and at low tide you can still see where the Americans built an artificial port in the days right after D-day.
The cemeteries were crazy. The American one is the largest land-wise, with 9,000 graves, and it's very impressive. The German one actually affected me more though. It takes up less land, but it's got 21,000 people buried in it, two people for each cross, and being there was very sobering. At least in the American cemetery, you know that each of those people died fighting for freedom, fighting to defend all the people that were unable to defend themselves and were being brutally slaughtered. In the German cemetery, all I could think was that these thousands upon thousands of people died for nothing, fought for nothing. For some maybe it was voluntary, for some maybe they were brainwashed, but when it comes down to it, what were they fighting for? Political power for their homeland? The right to do whatever they wanted, even if it mean slaughtering millions of people they deemed "unworthy"? To prove the superiority of their own race over all others? It's all just vanity, and it took over an entire country. It's astounding, and it's so sad to think of the millions of people that were killed by it, both in the concentration camps and during the war, Allies and Germans.
Overall, the trip went really well, and we were glad we got to go. We loved Germany and northern France was gorgeous, even though it was starting to get kind of cold. It's our last big trip, so we're glad it was a good one!
I loved Germany! Berlin is a beautiful city, and I love how full of history it is. We visited the largest section of remnants of the Berlin Wall, which they've turned into an art gallery by having a bunch of people paint things along it. Contrary to popular opinion, the Wall is actually two walls, one on the East side and one on the West, separated by a few hundred yards of empty space. Most of the Wall was destroyed, but they've marked in cobblestone where it used to be all around the city. Since the area in between the walls also started growing things and got somewhat overgrown right after Wall fell, the city is also endeavoring to turn all of that space into green space, with walking and biking paths and gardens, etc, all across the city. It's actually pretty cool.
Berlin is a gorgeous city, very clean. I liked it a lot. Heather and I did a lot of walking around, not really looking for anything specific. We went to the IMAX theater and saw the movie Trade (in English). I thought it was very well done. It's about sex trafficking in the United States. Definitely a very intense movie, and one I wouldn't take your children to see, but it brings up some of the hidden crimes in the States, the ones no one hears about but that are becoming more and more common.
We also went to the Berlin zoo, where I got to see lots of fun animals. It was very exciting.
Next we went to Hamburg, where we once again didn't really do much except walk around and look at it be pretty. We wanted our trip to be kind of leisurely and relaxing, not running from monument to monument or anything like that, so that's what we did.
Then we went to Paris, where we went to see a ballet at the Opéra Garnier. It was actualy two 40-minute ballets, both of them modern, and the first one was pretty good, but the second one was really cool. I love watching people dance. Ballet is easily my favorite form. It's so gorgeous, I nearly start drooling whenever I see a good ballet dancer. I was really glad I got to go see one in Paris. The Opéra Garnier is a gorgeous old opera house too. It looks like something out of a movie. We were in these little six-person boxes, all done up in red velvet and gilded everything. We had good seats too. It was awesome.
We then went to Normandy for a day and toured Pointe du Hoc, Omaha beach, the American museum, and the German and American cemeteries. It was really neat. Pointe du Hoc is still filled with craters from all the bombs and everything, and you can see the nearly-sheer cliffs the Rangers had to climb to get to the German cannons in an attempt to incapacitate them. Omaha beach is huge, five miles long, and at low tide you can still see where the Americans built an artificial port in the days right after D-day.
The cemeteries were crazy. The American one is the largest land-wise, with 9,000 graves, and it's very impressive. The German one actually affected me more though. It takes up less land, but it's got 21,000 people buried in it, two people for each cross, and being there was very sobering. At least in the American cemetery, you know that each of those people died fighting for freedom, fighting to defend all the people that were unable to defend themselves and were being brutally slaughtered. In the German cemetery, all I could think was that these thousands upon thousands of people died for nothing, fought for nothing. For some maybe it was voluntary, for some maybe they were brainwashed, but when it comes down to it, what were they fighting for? Political power for their homeland? The right to do whatever they wanted, even if it mean slaughtering millions of people they deemed "unworthy"? To prove the superiority of their own race over all others? It's all just vanity, and it took over an entire country. It's astounding, and it's so sad to think of the millions of people that were killed by it, both in the concentration camps and during the war, Allies and Germans.
Overall, the trip went really well, and we were glad we got to go. We loved Germany and northern France was gorgeous, even though it was starting to get kind of cold. It's our last big trip, so we're glad it was a good one!
17 October 2007
London
This past weekend a group of us went to London for Saturday and Sunday. It was a lot of fun! We flew there Saturday morning, then checked in and ate lunch at our hostel/pub. I had to register for classes for next semester at 3.15 London time, so I found an internet cafe and got that out of the way. Then we just kind of wandered a while, figured out the Tube, went by Buckingham Palace, etc, then Caitlin and I had to head back to the hostel to get ready to go see LES MISERABLES that night. I was so excited!
Les Mis was awesome! I've read the book (multiple times) and know the music inside out, so it was great to finally see the play as it was meant to be seen. I tried not to cry too much. It was soooo good. Unfortunately, because of Les Mis, I had to miss the France-England rugby game (semi-finals of the World Cup, which is being hosted in France, and even partly in Montpellier). At intermission people were checking the score and France was winning, but when we got out of Les Mis we learned that we'd ended up losing, which was sad. Oh well.
Sunday we just wandered around and were tourists. Saw all the exciting things in London. We actually had good weather: partly cloudy, no rain, didn't even really need a jacket except late at night. Walking around and sightseeing is fun.
Monday morning we got up at 2am, caught a cab at 2.45, caught a bus at 3.30, got to the airport at 5, caught our plane at 6, and got back to France at 9. I had been planning on going to my classes that day, but by the time my hostdad picked us up at the airport at 9.30, we were all exhuasted and I just went home and slept til 6 that night. Also, my hostdad taught me the French phrase for cutting class. We had crepes for dinner. It was yummy.
Yay England!
Les Mis was awesome! I've read the book (multiple times) and know the music inside out, so it was great to finally see the play as it was meant to be seen. I tried not to cry too much. It was soooo good. Unfortunately, because of Les Mis, I had to miss the France-England rugby game (semi-finals of the World Cup, which is being hosted in France, and even partly in Montpellier). At intermission people were checking the score and France was winning, but when we got out of Les Mis we learned that we'd ended up losing, which was sad. Oh well.
Sunday we just wandered around and were tourists. Saw all the exciting things in London. We actually had good weather: partly cloudy, no rain, didn't even really need a jacket except late at night. Walking around and sightseeing is fun.
Monday morning we got up at 2am, caught a cab at 2.45, caught a bus at 3.30, got to the airport at 5, caught our plane at 6, and got back to France at 9. I had been planning on going to my classes that day, but by the time my hostdad picked us up at the airport at 9.30, we were all exhuasted and I just went home and slept til 6 that night. Also, my hostdad taught me the French phrase for cutting class. We had crepes for dinner. It was yummy.
Yay England!
Life
Well, apparently I'm really bad at this.
My life since Italy:
Been taking classes at UPV. Mondays I have class from 8.30 to 4.30, Tuesday from 8.30 to 3.30, no class on Wednesdays, Thursdays, 1.00 to 4.00, and Fridays from 9 to 10.30. Overall not too bad, though the 11.5 hours of class on Mondays and Tuesdays wipes me out. But fortunately I have Wednesdays to recover.
Classes are fine. They vary between grammar, oral comprehension, oral expression, written comprehension, and written expression. And I also have a lit class and a civ class. Overall pretty easy. I have virtually no reading and not much homework besides that, so I have a lot less work than I usually do at UNC. Kind of nice to have a semester off from that stress.
Yes, everything is in French.
The French really do say "Oh la la" all the time. And the number of "la"'s is variable. The most I've heard at once was like 14, from my hostmom. I don't remember what she was oh la la -ing at, but it must have been pretty intense.
My life mostly consists of going to class every day, eating dinner at night with my hostparents, and either going out with friends at night (to a movie, dancing, etc) or going to the internet cafe to see if anyone's online. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I can tell my French is improving, even though I know I won't be fluent when I leave. It's still nice to be able to speak much more easily and to understand a lot more easily. I do like speaking in French, and it's fun to know that I can live in a different language if I ever need/want to.
My friend Taylar and I found a church we like! It's a "Evangelist Protest Reformed" Church. I'm not really sure what that means over here, but we like the church. It's about 30-40 people, and Sunday we actually sang "He's got the whole world in His hands" in French during the service. It was awesome. We're going to go back this Sunday. :) I was happy to have finally found a church we can stick with.
My life since Italy:
Been taking classes at UPV. Mondays I have class from 8.30 to 4.30, Tuesday from 8.30 to 3.30, no class on Wednesdays, Thursdays, 1.00 to 4.00, and Fridays from 9 to 10.30. Overall not too bad, though the 11.5 hours of class on Mondays and Tuesdays wipes me out. But fortunately I have Wednesdays to recover.
Classes are fine. They vary between grammar, oral comprehension, oral expression, written comprehension, and written expression. And I also have a lit class and a civ class. Overall pretty easy. I have virtually no reading and not much homework besides that, so I have a lot less work than I usually do at UNC. Kind of nice to have a semester off from that stress.
Yes, everything is in French.
The French really do say "Oh la la" all the time. And the number of "la"'s is variable. The most I've heard at once was like 14, from my hostmom. I don't remember what she was oh la la -ing at, but it must have been pretty intense.
My life mostly consists of going to class every day, eating dinner at night with my hostparents, and either going out with friends at night (to a movie, dancing, etc) or going to the internet cafe to see if anyone's online. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I can tell my French is improving, even though I know I won't be fluent when I leave. It's still nice to be able to speak much more easily and to understand a lot more easily. I do like speaking in French, and it's fun to know that I can live in a different language if I ever need/want to.
My friend Taylar and I found a church we like! It's a "Evangelist Protest Reformed" Church. I'm not really sure what that means over here, but we like the church. It's about 30-40 people, and Sunday we actually sang "He's got the whole world in His hands" in French during the service. It was awesome. We're going to go back this Sunday. :) I was happy to have finally found a church we can stick with.
19 September 2007
Italy, part one
We took the 15h11 train from Montpellier to Nice, from whence we were supposed to take the night train, which left at 21h07, to Florence. About 45 minutes after we left Montpellier, our train broke down in this little middle-of-nowhere train station in Arles. For two hours. We took turns leaving someone with our stuff and taking walks outside, all the while trying to think where we were going to sleep that night since we were going to miss the train to Florence. Once the train finally got going again around 18h10, the conductor came over the loudspeaker and said the night trains to Rome and Venice were going to wait for us. That was fantastic for us, since we were going to Florence, but we were confused since according to the train schedule there was no train to Rome. We wallowed in our confusion for the remaining hours of the train ride, got to Nice around 22h00, and lo and behold, there was the train to Rome and Venice, but alas no train to Florence. We started dejectedly wandering off, now trying to think of where we were going to sleep and how we were going to get to Florence the next day. As one last resort we checked our train number and realized that, though it didn't say Florence anywhere in the terminal or on the train, the train to Rome and Venice was indeed the our train. By this time the conductor was blowing his whistle to signal the departure of the train; everyone had already boarded. We frantically ran up to him, blabbering in French about how this was our train and we needed to get on it. We ran to the nearest door (which was fortunately the car next to ours) and jumped on board as the train started pulling away. Some nice man who was laready on held the door (which was trying to close) open for us so we could climb on as fast as possible. I wsa pretty sure at least one of us was going to get left behind. We made it to our room. At this point it's like 22h30, none of us have eaten since lunch, and there's no food car on the train, so we split a bottle of wine for dinner, then went to bed.
But we made it to Florence! Florence is gorgeous and I could have spent our entire week there. We saw some amazing churches and cathedrals, including the one that had the preserved body of one of the archbishops of Florence from the 1400s on display. The priest in there was the cutest little old man ever and spoke to us for a few minutes in simple Italian (most of which we were able to get the gist of from French) and some broken English. If I lived in Florence, that's the church I would attend: I loved it.
While we were there we also saw Michelangelo's David, which was magnificent, and the graves of Michelangelo, Galileo, machiavelli, and Danti, who are all inhumed in the same churched. We walked around Florence a lot and just marveled at how gorgeous it is. We alos found a Mexican restaurant! We were nearly beside ourselves with excitement. France doesn't have any Mexican, and we all sorely missed it. So probably the most exciting thing in Florence was eating Mexican. Go figure.
Updates coming soon on Rome and Venice!
But we made it to Florence! Florence is gorgeous and I could have spent our entire week there. We saw some amazing churches and cathedrals, including the one that had the preserved body of one of the archbishops of Florence from the 1400s on display. The priest in there was the cutest little old man ever and spoke to us for a few minutes in simple Italian (most of which we were able to get the gist of from French) and some broken English. If I lived in Florence, that's the church I would attend: I loved it.
While we were there we also saw Michelangelo's David, which was magnificent, and the graves of Michelangelo, Galileo, machiavelli, and Danti, who are all inhumed in the same churched. We walked around Florence a lot and just marveled at how gorgeous it is. We alos found a Mexican restaurant! We were nearly beside ourselves with excitement. France doesn't have any Mexican, and we all sorely missed it. So probably the most exciting thing in Florence was eating Mexican. Go figure.
Updates coming soon on Rome and Venice!
08 September 2007
I have bruises to prove it
Today we went on our last planned excursion, this one to St-Guilhem-le-Désert. It's this little tiny town all by its lonesome in a mountain valley about an hour from here. It was really really pretty. And what was even more exciting was that we got to go swimming in the Hérault river, which was utterly gorgeous. It was really really clear, and the perfect temperature. Cold when you first got in, but just right after that. Also, the river, since it is in a mountain valley, it's surrounded by cliffs, which makes it perfect for cliff-jumping! So I jumped off a few cliffs. The highest was about 15-20 feet in the air I think. It was a ton of fun, though I did bruise my leg hitting the water. But it was a small price to pay! It felt so good to be in the water, and just to be active. Some friends and I are thinking about getting a membership to the pool and going there once or twice a week, since that will give us something active to do all semester. And my mom just sent me my dance shoes to I can do that as well, so hopefully I'll be able to be pretty active while I'm here. I'm looking forward to that. Yay France!
Also, tomorrow I leave for Italy!
Also, tomorrow I leave for Italy!
07 September 2007
Patriotism
Today on the tram a few of us were talking about patriotism, and we ended up talking about some stuff I hadn't really thought about before. I had mentioned that despite the common perception that American is extremely nationalistic, most Americans really aren't that patriotic. They are, but when I went to Turkey I saw so much more nationalism there than I ever would in the US, so it made me think about how patriotic the average American is, which doesn't seem to be all that much. But then today I was talking to my program director over here and she was talking about how when she went back to visit the States this summer (she's been living in France 15 years), she was surprised at how patriotic they were. She explained that in France you don't see people flying the French flag or playing patriotic songs (such as Proud to be an American in America) all the time or anything like that, that it would be really weird to see that.
So I've come up with a theory on part of why that is, because I like to think about such things. I don't think France is any less patriotic than America is, and perhaps even America isn't any less patriotic than Turkey. I think they just show it different ways. In Europe, you're in very close quarters with a bunch of different countries, so flagrant shows of patriotism or national pride can be viewed as offensive or even aggressive by neighboring countries, whereas in America there's not really anyone close by to challenge us. Thus the French show their patriotism through preserving their culture: they have tons of laws about language and music and all parts of culture, in order to try and keep it as unaffected by foreign cultures as possible.
Here in Europe, your culture is mostly challenged with being swallowed up by the surrounding ones, so it's a fight to keep it alive. In America, we don't have that challenge, so we're free to be flagrant with our flags and our songs, etc. American culture is based on a mix of cultures, essentially built on the flexibility and constant change that comes from having a mélange of people-groups. So change is considered normal, and it's not necessarily your specific accent or mannerism that's as important as showing to others that regardless of your background, you are American. Here you don't need to show anyone you're French; it's through the preservation of the culture through the correctness of your speech, your French mannerisms, etc, that shows your loyalty to your country. It's an interesting discrepancy. Any thoughts?
So I've come up with a theory on part of why that is, because I like to think about such things. I don't think France is any less patriotic than America is, and perhaps even America isn't any less patriotic than Turkey. I think they just show it different ways. In Europe, you're in very close quarters with a bunch of different countries, so flagrant shows of patriotism or national pride can be viewed as offensive or even aggressive by neighboring countries, whereas in America there's not really anyone close by to challenge us. Thus the French show their patriotism through preserving their culture: they have tons of laws about language and music and all parts of culture, in order to try and keep it as unaffected by foreign cultures as possible.
Here in Europe, your culture is mostly challenged with being swallowed up by the surrounding ones, so it's a fight to keep it alive. In America, we don't have that challenge, so we're free to be flagrant with our flags and our songs, etc. American culture is based on a mix of cultures, essentially built on the flexibility and constant change that comes from having a mélange of people-groups. So change is considered normal, and it's not necessarily your specific accent or mannerism that's as important as showing to others that regardless of your background, you are American. Here you don't need to show anyone you're French; it's through the preservation of the culture through the correctness of your speech, your French mannerisms, etc, that shows your loyalty to your country. It's an interesting discrepancy. Any thoughts?
04 September 2007
One week til Italy!
Well, I have one more week of grammar and civ classes, then I have a week off before I start university classes. My friends Sarah and Caitlin and I are going to to leave Sunday morning for Nice, spend the day there, then take the night train to Florence. From there we'll go to Rome, then Venice, then back to Nice, then back home to Montpellier. We'll get back next Sunday afternoon, so it will have been almost exactly a week. We're pretty excited about it.
Aside from that, classes are going well. We have an official wine tasting during our civ class on Wednesday, then our finals for our grammar classes on Saturday before our last excursion. After that we are free from Pré-stage, something we're all pretty excited about. When I get my classes for this semester, I really want to see if I can keep my Fridays free for traveling purposes. This is my list of places I want to visit, in no particular order:
Normandie
London/England
Paris
Barcelona
Dublin
Germany
Austria
I know there are some I'm missing. Any good ideas? I know I probably won't get to go everywhere I want to, but I need to have a full list before I can figure out which ones to prioritize.
Life is going pretty well; I love France, but I wish I could share it with all my friends back home! Email is my main mode of communication, since I have limited internet, so I'd love it if you shoot me an email and I'm trying to get back to people within two to three days.
I miss you guys!
Aside from that, classes are going well. We have an official wine tasting during our civ class on Wednesday, then our finals for our grammar classes on Saturday before our last excursion. After that we are free from Pré-stage, something we're all pretty excited about. When I get my classes for this semester, I really want to see if I can keep my Fridays free for traveling purposes. This is my list of places I want to visit, in no particular order:
Normandie
London/England
Paris
Barcelona
Dublin
Germany
Austria
I know there are some I'm missing. Any good ideas? I know I probably won't get to go everywhere I want to, but I need to have a full list before I can figure out which ones to prioritize.
Life is going pretty well; I love France, but I wish I could share it with all my friends back home! Email is my main mode of communication, since I have limited internet, so I'd love it if you shoot me an email and I'm trying to get back to people within two to three days.
I miss you guys!
01 September 2007
Some recent adventures
Things are going well here! Two weeks of classes are over. This weekend we're going to Avignon. After this next week, I have a week break, so some friends and I are going to travel Italy a little bit. It's gonna be fun times!
Some recent adventures we’ve had:
Dimanche, le 26 août, 2007
After about an hour, the bus pulled over, and the bus driver got off. We in the back had no idea what was going on, and since the bus had been turned off and now there was no air moving, it started getting hotter and hotter in the back. After about ten minutes, it was no exaggeration at least 100 degrees and we decided that whether or not we were allowed to, we were getting off. As it turns out, the bus had an oil leak, so from then on we would have to stop every 6 kilometers to refill the oil tank. The bus driver was able to call another bus to come meet us, but it was going to be about 50 minutes before he could get there, and we would have to drive a little ways to meet him. When you got back on the bus, you could feel yourself walk into a wall of heat. We sat on the 100 degree bus for about 15 minutes as we drove to meet the other bus, and even in that short a period of time, there were several people on the bus about to get sick. We finally reached the spot, which fortunately had a gas station so that we could get ice cream, and then we stood outside in the sun, which was still cooler than in the bus, and waited for another bus for like 45 minutes. After that bus arrived, we still had about a 45 minute ride back to town, from where I would need to walk about 10 minutes and then take a tram for another 30 minutes to get home. I was so exhausted by the time got home that I went to bed at like 9.30.
24 August 2007
Voila!
Voila! Here I am, in France! When I first arrived my groupe traveled to Sommieres for a short orientationm then a week ago we retourned to Montpellier and moved in with our host families. I love my hostparents! They're so sweet. It's an older couple, orthodox Christian, and they have been so nice to me, helping me with my French, etc. We have these in-depth conversations about religion and life at the dinner table every night; it's pretty cool.
This has been our first week of classes in what's called the préstage, which is like three weeks of language and civ classes before we start at the university in September. Those are pretty straigh-forward and not overly difficult , which is nice, but it means I don't have much free time right now.
Our group of UNC students is fun. We what 14 girls and 1 lone guy, and a few of us get together to do something most evenings. In August, Montpellier has wine tastings every Friday, so a group of us went to that last week. I've discovered that I don't like wine; I want to acquire the taste before I leave but at the moment I can't drink more than a few sips of it. Even here in France where it's legal for me to drink and people don't drink to get drunk like they do in the US, I still have zero desire to drink, and I haven't yet decided if I'm going to go out with some of the other girls and try a drink or not sometime. Any thoughts?
So far I love it here, but I do miss people, and I miss being on campus. I think the hardest part of that is feeling somewhat left behind by your friends because you're not with them doing the things they're doing, something that's exacerbated by the 6-hour time difference that makes it hard to talk to people at all. But this is a beautiful city that I'm quickly falling in love with, and I can tell already that I'm going to be really sad when I have to leave.
This has been our first week of classes in what's called the préstage, which is like three weeks of language and civ classes before we start at the university in September. Those are pretty straigh-forward and not overly difficult , which is nice, but it means I don't have much free time right now.
Our group of UNC students is fun. We what 14 girls and 1 lone guy, and a few of us get together to do something most evenings. In August, Montpellier has wine tastings every Friday, so a group of us went to that last week. I've discovered that I don't like wine; I want to acquire the taste before I leave but at the moment I can't drink more than a few sips of it. Even here in France where it's legal for me to drink and people don't drink to get drunk like they do in the US, I still have zero desire to drink, and I haven't yet decided if I'm going to go out with some of the other girls and try a drink or not sometime. Any thoughts?
So far I love it here, but I do miss people, and I miss being on campus. I think the hardest part of that is feeling somewhat left behind by your friends because you're not with them doing the things they're doing, something that's exacerbated by the 6-hour time difference that makes it hard to talk to people at all. But this is a beautiful city that I'm quickly falling in love with, and I can tell already that I'm going to be really sad when I have to leave.
13 August 2007
En France
I am in France! I'm currently in the Paris airport with about two hours to go before my flight leaves for Montpellier. I'll arrive in Montpellier and then head over the program office, from where we'll leave for Sommieres for a few days for orientation. While I'm excited to be doing this this semester, right now I'm mostly just kind of intimidated and a little overwhelmed. I haven't yet been forced into a situation where I need to make conversation in French, and I think once I do that I'll feel a little better. I can read all the signs and such, but I have to listen hard to understand bits of the conversations going on around me. I think it's just going to take a little while to get used to everything being in a different language. So far there haven't been any problems though, which is good. I'll have to take a taxi once I get into Montpellier; that makes me nervous. Hopefully there will be other people there from this program that I can split it with, but I don't want to count on it.
Once we get to Sommieres, I'll be internet-less for a couple days, and after that, I'm not sure how soon or how often I'll be able to get to an internet cafe, so I'm not sure when my next update will come, but hopefully it won't be too long. We move into our host homes I think on the 16th, which is also really nerve-wracking, but should be okay. My host family is an older couple whose children no longer live with them, but I think some of their children are students in Montpellier and they have a grandchild that's around some too. I'm more nervous about the language than anything else. I don't want to misunderstand something and cause problems.
I really want this semester to make me fluent. It's kind of overwhelming to be so surrounded by French, but at the same time it's exactly what I want, because it's the only way I'll become fluent, which has been my goal since I first started taking French. Hopefully it will work!
Once we get to Sommieres, I'll be internet-less for a couple days, and after that, I'm not sure how soon or how often I'll be able to get to an internet cafe, so I'm not sure when my next update will come, but hopefully it won't be too long. We move into our host homes I think on the 16th, which is also really nerve-wracking, but should be okay. My host family is an older couple whose children no longer live with them, but I think some of their children are students in Montpellier and they have a grandchild that's around some too. I'm more nervous about the language than anything else. I don't want to misunderstand something and cause problems.
I really want this semester to make me fluent. It's kind of overwhelming to be so surrounded by French, but at the same time it's exactly what I want, because it's the only way I'll become fluent, which has been my goal since I first started taking French. Hopefully it will work!
04 August 2007
Summer is ending
Tonight is my last night in my host home. I'm sad; I'm going to miss them while I'm in France. I love having kids around to play with and snuggle with and hang out with. The four kids here are so fun and so cute, and my hostparents have been so awesome this summer, and I can't believe it's already time to leave. It's kind of hit me all at once that summer is ending and I'm about to leave everyone and everything for a semester, and I know I'm going to have a great time in France, but at the same time, I'm kind of like, What was I thinking? I think it's just going to be hard, especially after this summer, after I've built all these really close relationships with the other people in the Institute and with my hostfamily and with people in the church, to just up and leave all that. I kind of feel like I'm abandoning it. But I will be back in four months, so maybe I'm just being melodramatic. But I do love my hostfamily, and so appreciate everything they've done for me this summer and how sweet they've been to me, and I'm going to miss them all a lot. I'm going to miss my room here, with my roommate, and hearing the children at 6.45 in the morning, discussing life with my hostparents, just being a part of the family here. I love that, and I'm sad I have to leave so soon.
03 August 2007
Here we go . . .
I'm back from Central Asia! It was an amazing trip! I'll admit it, I almost didn't want to come home. While I was there, I journaled every day (quite the feat for me), so now that I'm back, I'm going to type up those journals and backlog them here so they look like they were posted on the day they happened. It may take me a couple days to get them all up, so I'll leave this post up til they get done. The posts should be relatively in depth, but if you have any other questions about the trip, feel free to ask!
*For safety reasons, I've changed the names of our guides and of a few people who went on the trip with us who are going to be moving there next year. I also won't mention the name of the city we were in, but will just call it "our city."
*For safety reasons, I've changed the names of our guides and of a few people who went on the trip with us who are going to be moving there next year. I also won't mention the name of the city we were in, but will just call it "our city."
29 July 2007
Central Asia: Day Five
Today was a pretty chill day. We got to go to the city where two of the workers live, which is about an hour away, and meet their wives and children. They were such sweet women! You could just see the joy that the Lord has given them through their devotion to Him. The boys left to go do something else and the girls just sat in the worker's living room and talked. It was such an encouraging time. It was so nice to go and spend some time with an American where we didn't have to continually worry about have sit, where we look, how much we speak, and every little thing, to avoid offending someone. We talked about being a woman in this culture and how you're almost forced to become really close and intimate with the only other American woman, because usually she's really the only one who knows how you're really doing and everything that's going on in your life. It was so refreshing to see the interaction between the worker and his wife, to see the mutual love, how he cherished her, how she offered to serve out of love, not cultural obligation. We also talked about how a daily personal quiet time is a job requirement when you're on the field. At home, even if you miss a quiet time or two, you're still usually getting some truth spoken into your life from someone, be it a mentor or a pastor or a Christian radio station or whatever. On the field, you don't have any of that, so if you're not having your quiet time, it doesn't take you long to get sucked under by the culture surrounding you. God's Word is so important.
I got a little bit homesick (which is unusual for me) on the van ride back to our hotel. Missed my family. I've been bouncing around so much it feels like I haven't really seen them in a while, which I guess is true. The last time I spent significant time with them was last Christmas. I miss them. God has blessed me with such amazing parents and siblings. My mom, who is the kind of woman I hope to grow into; my dad, who is so supportive of all the crazy things I want to do, like move to France for four months; my brother, who is such a great encourager; my younger sister, whom joy just bubbles forth from; my youngest sister, who has such a sweet and loving spirit. I look at families here in this nation and compare them to my family and the pervasive love in my home, and I can't help but marvel at how incredibly blessed I am. It matches me ache for all the families here that don't have that, and I long to reach out to them and tell them about the freedom and joy they can have. If only life were that simple, where all I had to do was say it and they would realize the truth. All I can do is pray God will soften the hearts of these hardened people and share when He gives me the opportunity. God will do the rest. (Unfortunately, knowing that doesn't make you feel any less burdened for the millions of people outside your hotel that are all going to Hell.) God, save them fast!
Edit: I'm in the middle of my quiet time, but I wanted to share this.
My new life verse: Galatians 1.24 - "And they glorified God because of me."
That is my purpose in life. At my funeral, I want people to say that they glorified God because of me. Not because of me, but because of God's work through me. But in order for me to have that said of me after my death, I need to live up to it now. I challenge each of you to feel free to ask me, if you observe me doing something I shouldn't to remind me - "Becky, will people glorify God because of you through this?"
I got a little bit homesick (which is unusual for me) on the van ride back to our hotel. Missed my family. I've been bouncing around so much it feels like I haven't really seen them in a while, which I guess is true. The last time I spent significant time with them was last Christmas. I miss them. God has blessed me with such amazing parents and siblings. My mom, who is the kind of woman I hope to grow into; my dad, who is so supportive of all the crazy things I want to do, like move to France for four months; my brother, who is such a great encourager; my younger sister, whom joy just bubbles forth from; my youngest sister, who has such a sweet and loving spirit. I look at families here in this nation and compare them to my family and the pervasive love in my home, and I can't help but marvel at how incredibly blessed I am. It matches me ache for all the families here that don't have that, and I long to reach out to them and tell them about the freedom and joy they can have. If only life were that simple, where all I had to do was say it and they would realize the truth. All I can do is pray God will soften the hearts of these hardened people and share when He gives me the opportunity. God will do the rest. (Unfortunately, knowing that doesn't make you feel any less burdened for the millions of people outside your hotel that are all going to Hell.) God, save them fast!
Edit: I'm in the middle of my quiet time, but I wanted to share this.
My new life verse: Galatians 1.24 - "And they glorified God because of me."
That is my purpose in life. At my funeral, I want people to say that they glorified God because of me. Not because of me, but because of God's work through me. But in order for me to have that said of me after my death, I need to live up to it now. I challenge each of you to feel free to ask me, if you observe me doing something I shouldn't to remind me - "Becky, will people glorify God because of you through this?"
27 July 2007
Central Asia: Day Four
Today was a little more chill than yesterday and just as God-directed. They had set aside today as a day to meet again with contacts we had made before, so we all headed out to downtown, and those of us who didn't have someone specific to meet were free to roam around the bazaar and hopefully make some new ones. Marcus, Kyle, Amy, and I roamed the bazaar, made a couple good purchases, attempted to find some English0speaking women to befriend (and failed at that), and just sort of hung out together. The whole team met back up together after we had all finished meeting our contacts and we all headed back to the hotel, then were free to grab a couple of people and grab dinner. The family Kyle, Dan, Abby, Julie, and I met last night invited the five of us to supper with them, so we met up with Mahmet and he took us to his apartment.
We had an amazing time! We visited for alittle while, then sat down to a really good meal. Over dinner we discussed food, mostly. It was just Mahmet, his wife, and his younger daughter, Huma (his other other daughter was at her aunt's). We talked to Huma some about her imaginary friend she normally plays with but hadn't that day. She was so cute! Three years old and assassy as could be. I think last night she was kind of overwhelmed by all the foreigners, but tonight she warmed up to us a little more and even sat in Abby and Julie's laps. She just jabbers and jabbers away at us; if only we could understand what she's saying!
Dan and John did an amazing job tnight telling the Story to Mahmet and a friend of his that came by. They asked some really great questions and had a good conversation going. We didn't want to just focus on religion though, and we spent a good awhile just loving on them, asking questions about their lives and them. They are so sweet. The part that was most personally exciting for me was after Mahmet got down some photo albums and let us look at them. It was awesome for the girls because it gave us an opportunity to interact directly with Nagihan, the wife, without the need of a translator. Since we know to say "who's this" and "what's this" and we already knew the names of her children, she was able to share some of her life with us through telling us who was in each picture.
There were a lot of cute baby pictures and also some pictures from their wedding. It was really cool to see into their lives like that, and I felt like we were able to connect with Nagihan through it. She also showed us some head scarves she made before she got married (apparently that's a tradition here), she taught us to count to ten in Turkish, and we got to ask her some questions about her life, so she was able to share with us. She is so sweet-speirited, always smiling and laughing! She made us feel so welcome, and I was so glad to be able to interact with her more today. Women don't have much dignity or worth in this culture, and I feel like us allowing her to share her life with us, to teach us, and just honoring her, we are showing her, just a little bit, that she does have something to give and contribute, that she's not just a second-class citizen who's meant to do all the "women's work."
At the end, we took pictures, of the men and the women, and she asked if she could have a copy, so over the weekend we're going to get those photos developed and on Monday we're going to meet with them one last time so we can give them to her. I'm praying that then we will get another chance just to love on her and her daughters, showing them God's love and Word, even if we can't speak it to them.
Over the last day or so, I've finally become competent at being able to look around as I walk without making eye contact with people. It's hard when you're not used to it. But I definitely don't want to be giving off any vibes I don't intend to follow through on. In other news, I now love çay! I'm beginning to crave it as I walk around the city. Unfortunately, my traumatic encounter with Ayran the other day has ruined for me anything that has yoghurt in it. I also had to drink some Turkish coffee today, and that was a struggle too (though nowhere near that of Ayran), but it did get a little easier as I went. Who knows, maybe I'll develop a liking for that too. I may come back to the States craving all the thinks I once hated! :p
After we got back to the hotel at like 12, I talked for a while with Ivey and Amy, just about womanhood and life in general. God put such amazing people on this team! He's already blessed me with them so much. And He gave me such joy and peace in that apartment with that family; it was so encouraging.
We had an amazing time! We visited for alittle while, then sat down to a really good meal. Over dinner we discussed food, mostly. It was just Mahmet, his wife, and his younger daughter, Huma (his other other daughter was at her aunt's). We talked to Huma some about her imaginary friend she normally plays with but hadn't that day. She was so cute! Three years old and assassy as could be. I think last night she was kind of overwhelmed by all the foreigners, but tonight she warmed up to us a little more and even sat in Abby and Julie's laps. She just jabbers and jabbers away at us; if only we could understand what she's saying!
Dan and John did an amazing job tnight telling the Story to Mahmet and a friend of his that came by. They asked some really great questions and had a good conversation going. We didn't want to just focus on religion though, and we spent a good awhile just loving on them, asking questions about their lives and them. They are so sweet. The part that was most personally exciting for me was after Mahmet got down some photo albums and let us look at them. It was awesome for the girls because it gave us an opportunity to interact directly with Nagihan, the wife, without the need of a translator. Since we know to say "who's this" and "what's this" and we already knew the names of her children, she was able to share some of her life with us through telling us who was in each picture.
There were a lot of cute baby pictures and also some pictures from their wedding. It was really cool to see into their lives like that, and I felt like we were able to connect with Nagihan through it. She also showed us some head scarves she made before she got married (apparently that's a tradition here), she taught us to count to ten in Turkish, and we got to ask her some questions about her life, so she was able to share with us. She is so sweet-speirited, always smiling and laughing! She made us feel so welcome, and I was so glad to be able to interact with her more today. Women don't have much dignity or worth in this culture, and I feel like us allowing her to share her life with us, to teach us, and just honoring her, we are showing her, just a little bit, that she does have something to give and contribute, that she's not just a second-class citizen who's meant to do all the "women's work."
At the end, we took pictures, of the men and the women, and she asked if she could have a copy, so over the weekend we're going to get those photos developed and on Monday we're going to meet with them one last time so we can give them to her. I'm praying that then we will get another chance just to love on her and her daughters, showing them God's love and Word, even if we can't speak it to them.
Over the last day or so, I've finally become competent at being able to look around as I walk without making eye contact with people. It's hard when you're not used to it. But I definitely don't want to be giving off any vibes I don't intend to follow through on. In other news, I now love çay! I'm beginning to crave it as I walk around the city. Unfortunately, my traumatic encounter with Ayran the other day has ruined for me anything that has yoghurt in it. I also had to drink some Turkish coffee today, and that was a struggle too (though nowhere near that of Ayran), but it did get a little easier as I went. Who knows, maybe I'll develop a liking for that too. I may come back to the States craving all the thinks I once hated! :p
After we got back to the hotel at like 12, I talked for a while with Ivey and Amy, just about womanhood and life in general. God put such amazing people on this team! He's already blessed me with them so much. And He gave me such joy and peace in that apartment with that family; it was so encouraging.
26 July 2007
Central Asia: Day Three
Today was a way busy day. The Institute team was back together today, and after devotion we went to prayerwalk the bazaar. During the van ride there, we learned to count off in Turkish! It was very exciting. Bir, iki, üç, dört, besh, alti! We also had some good food and talked to some contacts some of our team had made yesterday. Excitingly, today I began to like çay, which is the tea they serve all the time. I don't like tea, but I've been drinking like 7 glasses of this stuff a day, because it's really rude to decline it when it's offered to, and I was really hoping I'd learn to like it, and I finally am! I really wanted to able to be an engaged part of their culture on that front, and now I can be! I think I just usually put more sugar in it than they do. Ah, well. Such is life.
After that we went to the Grand Mosque in town. It was really . . . overwhelming. It was beautiful - gorgeous architecture. But it was such an empty beauty. A temple built to an idol. We took our shoes off and went in, the girls getting scarves to cover their heads on the way. We all went into the men's side of the mosque, which was okay because we were obviously tourists, but I would have rather gone in the women's side, just to get an idea of what it's like for them. Our guide said it was okay to discreetly take some pictures since we were foreigners (these people are so sweet and give foreigners so much grace). I took one or two, but it felt really disrespectful, so I stopped after that. The mosque was very uncomfortable for me. Maybe it's just me being sentimental, but I felt spiritual oppression as soon as I walked in. I looked at all the people praying there and just marveled at how they devote their entire lives to following all this, and in the end it will all turn to ashes in their hands. I want to stop them right there and start telling them about Isa and the peace and joy He brings. It was an overwhelmingly spiritually dark place. It took me a while to shake off the feeling afterward.
After the mosque, we went to visit the only church in town - and old Greek Orthodox church, gated in, that now serves about 40 Protestants in the city. The building was in disrepair, and you could see where people had thrown bricks through windows and other vandalism. Needless to say, by the time we got back to our hotel after lunch, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and subdued. They gave us free time between lunch and dinner, and Abby and I had some great conversations about gender interaction among Christians and some of our struggles with that. Then, both of us wanting some quiet time with God, we took my Zen (mp3 player) and sat overlooking the city, listening to some worship and just praying over the city for a while. Through that time God really encouraged me that despite (or perhaps because of?) all the darkness in the city, He was there working, and His presence was there, indwelling us. It was a really powerful time.
After that, Kyle, Dan, Julie, Abby, and I decided to wander the city in search of food, set off, and found ourselves in a mostly residential area with no food in sight. So Kyle asked a guy at an apartment building for directions. The man, Mahmet, stopped what he was doing and offered to walk us up to a good restaurant. He was waiting for a friend to phone him to meet for dinner, but he ended up eating with us (he said his friend didn't believe him when he said he was with some American friends :p). He introduced us to some weird dessert that's made out of chicken. It was okay, but it was a strange texture, and it seemed odd to me to have my dessert taste slightly of chicken. Mahment (who doesn't speak English) talked to Kyle through the whole meal and actually invited us to his house to meet his family! I was so excited! It gave us an excuse to interact with women, something we hadn't been able to do much. By now it's like 9.00; we leave the restaurant and go with Mahment back to the apartment complex to finish the job he dropped to take us to dinner, then we all crammed into his little 1970's-ish car and he drove us about 15 minutes up the mountain to his house.
It was breath-taking to see the city span beneath us and above us as we drove up the mountain. I'm a Florida girl, so I'm not used to mountains, and Julie even said something at one point about how a city on a hill cannot be hidden, and I'd never really seen that before, and it was such a cool thing to me to see. It was dark, so there were just lights everywhere, traveling up the sides of the mountains and spanning nearly as far as I could see. It was gorgeous.
Once we reached his house, we went in to meet his wife and two children, sister-in-law and two children, and parents-in-law. They were such a sweet family! You could tell they were thrilled to have us there. They gave us a local pop drink, which he sent his daughters to get once we arrived, then later some nuts, then later some çay, then later some strawberry juice. They were so hospitable. We talked for hours, with Kyle translating between us. Kyle was able to talk to them about Isa, and we all discussed beliefs back and forth, which was so amazing. It was the first time I'd really done house EV. Before he took us back to the hotel, we gave him a NT in his Turkish and some Isa CD's, which hopefully he will watch. He even invited all of us back to his house tomorrow for supper, so hopefully we'll be able to do that and follow up some. I would love to see his sweet family again!
It was so cool because Abby and I had just spent time praying over the city, and literally 20 minutes later, He pretty much handed us this family. It was so direct, and you could just sense the hand of God directing it. It was amazing. I can't wait to see what God does next!
After that we went to the Grand Mosque in town. It was really . . . overwhelming. It was beautiful - gorgeous architecture. But it was such an empty beauty. A temple built to an idol. We took our shoes off and went in, the girls getting scarves to cover their heads on the way. We all went into the men's side of the mosque, which was okay because we were obviously tourists, but I would have rather gone in the women's side, just to get an idea of what it's like for them. Our guide said it was okay to discreetly take some pictures since we were foreigners (these people are so sweet and give foreigners so much grace). I took one or two, but it felt really disrespectful, so I stopped after that. The mosque was very uncomfortable for me. Maybe it's just me being sentimental, but I felt spiritual oppression as soon as I walked in. I looked at all the people praying there and just marveled at how they devote their entire lives to following all this, and in the end it will all turn to ashes in their hands. I want to stop them right there and start telling them about Isa and the peace and joy He brings. It was an overwhelmingly spiritually dark place. It took me a while to shake off the feeling afterward.
After the mosque, we went to visit the only church in town - and old Greek Orthodox church, gated in, that now serves about 40 Protestants in the city. The building was in disrepair, and you could see where people had thrown bricks through windows and other vandalism. Needless to say, by the time we got back to our hotel after lunch, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and subdued. They gave us free time between lunch and dinner, and Abby and I had some great conversations about gender interaction among Christians and some of our struggles with that. Then, both of us wanting some quiet time with God, we took my Zen (mp3 player) and sat overlooking the city, listening to some worship and just praying over the city for a while. Through that time God really encouraged me that despite (or perhaps because of?) all the darkness in the city, He was there working, and His presence was there, indwelling us. It was a really powerful time.
After that, Kyle, Dan, Julie, Abby, and I decided to wander the city in search of food, set off, and found ourselves in a mostly residential area with no food in sight. So Kyle asked a guy at an apartment building for directions. The man, Mahmet, stopped what he was doing and offered to walk us up to a good restaurant. He was waiting for a friend to phone him to meet for dinner, but he ended up eating with us (he said his friend didn't believe him when he said he was with some American friends :p). He introduced us to some weird dessert that's made out of chicken. It was okay, but it was a strange texture, and it seemed odd to me to have my dessert taste slightly of chicken. Mahment (who doesn't speak English) talked to Kyle through the whole meal and actually invited us to his house to meet his family! I was so excited! It gave us an excuse to interact with women, something we hadn't been able to do much. By now it's like 9.00; we leave the restaurant and go with Mahment back to the apartment complex to finish the job he dropped to take us to dinner, then we all crammed into his little 1970's-ish car and he drove us about 15 minutes up the mountain to his house.
It was breath-taking to see the city span beneath us and above us as we drove up the mountain. I'm a Florida girl, so I'm not used to mountains, and Julie even said something at one point about how a city on a hill cannot be hidden, and I'd never really seen that before, and it was such a cool thing to me to see. It was dark, so there were just lights everywhere, traveling up the sides of the mountains and spanning nearly as far as I could see. It was gorgeous.
Once we reached his house, we went in to meet his wife and two children, sister-in-law and two children, and parents-in-law. They were such a sweet family! You could tell they were thrilled to have us there. They gave us a local pop drink, which he sent his daughters to get once we arrived, then later some nuts, then later some çay, then later some strawberry juice. They were so hospitable. We talked for hours, with Kyle translating between us. Kyle was able to talk to them about Isa, and we all discussed beliefs back and forth, which was so amazing. It was the first time I'd really done house EV. Before he took us back to the hotel, we gave him a NT in his Turkish and some Isa CD's, which hopefully he will watch. He even invited all of us back to his house tomorrow for supper, so hopefully we'll be able to do that and follow up some. I would love to see his sweet family again!
It was so cool because Abby and I had just spent time praying over the city, and literally 20 minutes later, He pretty much handed us this family. It was so direct, and you could just sense the hand of God directing it. It was amazing. I can't wait to see what God does next!
25 July 2007
Central Asia: Day Two
Today was a scavenger hunt! We were split into three random groups and our guides were instructed not to translate for us, but to pretend to speak only English. They were strictly instructed not to help us. We had a whole list we had to do, the main goal of which was to force us to interact with the Turkish people. The first task we tackled was each member of the group drinking Ayran, which is liquid yoghurt and tastes kind of like salty buttermilk. I failed miserably - it was definitely the lowest point of my trip so far. It's not that it tastes bad, because it didn't taste that bad, but every time I put a tiny sip in my mouth I'd gag and only barely keep from throwing up. In about two hours I managed to drink about 1/3 cc of it. After I'd been carrying it around with me for about an hour trying to get it down, my team leader told me to just throw it out because it wasn't worth ruining my day over. So I felt bad about that for the rest of the day.
Nothing else today challenged me quite as much as that did. The guys did most of our talking, since most of it required approaching Turkish men. We all had to use a squatty potty, which everyone always makes a big deal out of but which don't really bother me. We got to eat some really yummy Turkish ice cream bars, as well as some other Turkish food. I love lamb and usually choose to get it over chicken, unlike most of the others. We also got to ride the metro around for a little while, which was cool too, since I love subways. We met a really cool lady who helped us with some of the things in the scavenger hunt and even rode the metro with us. We want to try and contact her again before we leave the city. After all this, my team lost the scavenger hunt.
The city
was never
ending -
it just went
on and
on and
on and
on . . .
all the way
back to the
mountains.
Once the teams had all reconvened, we all headed to one of the higher points along the mountain our city is built into and got to overlook the city at sunset. It was beautiful, but also very sobering. Looking over the city, it's like it's never ending - everywhere you look is city, stretching out into the horizon and even up the sides of the mountains. You see minarets everywhere, since there are mosques every block. You also see the disrepair the city is in, and it makes me want to cry out to these people, because I know their city and their lives reflect one another and that God longs to rebuild this city and restore it to glory. This people is a beautiful people and it's sobering to know that they live their lives in the shadow of all these minarets, of this law with its intensely restrictive rules and regulations when they don't need to. Instead they could have the joy and the peace and the assurance that comes with knowing the Lord. At this time, we know of about 40 Christians among the 2 million inhabitants of this city.
One of the
dozens of
minarets
piercing the
landscape,
broadcasting
the call to
prayer five
times every
day.
"How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? [...] So faith comes through hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ."
~Rom 10:14, 17
God wants to do something about it and I'm so glad the Summit has pledged to be a part of that. Whether or not I'm ever personally a part of it, I'm glad that I'm at least associated with someone who's doing something.
Our
beautiful
city at
sunset.
Nothing else today challenged me quite as much as that did. The guys did most of our talking, since most of it required approaching Turkish men. We all had to use a squatty potty, which everyone always makes a big deal out of but which don't really bother me. We got to eat some really yummy Turkish ice cream bars, as well as some other Turkish food. I love lamb and usually choose to get it over chicken, unlike most of the others. We also got to ride the metro around for a little while, which was cool too, since I love subways. We met a really cool lady who helped us with some of the things in the scavenger hunt and even rode the metro with us. We want to try and contact her again before we leave the city. After all this, my team lost the scavenger hunt.
The city
was never
ending -
it just went
on and
on and
on and
on . . .
all the way
back to the
mountains.
Once the teams had all reconvened, we all headed to one of the higher points along the mountain our city is built into and got to overlook the city at sunset. It was beautiful, but also very sobering. Looking over the city, it's like it's never ending - everywhere you look is city, stretching out into the horizon and even up the sides of the mountains. You see minarets everywhere, since there are mosques every block. You also see the disrepair the city is in, and it makes me want to cry out to these people, because I know their city and their lives reflect one another and that God longs to rebuild this city and restore it to glory. This people is a beautiful people and it's sobering to know that they live their lives in the shadow of all these minarets, of this law with its intensely restrictive rules and regulations when they don't need to. Instead they could have the joy and the peace and the assurance that comes with knowing the Lord. At this time, we know of about 40 Christians among the 2 million inhabitants of this city.
One of the
dozens of
minarets
piercing the
landscape,
broadcasting
the call to
prayer five
times every
day.
"How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? [...] So faith comes through hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ."
~Rom 10:14, 17
God wants to do something about it and I'm so glad the Summit has pledged to be a part of that. Whether or not I'm ever personally a part of it, I'm glad that I'm at least associated with someone who's doing something.
Our
beautiful
city at
sunset.
24 July 2007
Central Asia: Day One
I love the schedule here! Breakfast is usually eaten between 9 and 10, lunch between 1 and 3, dinner between 7 and 9, and they go to bed around 12.30 to 1. That's like my natural schedule, when left to my own devices, so it's perfect for me.
Breakfast was really good. Bread, cheese, tomato, olives, cucumber, boiled eggs, and juice or çay. The feta is really good - you put it on the bread and I could eat it every meal. We had orientation after breakfast, where we went over some ground rules and did a devotion. Then we split up into three groups and went on our way.
Our city,
as seen
from the
front of
our hotel.
My group, made up of the Instituters, went to the local university. We ate lunch in the cafeteria and then split inot groups of 2's to meet people, asking them to show us around campus a little. The students actually seemed kind of reticent to talk to us or said they couldn't speak English at all. Eventually two of the girls took my partner, Carrie, and me to one of their teachers who spoke English (ironically, our two group leaders showed up there a few minutes later). He called a girl from the International Relations office, Müge, to give us a tour around campus. The professor was a cool guy; he had done a lot of traveling all over the world and seemed really interested in talking to us.
Müge didn't seem that interested in talking to us, as if she had been pulled away from other things to do this. But she was nice, and we kept the conversation going as she showed us around. She took us up to her office,k where we met two of her colleagues, a guy and a girl, whose names I don't remember. They were nice too, and he seemed really interested in talking to us. We talked for a while about Turkey and universities and such things. They also gave us some messenger bags (!!!) with hats and a notebook. I was so excited, because I'd been wanting a messenger bag recently but hadn't gotten one yet, and here was one for free! They also seemed interested in maybe doing a summer exchange program with a university in the US, which would be 1) really cool, and 2) a great platform.
A statue in
honor of
Ataturk, the
father of the
country, on the
university
grounds.
After the university, we went and got the van fixed, so it would stopped beeping all the time. Then we came back to the hotel, freshened up, and walked up the hill in search of a good restaurant for dinner. We had lamb and chicken kebabs and a minced lamb and cheese tortilla thing that's really good. They eat yoghurt (not American-style yoghurt) here with everything, which is cool because it's full of good bacteria that help your stomach. It's a non-flavored, kind of sour sort of yoghurt. It works pretty well with lamb.
We ended the day early since it's our first day here. Our hotel is on a hill overlooking the city, so we got to take some cool pictures of the city at sunset. Then we all just hung out and talked until bedtime. It's cool talking to and getting to know the believers here and the others from the Summit. All in all, a good first day.
Our city
at sunset.
Breakfast was really good. Bread, cheese, tomato, olives, cucumber, boiled eggs, and juice or çay. The feta is really good - you put it on the bread and I could eat it every meal. We had orientation after breakfast, where we went over some ground rules and did a devotion. Then we split up into three groups and went on our way.
Our city,
as seen
from the
front of
our hotel.
My group, made up of the Instituters, went to the local university. We ate lunch in the cafeteria and then split inot groups of 2's to meet people, asking them to show us around campus a little. The students actually seemed kind of reticent to talk to us or said they couldn't speak English at all. Eventually two of the girls took my partner, Carrie, and me to one of their teachers who spoke English (ironically, our two group leaders showed up there a few minutes later). He called a girl from the International Relations office, Müge, to give us a tour around campus. The professor was a cool guy; he had done a lot of traveling all over the world and seemed really interested in talking to us.
Müge didn't seem that interested in talking to us, as if she had been pulled away from other things to do this. But she was nice, and we kept the conversation going as she showed us around. She took us up to her office,k where we met two of her colleagues, a guy and a girl, whose names I don't remember. They were nice too, and he seemed really interested in talking to us. We talked for a while about Turkey and universities and such things. They also gave us some messenger bags (!!!) with hats and a notebook. I was so excited, because I'd been wanting a messenger bag recently but hadn't gotten one yet, and here was one for free! They also seemed interested in maybe doing a summer exchange program with a university in the US, which would be 1) really cool, and 2) a great platform.
A statue in
honor of
Ataturk, the
father of the
country, on the
university
grounds.
After the university, we went and got the van fixed, so it would stopped beeping all the time. Then we came back to the hotel, freshened up, and walked up the hill in search of a good restaurant for dinner. We had lamb and chicken kebabs and a minced lamb and cheese tortilla thing that's really good. They eat yoghurt (not American-style yoghurt) here with everything, which is cool because it's full of good bacteria that help your stomach. It's a non-flavored, kind of sour sort of yoghurt. It works pretty well with lamb.
We ended the day early since it's our first day here. Our hotel is on a hill overlooking the city, so we got to take some cool pictures of the city at sunset. Then we all just hung out and talked until bedtime. It's cool talking to and getting to know the believers here and the others from the Summit. All in all, a good first day.
Our city
at sunset.
23 July 2007
Central Asia: Travel to
Our flight left Sunday afternoon. Short flight to DC, layover, 7ish-hour flight to Europe, layover, and another short flight to get to Turkey. our seats were all randomly assigned, but I did get to sit next to two Instituters during the long flight, which was nice. Overall, the flights were pretty uneventful; only one person had a bag that didn't make it, and he should be getting it in the next few days.
Me and
Julie at
the RDU
airport!
She did
my hair.
Once we landed, we got our 90-day visas, met up with our three guides for the week, and set off on a 6-hour drive to our city. In my van it was only myself, Carrie, and one of our Guides, Sam. Poor Sam! I asked him question after random questions for six hours straight. I don't think there was more than a 7-minute silence the entire trip. We would pass random things that would evoke a question in my mind, and I just asked whatever came to mind, so the poor guy was stuck answering random questions about the ambulance system, ice cream, television, etc, for six hours. Also, our van decided about halfway through the drive that it wanted to beep at us every time Sam hit the breaks, so that was a fun thing to listen to for a few hours, too.
The mountains
were gorgeous.
Some of them
were off in the
distance, but
some of them
were right up
against the road.
We stopped at a local mall for dinner once we reached our city (I had Burger King), then we went to our hotel and dropped into bed around 11. Most of us had averaged about four hours of sleep during the 32-ish hour trip, so we were pretty tired.
Initial impressions about Turkey
Turkey is beautiful! The terrain is magnificent and the culture is fascinating. I feel as though I have never ending questions about it just because it's so interesting to learn about. The people are very friendly and welcomeing and very gracious to foreigners. Most of them seem excited to have us here and eager to talk to us. Even though most of them don't agree with our politics, they say they love American people, and they are very proud of their own country, often calling it "perfect." There's so muct culture and history here; I love it! The Turkish also have this thing about tea, which they call çay (pronounced chai, though it's very different from American chai tea). Whenever you enter a shop or someone's home, you'll be offered çay, and it's considered rude not to accept. They drink it from these little glasses, and it's a big social thing. Our guides say sometimes they'll drink 10 glasses of it a day, so it's something hopefully we'll be able to get used to!
I don't know
what body
of water this
is, but I love
water, and it
was beautiful!
Initial impressions about our city
Our city is gorgeous! It has a population of about 2 million and is built up into the side of a mountain. We haven't gotten to see a ton of it yet, but I think I'm already falling in love iwth it! It's also very safe. Our guides say they very very rarely here of much significant crime, with the main one being stealing. But it's a pretty safe place to be out and about, even after dark. The Turkish people are all gorgeous, men and women alike. I love the Turkish language and am working on learning a few words, though our guides say it takes about 2 years for a person to become functionally fluent in Turkish. For comparison purposes, for most romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc), it takes about six months. So it's a pretty intense language, but I love hearing and seeing it around. I think it'd be a really cool language to learn. I can't wait to get out and start meeting some people and getting to know them!
Me and
Julie at
the RDU
airport!
She did
my hair.
Once we landed, we got our 90-day visas, met up with our three guides for the week, and set off on a 6-hour drive to our city. In my van it was only myself, Carrie, and one of our Guides, Sam. Poor Sam! I asked him question after random questions for six hours straight. I don't think there was more than a 7-minute silence the entire trip. We would pass random things that would evoke a question in my mind, and I just asked whatever came to mind, so the poor guy was stuck answering random questions about the ambulance system, ice cream, television, etc, for six hours. Also, our van decided about halfway through the drive that it wanted to beep at us every time Sam hit the breaks, so that was a fun thing to listen to for a few hours, too.
The mountains
were gorgeous.
Some of them
were off in the
distance, but
some of them
were right up
against the road.
We stopped at a local mall for dinner once we reached our city (I had Burger King), then we went to our hotel and dropped into bed around 11. Most of us had averaged about four hours of sleep during the 32-ish hour trip, so we were pretty tired.
Initial impressions about Turkey
Turkey is beautiful! The terrain is magnificent and the culture is fascinating. I feel as though I have never ending questions about it just because it's so interesting to learn about. The people are very friendly and welcomeing and very gracious to foreigners. Most of them seem excited to have us here and eager to talk to us. Even though most of them don't agree with our politics, they say they love American people, and they are very proud of their own country, often calling it "perfect." There's so muct culture and history here; I love it! The Turkish also have this thing about tea, which they call çay (pronounced chai, though it's very different from American chai tea). Whenever you enter a shop or someone's home, you'll be offered çay, and it's considered rude not to accept. They drink it from these little glasses, and it's a big social thing. Our guides say sometimes they'll drink 10 glasses of it a day, so it's something hopefully we'll be able to get used to!
I don't know
what body
of water this
is, but I love
water, and it
was beautiful!
Initial impressions about our city
Our city is gorgeous! It has a population of about 2 million and is built up into the side of a mountain. We haven't gotten to see a ton of it yet, but I think I'm already falling in love iwth it! It's also very safe. Our guides say they very very rarely here of much significant crime, with the main one being stealing. But it's a pretty safe place to be out and about, even after dark. The Turkish people are all gorgeous, men and women alike. I love the Turkish language and am working on learning a few words, though our guides say it takes about 2 years for a person to become functionally fluent in Turkish. For comparison purposes, for most romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc), it takes about six months. So it's a pretty intense language, but I love hearing and seeing it around. I think it'd be a really cool language to learn. I can't wait to get out and start meeting some people and getting to know them!
22 July 2007
Yikes
It's been a while. Apparently, I'm really bad at updating this thing. Well here's an update now.
Classes
Classes are over; our last one was Friday. Overall, they were amazing. This fall I need to go back through all of them and journal my thoughts, because it's all way too much to process in one summer. It's crazy how much they can teach you in a short period of time. I feel like I learned a lot and really matured in a lot of my thinking. Hopefully that will affect my lifestyle.
Internship
Internship is also over. I'm going to miss so much working with the children's ministry! It was a lot of fun being in there this summer, and I learned a lot about what it means to run one and how to go about doing that in a godly way. My roomie and I got to write up a service ministry for the kids, and I'm really excited about being able to help implement it this spring when I get back from France. I can't wait!
Central Asia
We leave tomorrow for Central Asia! We're all really excited. It does mean I'll be internetless for a week and a half, but I'll survive somehow. The fact that we're going to Central Asia is such a God thing for me, and I don't want to build up all kinds of expectations, but from what I've heard from other people who have recently been there, it's going to be awesome!
Miscellaneous Life
I miss my family and my friends. This isn't the longest I've ever gone without seeing my family, and I'm not a real homesick kinda girl, but it is the first summer I've spent without them, and I miss them. I've only been able to see them about two weeks so far this calendar year, and I'm only going to add about five days to that before I leave for France. Yikes! God has blessed me with an amazing family, and I can't wait until I get to see them, even if it's only going to be for a couple days.
I also miss all my school friends, whom I got so close to last spring and now never talk to. In fact, I rarely talk to anyone at all anymore, since it's so unusual for me to be online past 12. I miss everyone.
I was able to give platelets yesterday! My hostdad made an appointment for us both to go in, which was something I appreciated so much. I was worried my iron wasn't going to be high enough to give, but it was! I have the bruises on my arms to prove I did it, and it feels really good. I love being able to serve in that way.
That's probably enough for now. If I weren't so tired, I'd be able to make a longer post, but that will have to wait until I return to the States. Pray for safe travels for us and that God will work in the hearts and minds of the people we come into contact with.
Yay God!
Classes
Classes are over; our last one was Friday. Overall, they were amazing. This fall I need to go back through all of them and journal my thoughts, because it's all way too much to process in one summer. It's crazy how much they can teach you in a short period of time. I feel like I learned a lot and really matured in a lot of my thinking. Hopefully that will affect my lifestyle.
Internship
Internship is also over. I'm going to miss so much working with the children's ministry! It was a lot of fun being in there this summer, and I learned a lot about what it means to run one and how to go about doing that in a godly way. My roomie and I got to write up a service ministry for the kids, and I'm really excited about being able to help implement it this spring when I get back from France. I can't wait!
Central Asia
We leave tomorrow for Central Asia! We're all really excited. It does mean I'll be internetless for a week and a half, but I'll survive somehow. The fact that we're going to Central Asia is such a God thing for me, and I don't want to build up all kinds of expectations, but from what I've heard from other people who have recently been there, it's going to be awesome!
Miscellaneous Life
I miss my family and my friends. This isn't the longest I've ever gone without seeing my family, and I'm not a real homesick kinda girl, but it is the first summer I've spent without them, and I miss them. I've only been able to see them about two weeks so far this calendar year, and I'm only going to add about five days to that before I leave for France. Yikes! God has blessed me with an amazing family, and I can't wait until I get to see them, even if it's only going to be for a couple days.
I also miss all my school friends, whom I got so close to last spring and now never talk to. In fact, I rarely talk to anyone at all anymore, since it's so unusual for me to be online past 12. I miss everyone.
I was able to give platelets yesterday! My hostdad made an appointment for us both to go in, which was something I appreciated so much. I was worried my iron wasn't going to be high enough to give, but it was! I have the bruises on my arms to prove I did it, and it feels really good. I love being able to serve in that way.
That's probably enough for now. If I weren't so tired, I'd be able to make a longer post, but that will have to wait until I return to the States. Pray for safe travels for us and that God will work in the hearts and minds of the people we come into contact with.
Yay God!
28 June 2007
Two random things combined in one post
My predecessor's predecessors.
This is my hostfamily's third year taking on Instituters, and the other night the two girls that stayed here that first year came over to visit. One of the girls I had already known from the Baptist Student Union at school, and she's now a teacher in Southeastern Asia, so it was really cool to see her and catch up on what she's doing a little bit. The other girl is now married (to a guy she met doing the Institute) and is due to have her first baby in the next two weeks. It was really cute to see my hostsiblings get all excited to see them and everything. My hostparents tease that all the Institute girls they've had have either become missionaries or gotten married right after, so those are Carrie and my two choices after this summer. Which should I choose, do you think?
It's also just kind of encouraging to look at the people that did the Institute and see where they are now. I know three or four that are overseas right now doing missions and a couple that are starting families, and it's just really neat to see how God is using them. For many of them, where they are now came directly out of what they did the summer they did the Institute. All of them describe the Institute as life-changing. Which, being in the middle of it, is understandable. It's a lot to take it, and it really pushes you out of your comfort zone (very deliberately), and so far that's been an amazing experience. I already know that I would encourage so many people to do this; I can't even describe what it's done for my faith and my daily living, and I haven't even been through half of it yet. So it's just cool to look at where I am now, and think of all the kids that were exactly where I am and now are doing really cool things for God. I want God to use me in amazing ways too . . . hopefully someday.
Street-evangelizing
I grew up in church, a pretty moderate church, as churches go, and the main method for witnessing that was stressed and encouraged was relational. So when our college pastor told us we were going to go street-evangelizing on UNC's campus the other day (something that was somewhat looked down upon in the church I grew up in), I was a little bit nervous. Though nothing had ever outright been said about it, I grew up getting the feeling that people that would just strike up conversations about God with strangers on the street were kind of weird and outdated, that that was not the preferred way to evangelize, that there were better ways. So I was a little bit wary, but I'd decided before this summer that I wasn't going to let myself get nervous or scared when I was pushed out of my comfort zone (like I knew I would be), but that I was going to throw myself into whatever they asked me to do (within reason, of course).
So our college pastor split us into three groups of two (one guy and one girl in each), gave us a small cooler of water bottles, and told us to go hand them out and talk to people about God. He gave us some tips and advice and sent us out. I was teamed up with a guy named Dan, who isn't technically a part of the Institute, but who's been doing some of our classes and such with us as he prepares to go overseas for a few years. It took Dan and me a little bit to find someone we could really talk to, since we didn't want to interrupt anyone that looked like they were busy or on their way to something, and we tried to go talk to people at the pool, but since neither of us are in summer classes (he's graduated), they wouldn't let us into the UNC pool area. So we had to walk around some to finally find some people to talk to.
The first person we talked to was this girl at the bus stop. We walked over and offered her a bottle of water and just started up a conversation, asking typical small talk kinds of questions: her name, if she's in class at Carolina, her year, her major, etc, just trying to sort of start up a relationship. We transitioned by asking her whether she went to church while she was at school, and at that point she started to look a little wary (as is often the case whenever you ask someone that) but said no. We were trying to get her to talk to us a little about what she believes, so she told us that she used to go to church with her parents, but that she didn't really hold with much of what they believed. She herself believed in a relationship more than a religion - but she didn't like to talk about it, she said. Shut down. We tried to keep a conversation going but she obviously didn't want to talk to us, and we didn't want to push it, so we just let it go and moved on.
We saw a guy in the main quad sort of half reading and half staring off into space, so we went over to him and struck up a conversation along the same line. We ended up talking to him for like a half-hour. It was really cool. He opened up to us a lot more than I expected him to. He told us about how he used to be hardcore Christian, but then he feel away from it, and since then he's been struggling with depression, was seeking help for that, and had just begun to try reading his Bible and praying some again. We talked about why he had stopped going to church and what was keeping him from going back. We talked about what he believed about God and some of the questions he had. We talked about what we believed and about what he believed and how and why that had changed and how he felt about that. We talked about faith and relationships. It was really cool, because it was really obvious, at least to us, that God had starting working in his heart before we ever came up to him, and I really hope and pray that the conversation we had with him encouraged him to continue to seek God more as the solution to his problems and to get back involved with the church, who would also encourage him and help him with that. You could tell that he was starting to seek, even if he wasn't really aware of it himself, and that was really cool.
The whole experience was kind of mind-opening to me, for several reasons, one being that I don't think I personally would ever open up to some random people that came up to me and started asking me about what I believe. I'm confident in my beliefs, and if someone asks me, I'll certainly tell them, but I don't know that I would open up and start telling them about the things I'd been struggling with recently and why. So it's crazy to me that this kid would open up the way he did and talk to us for like thirty minutes. Recently I've talked to or heard speak people that were either saved through such measures or who have used them in the past and had a lot of cool experiences where they were able to help someone meet with God and begin as a disciple of His. I don't think street-evangelism should be someone's main mode of witnessing, because I think that there are other ways that can be much more effective, but I think there's definitely a place for it and that if you pray it through and listen to God, He'll lead you to situations in which people are willing and even eager to talk and will really listen to and consider what you have to say. It's such a reminder of how sovereign He is, that He can take situations which may seem totally random or coincidental to us and use them in ways that prove that He was watching over things and taking care of them the whole time.
My conclusion: I think we underestimate the power of the Gospel and back down from a lot of situations in which a little more boldness could literally be the difference between life and death for people. While I don't think it is the most effective form of evangelism, I think going out every so often, asking God to lead me to someone that is seeking Him could be an amazing ministry.
In Bible study last night, we were talking about how much our viewpoint affects the way we say something and also the way it is received. So often when we witness, we start with sin, saying, "You are a sinner and you need to stop being corrupt and turn your life over to God" when instead we should be saying, "You are a beloved person, created by God to be an heir to His eternal kingdom; nothing else can compare with that! God is calling you to be in a relationship with Him, a relationship that will bring endless joy and purpose to your life. Why would you want anything else?" We focus on the fact that we need to be saved, forgetting that not only is there something to be saved from, but there's also something to be saved to: restoration to live as a loved and favored child of the most Holy Almighty God.
Something that my pastor quotes a lot (and forgive me, I can't remember who first said it, but I'll let you know when I find out): "You are more wicked and despicable to God than you ever thought you could be, AND you are more loved and accepted by God than you ever hoped you could be." At the same time. Yes, it's true that we are corrupt sinners that can do no good apart from God - but that's not the end of the story. God loves us each with an unconditional love that wants desperately for us to return to Him as beloved children and heirs, to share in the eternal inheritance with Him. He comes to us even when we are at our lowest and tells us that He knows we can't do anything to be any better - but we don't have to, because He already did it all. Since He knew we could never reach up to Him, He reached down to us, though He had no obligation to, since we had already rejected Him. Yet despite our rejection of Him, He continues to reach out to us and woo us back to Himself. How could we reject such love? Why would we want to?
This is my hostfamily's third year taking on Instituters, and the other night the two girls that stayed here that first year came over to visit. One of the girls I had already known from the Baptist Student Union at school, and she's now a teacher in Southeastern Asia, so it was really cool to see her and catch up on what she's doing a little bit. The other girl is now married (to a guy she met doing the Institute) and is due to have her first baby in the next two weeks. It was really cute to see my hostsiblings get all excited to see them and everything. My hostparents tease that all the Institute girls they've had have either become missionaries or gotten married right after, so those are Carrie and my two choices after this summer. Which should I choose, do you think?
It's also just kind of encouraging to look at the people that did the Institute and see where they are now. I know three or four that are overseas right now doing missions and a couple that are starting families, and it's just really neat to see how God is using them. For many of them, where they are now came directly out of what they did the summer they did the Institute. All of them describe the Institute as life-changing. Which, being in the middle of it, is understandable. It's a lot to take it, and it really pushes you out of your comfort zone (very deliberately), and so far that's been an amazing experience. I already know that I would encourage so many people to do this; I can't even describe what it's done for my faith and my daily living, and I haven't even been through half of it yet. So it's just cool to look at where I am now, and think of all the kids that were exactly where I am and now are doing really cool things for God. I want God to use me in amazing ways too . . . hopefully someday.
Street-evangelizing
I grew up in church, a pretty moderate church, as churches go, and the main method for witnessing that was stressed and encouraged was relational. So when our college pastor told us we were going to go street-evangelizing on UNC's campus the other day (something that was somewhat looked down upon in the church I grew up in), I was a little bit nervous. Though nothing had ever outright been said about it, I grew up getting the feeling that people that would just strike up conversations about God with strangers on the street were kind of weird and outdated, that that was not the preferred way to evangelize, that there were better ways. So I was a little bit wary, but I'd decided before this summer that I wasn't going to let myself get nervous or scared when I was pushed out of my comfort zone (like I knew I would be), but that I was going to throw myself into whatever they asked me to do (within reason, of course).
So our college pastor split us into three groups of two (one guy and one girl in each), gave us a small cooler of water bottles, and told us to go hand them out and talk to people about God. He gave us some tips and advice and sent us out. I was teamed up with a guy named Dan, who isn't technically a part of the Institute, but who's been doing some of our classes and such with us as he prepares to go overseas for a few years. It took Dan and me a little bit to find someone we could really talk to, since we didn't want to interrupt anyone that looked like they were busy or on their way to something, and we tried to go talk to people at the pool, but since neither of us are in summer classes (he's graduated), they wouldn't let us into the UNC pool area. So we had to walk around some to finally find some people to talk to.
The first person we talked to was this girl at the bus stop. We walked over and offered her a bottle of water and just started up a conversation, asking typical small talk kinds of questions: her name, if she's in class at Carolina, her year, her major, etc, just trying to sort of start up a relationship. We transitioned by asking her whether she went to church while she was at school, and at that point she started to look a little wary (as is often the case whenever you ask someone that) but said no. We were trying to get her to talk to us a little about what she believes, so she told us that she used to go to church with her parents, but that she didn't really hold with much of what they believed. She herself believed in a relationship more than a religion - but she didn't like to talk about it, she said. Shut down. We tried to keep a conversation going but she obviously didn't want to talk to us, and we didn't want to push it, so we just let it go and moved on.
We saw a guy in the main quad sort of half reading and half staring off into space, so we went over to him and struck up a conversation along the same line. We ended up talking to him for like a half-hour. It was really cool. He opened up to us a lot more than I expected him to. He told us about how he used to be hardcore Christian, but then he feel away from it, and since then he's been struggling with depression, was seeking help for that, and had just begun to try reading his Bible and praying some again. We talked about why he had stopped going to church and what was keeping him from going back. We talked about what he believed about God and some of the questions he had. We talked about what we believed and about what he believed and how and why that had changed and how he felt about that. We talked about faith and relationships. It was really cool, because it was really obvious, at least to us, that God had starting working in his heart before we ever came up to him, and I really hope and pray that the conversation we had with him encouraged him to continue to seek God more as the solution to his problems and to get back involved with the church, who would also encourage him and help him with that. You could tell that he was starting to seek, even if he wasn't really aware of it himself, and that was really cool.
The whole experience was kind of mind-opening to me, for several reasons, one being that I don't think I personally would ever open up to some random people that came up to me and started asking me about what I believe. I'm confident in my beliefs, and if someone asks me, I'll certainly tell them, but I don't know that I would open up and start telling them about the things I'd been struggling with recently and why. So it's crazy to me that this kid would open up the way he did and talk to us for like thirty minutes. Recently I've talked to or heard speak people that were either saved through such measures or who have used them in the past and had a lot of cool experiences where they were able to help someone meet with God and begin as a disciple of His. I don't think street-evangelism should be someone's main mode of witnessing, because I think that there are other ways that can be much more effective, but I think there's definitely a place for it and that if you pray it through and listen to God, He'll lead you to situations in which people are willing and even eager to talk and will really listen to and consider what you have to say. It's such a reminder of how sovereign He is, that He can take situations which may seem totally random or coincidental to us and use them in ways that prove that He was watching over things and taking care of them the whole time.
My conclusion: I think we underestimate the power of the Gospel and back down from a lot of situations in which a little more boldness could literally be the difference between life and death for people. While I don't think it is the most effective form of evangelism, I think going out every so often, asking God to lead me to someone that is seeking Him could be an amazing ministry.
In Bible study last night, we were talking about how much our viewpoint affects the way we say something and also the way it is received. So often when we witness, we start with sin, saying, "You are a sinner and you need to stop being corrupt and turn your life over to God" when instead we should be saying, "You are a beloved person, created by God to be an heir to His eternal kingdom; nothing else can compare with that! God is calling you to be in a relationship with Him, a relationship that will bring endless joy and purpose to your life. Why would you want anything else?" We focus on the fact that we need to be saved, forgetting that not only is there something to be saved from, but there's also something to be saved to: restoration to live as a loved and favored child of the most Holy Almighty God.
Something that my pastor quotes a lot (and forgive me, I can't remember who first said it, but I'll let you know when I find out): "You are more wicked and despicable to God than you ever thought you could be, AND you are more loved and accepted by God than you ever hoped you could be." At the same time. Yes, it's true that we are corrupt sinners that can do no good apart from God - but that's not the end of the story. God loves us each with an unconditional love that wants desperately for us to return to Him as beloved children and heirs, to share in the eternal inheritance with Him. He comes to us even when we are at our lowest and tells us that He knows we can't do anything to be any better - but we don't have to, because He already did it all. Since He knew we could never reach up to Him, He reached down to us, though He had no obligation to, since we had already rejected Him. Yet despite our rejection of Him, He continues to reach out to us and woo us back to Himself. How could we reject such love? Why would we want to?
27 June 2007
My Peeps
My Host Family
My family is tons of fun! I've got all four of the kids playing Egyptian Ratscrew with me now. Asher, the ten-year-old, and I play all kinds of card games together all the time. We've also been working on shuffling. Hannah is the eight-year-old and you can tell she loves having some sisters around for once. Joshua, the six-year-old, is the most likely to come up and cuddle with you (although all three of the younger kids do that on a regular basis). Caleb is four and cute as all get out. He likes to call out "Hi, big sister!" to me, which is sooooo cute. They're all four fun to be around and hang out with, and I've been really enjoying them. My hostparents are really sweet too; always offering to help us out and just letting us be a part of their family. The whole family goes up to a lake house about an hour from here where they play in the water and ride their jetskis and stuff like that, and my hostparents are always inviting up not only myself and my "sister," but also all the other Instituters, so that's lots of fun too. I'm such a water person, and I didn't expect God to put me with a family that's the same way! It's cool. The older two kids are on swim team, so we all go to the pool all the time, too. It's fun times.
The Instituters
It's been really cool getting to know the other Instituters. Carrie and I get along really well (despite the fact that she's been sick since she got here), so it's been fun rooming with her, my "big sister." She's really sweet and bubbly and outgoing, which is good, because I have a tendency to be too withdrawn in group situations, and she helps pull me out of that.
I've been able to spend some time with Julie, because her hostfamily was out of town for a little while, so I'd spend the night with her so she wasn't by herself. She's been a real encouragement to me so far this summer; she's had some good advice on life in general. Talking with her is always encouraging.
Abby and I have been able to hang out some too, and I love getting to know her. She has such a mind for God and she's really good at analyzing what we've been learning and asking good questions about it. She’s a cool kid, and I’m glad we’re getting to know each other this summer.
Overall, I love the Summiteers! We've had some good times already, and I'm excited to see what awesome times we're going to have over the rest of the summer!
Long-awaited update
Well, apparently I'm really bad at updating this thing, so I'm going to make a few posts to sum up what's happened so far this summer and then hopefully for the rest of the summer I'll be able to update more regularly.
Classes
Classes have been amazing so far. The Summit brings in a new professor (usually from Southeastern) every two to three days, which is neat because then we get to hear from these really really smart people in their area of expertise. So far we've discussed . . .
-Organizing your life around the Gospel and your calling
-Doctrine of Creation
-Doctrine of Salvation
-Interpreting the Scriptures
-Early Church History
-The Reformation
-Doctrine of the Church
-Baptist origins and belief
-Gospel-driven finances
-Doctrine of Sin
-Doctrine of Judgment
-Worldview
-Doctrine of Jesus' Death
-Doctrine of the Resurrection
-Our response to the Gospel
-Colossians (and worldview)
It's been pretty intense, because it's a lot of information in a very short period of time, so your head is usually full of theology just swirling around in there. We've been encourage that because of that, we should take really good notes so that we'll be able to go back over them to help us process things later. There's been some really really interesting stuff though, and if you want to discuss any of it with me, I'd love to discuss it all! Discussing it all usually helps the whole processing process. So just let me know!
Internship
My internship is with the Kidzone, the children's ministry at the Summit, and it's been fun so far. Mostly I do intern-y kinds of things at the office, such as printing out all the curricula for Sundays and just helping keep things organized. However, my roomie and I have been given free reign on a project for the summer. Our project is to design from scratch a mentor/service ministry for kids (1st-5th grade) which gives them the opportunity to serve on Sunday morning. Our "bosses" are there to help us if we get stuck, but basically we were just told to run with it, and hopefully it will get implemented this fall! The point of the service ministry is basically to teach our kids several things: that service is an important part of our faith and something that we should all be involved in; that we need to be giving back to the church and the community, not just taking from them; that we should be actively sharing God's love with other people through service; that they don't need to wait until they're older to begin serving God. So Carrie and I are planning that all out, and hopefully we'll get it all worked out by the end of summer. It's kind of intimidating, but really thrilling too. We also want to incorporate into the program some of the cores of the Kidzone - daily personal time with God, prayer, Scripture memory - so we're working on ways to do that as well. I'm excited to see what our kids will do!
Sunday mornings are crazy madness when you work with the Kidzone. Every other week we have Set Up, so then we need to be at church at 6am to get everything set up and ready for the 8.00am service. Then we get to attend one service (for me the 8.00), then during the 9.30 service I work either with the 1's or the 2's, and during the 11 o'clock service I work with the Grace kids, which is the special needs class. Then the weeks that I don't have Set Up I have Tear Down. I'm usually at church around 7 hours, so it's tiring, but it's really cool, too. I love working with all the kids; the babies are so cute and the Grace kids are so sweet! Overall, it's fun times.
Classes
Classes have been amazing so far. The Summit brings in a new professor (usually from Southeastern) every two to three days, which is neat because then we get to hear from these really really smart people in their area of expertise. So far we've discussed . . .
-Organizing your life around the Gospel and your calling
-Doctrine of Creation
-Doctrine of Salvation
-Interpreting the Scriptures
-Early Church History
-The Reformation
-Doctrine of the Church
-Baptist origins and belief
-Gospel-driven finances
-Doctrine of Sin
-Doctrine of Judgment
-Worldview
-Doctrine of Jesus' Death
-Doctrine of the Resurrection
-Our response to the Gospel
-Colossians (and worldview)
It's been pretty intense, because it's a lot of information in a very short period of time, so your head is usually full of theology just swirling around in there. We've been encourage that because of that, we should take really good notes so that we'll be able to go back over them to help us process things later. There's been some really really interesting stuff though, and if you want to discuss any of it with me, I'd love to discuss it all! Discussing it all usually helps the whole processing process. So just let me know!
Internship
My internship is with the Kidzone, the children's ministry at the Summit, and it's been fun so far. Mostly I do intern-y kinds of things at the office, such as printing out all the curricula for Sundays and just helping keep things organized. However, my roomie and I have been given free reign on a project for the summer. Our project is to design from scratch a mentor/service ministry for kids (1st-5th grade) which gives them the opportunity to serve on Sunday morning. Our "bosses" are there to help us if we get stuck, but basically we were just told to run with it, and hopefully it will get implemented this fall! The point of the service ministry is basically to teach our kids several things: that service is an important part of our faith and something that we should all be involved in; that we need to be giving back to the church and the community, not just taking from them; that we should be actively sharing God's love with other people through service; that they don't need to wait until they're older to begin serving God. So Carrie and I are planning that all out, and hopefully we'll get it all worked out by the end of summer. It's kind of intimidating, but really thrilling too. We also want to incorporate into the program some of the cores of the Kidzone - daily personal time with God, prayer, Scripture memory - so we're working on ways to do that as well. I'm excited to see what our kids will do!
Sunday mornings are crazy madness when you work with the Kidzone. Every other week we have Set Up, so then we need to be at church at 6am to get everything set up and ready for the 8.00am service. Then we get to attend one service (for me the 8.00), then during the 9.30 service I work either with the 1's or the 2's, and during the 11 o'clock service I work with the Grace kids, which is the special needs class. Then the weeks that I don't have Set Up I have Tear Down. I'm usually at church around 7 hours, so it's tiring, but it's really cool, too. I love working with all the kids; the babies are so cute and the Grace kids are so sweet! Overall, it's fun times.
04 June 2007
Youngstown, OH
Well, hello there! Summer has officially gotten underway now, and I've already been busy as could be. The Institute started about a week and a half ago and so far I'm loving it!
The first two days we worked with Pregnancy Support Services on cleaning up a house for a woman that's about to have her third child and with Habitat for Humanity on building a house in downtown Durham. Both were good experiences and provided a chance for the six of us that are in the Institute to start getting to know each other.
On Saturday, the 26th, we left for Youngstown, OH, in a 12-passenger van. We got there around 7pm ish and went to a graduation party for one of the members of the church we were visiting. Then we had kind of a relaxed day on Sunday, since they meet for church Sunday nights. The church is called Youngstown Metro Church and is pastored by Josh Shank. I fell in love with that church and would love the opportunity to go back anytime. It's a pretty small church - I think they have around 100 members - and it's growing. It's a kind of alternative church: lots of piercings and tattoos, rock music for worship, etc. As soon as that church service started and people started worshiping, you could feel God's presence there, and you knew that this was a church of people that are sincerely worshiping and loving God. Over the week we were there, we got to know some of the more involved church members, and there are some really neat people there. They're focused and driven, seeking to live their lives to serve God and their community, wanting to reach people with His love. Living in a world where complacency is so often a problem among Christians and the church, it was really refreshing to spend time with people that were so focused and driven. It was really inspiring.
While we were there, we were mostly helping them do some work for an organization they've started called Social Action Republica. SAR is a non-profit social organization that was started by and is affiliated with the Metro Church, but with which Metro wants to involve other churches and organizations in the community so that they're all working together. SAR's two main focuses right now are the issues of thirst and human trafficking. This August, a group of 7 or 8 people from Metro are going to Liberia to actually build a well to provide clean water to an entire village there. Since building a well like this costs $5-10 thousand, SAR is putting on a race called 10 Miles to Cure Thirst. The premise of the race is that a woman has to walk an average of 10 miles every day to get water, water that is usually contaminated and largely contributes to the spread of waterborne diseases, which affect the majority of their population. The race is in July, so we were doing a lot of promo for it, making signs for it, that sort of thing. A lot of it involved just walking around to Youngstown businesses and asking them if they'd like to be a sponsor in the race. It's a really cool thing they're doing, and they want to make it an annual thing, so that every summer they're going and building at least one well (more if they can get teams from other churches and organizations involved).
Social Action Republica also focuses on human trafficking (700,000 to 4 million women and children are trafficked around the world for forced prostitution, labor, and other forms of exploitation every year), an issue which is also very pertinent to the US, where it's the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the nation. Most of SAR's actions regarding human sex trafficking right now are spreading awareness. Less than 2% of law enforcement and medical personnel are trained to deal with sex trafficking and there are no major laws punishing it, so even when people are caught trafficking, they usually get away with just a slap on the wrist. SAR and Metro are focusing on spreading awareness so that we can hopefully put pressure to do something about this: train personnel to deal with it, make laws to punish it, find ways to rehabilitate and reassimilate the women and children into society. It's a really serious issue and one that I personally, even knowing as little as I know about it, already feel really passionate about.
What's really exciting about the whole thing is that the Summit Church may start a branch of Social Action Republica in Durham, participating in things like going to Liberia to build wells every summer and spreading awareness and finding ways to deal with human trafficking in the US. I've already talked to one of the pastors at the Summit about getting involved in the human trafficking issue, since it's something I feel strongly about, and I'm really excited about the possibility of working with that and hopefully being able to do something to help women and children get out of those hopeless situations and into places where we and others would be able to show them the love of Christ and hopefully turn their lives around and find them a decent way to live. The more I think about it, the more I want to do something about it. It breaks my heart to think about the hundreds of thousands of women and children that are forced into these situations all the time. We need to pray that God will raise up people to stop this, people that will take His love and His Word (and His justice) into these situations, that God will respond to our prayers and work through these situations to reveal Himself to people and to start to change it. This fall or spring, there's a movie coming out called "Trade" which deals with the issue of human trafficking, which both the Summit and the Metro are going to do a pre-screening of.
While in Youngstown, we were also looking around downtown for a new facility for the Metro, since the owners of the theater they're in now have started giving them a lot of trouble. We walked through downtown Y-town and looked for abandoned buildings that looked like they might be a good fit for the church and were hopefully for sale or lease so that the church could start going through them and looking for a building that would work. We found some good leads, so we're praying that at least one of them will work out, being of the right size and within the Metro's budget.
We met some really cool people while we were in Y-town. Josh and Aimee Shank are the couple that moved there to start the church; Josh is the pastor and Aimee runs most of the business side of it. They have a little girl, Ella, who's about a year and a half and the cutest little girl you ever met. We spent a lot of time with the three of them, and just being with them you could see the passion they had for God and the vision they had for His people in Youngstown. It was really cool. We also got to know a girl named Lauren, the college student that's planning and putting on the 10 Miles to Cure Thirst race. It's a lot of work and it was really neat to see how well she was doing everything, even though none of them had put on a race like this before and they really didn't know what they were doing. We also got to know a woman named Cece pretty well. She's also a main actor in the Metro and SAR, and she and I got to talk about human trafficking a bit, since it's something she's also passionate about. We're going to keep in touch with the whole thing, so I'm hoping I can learn a lot from her. She's a really neat person. There were several other people that we got to work with and got to know a little bit, and I miss them all already. The worship band that plays at Metro on Sunday nights just put out a CD, which features some original songs by their worship leader, Jesse David, and all of the proceeds of which go towards clean water in Africa. It's a really good CD, and you can buy it online (I'll give you the link at the end of the post).
Basically, I was in Youngstown for a week, visiting the Metro Church, and I fell in love with the church, the people, and the town. You could see God at work in those people and what they were doing, and I loved being a part of that. They offered for a few of us to maybe pray about coming up there next summer and interning with them, and it's something that I've been thinking about and praying about. I have very tentative plans for next summer already, so we'll what pans out, but I would love to be able to go there for a summer and be with them and learn from them. You could learn so much, not just about how to plant a church, but also about how to go into a city where God doesn't have a large presence or following and really reach people, go into their lives with the love of God and let Him change them, and through that start to change the entire city.
"We don't want to be relevent to culture - we want to lead it." ~Josh Shank, pastor, the Metro Church, Youngstown, OH.
Related links:
www.youngstownmetrochurch.com
www.socialactionrepublica.com
www.myspace.com/jessedavidworship
www.tradethemovie.com
The first two days we worked with Pregnancy Support Services on cleaning up a house for a woman that's about to have her third child and with Habitat for Humanity on building a house in downtown Durham. Both were good experiences and provided a chance for the six of us that are in the Institute to start getting to know each other.
On Saturday, the 26th, we left for Youngstown, OH, in a 12-passenger van. We got there around 7pm ish and went to a graduation party for one of the members of the church we were visiting. Then we had kind of a relaxed day on Sunday, since they meet for church Sunday nights. The church is called Youngstown Metro Church and is pastored by Josh Shank. I fell in love with that church and would love the opportunity to go back anytime. It's a pretty small church - I think they have around 100 members - and it's growing. It's a kind of alternative church: lots of piercings and tattoos, rock music for worship, etc. As soon as that church service started and people started worshiping, you could feel God's presence there, and you knew that this was a church of people that are sincerely worshiping and loving God. Over the week we were there, we got to know some of the more involved church members, and there are some really neat people there. They're focused and driven, seeking to live their lives to serve God and their community, wanting to reach people with His love. Living in a world where complacency is so often a problem among Christians and the church, it was really refreshing to spend time with people that were so focused and driven. It was really inspiring.
While we were there, we were mostly helping them do some work for an organization they've started called Social Action Republica. SAR is a non-profit social organization that was started by and is affiliated with the Metro Church, but with which Metro wants to involve other churches and organizations in the community so that they're all working together. SAR's two main focuses right now are the issues of thirst and human trafficking. This August, a group of 7 or 8 people from Metro are going to Liberia to actually build a well to provide clean water to an entire village there. Since building a well like this costs $5-10 thousand, SAR is putting on a race called 10 Miles to Cure Thirst. The premise of the race is that a woman has to walk an average of 10 miles every day to get water, water that is usually contaminated and largely contributes to the spread of waterborne diseases, which affect the majority of their population. The race is in July, so we were doing a lot of promo for it, making signs for it, that sort of thing. A lot of it involved just walking around to Youngstown businesses and asking them if they'd like to be a sponsor in the race. It's a really cool thing they're doing, and they want to make it an annual thing, so that every summer they're going and building at least one well (more if they can get teams from other churches and organizations involved).
Social Action Republica also focuses on human trafficking (700,000 to 4 million women and children are trafficked around the world for forced prostitution, labor, and other forms of exploitation every year), an issue which is also very pertinent to the US, where it's the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the nation. Most of SAR's actions regarding human sex trafficking right now are spreading awareness. Less than 2% of law enforcement and medical personnel are trained to deal with sex trafficking and there are no major laws punishing it, so even when people are caught trafficking, they usually get away with just a slap on the wrist. SAR and Metro are focusing on spreading awareness so that we can hopefully put pressure to do something about this: train personnel to deal with it, make laws to punish it, find ways to rehabilitate and reassimilate the women and children into society. It's a really serious issue and one that I personally, even knowing as little as I know about it, already feel really passionate about.
What's really exciting about the whole thing is that the Summit Church may start a branch of Social Action Republica in Durham, participating in things like going to Liberia to build wells every summer and spreading awareness and finding ways to deal with human trafficking in the US. I've already talked to one of the pastors at the Summit about getting involved in the human trafficking issue, since it's something I feel strongly about, and I'm really excited about the possibility of working with that and hopefully being able to do something to help women and children get out of those hopeless situations and into places where we and others would be able to show them the love of Christ and hopefully turn their lives around and find them a decent way to live. The more I think about it, the more I want to do something about it. It breaks my heart to think about the hundreds of thousands of women and children that are forced into these situations all the time. We need to pray that God will raise up people to stop this, people that will take His love and His Word (and His justice) into these situations, that God will respond to our prayers and work through these situations to reveal Himself to people and to start to change it. This fall or spring, there's a movie coming out called "Trade" which deals with the issue of human trafficking, which both the Summit and the Metro are going to do a pre-screening of.
While in Youngstown, we were also looking around downtown for a new facility for the Metro, since the owners of the theater they're in now have started giving them a lot of trouble. We walked through downtown Y-town and looked for abandoned buildings that looked like they might be a good fit for the church and were hopefully for sale or lease so that the church could start going through them and looking for a building that would work. We found some good leads, so we're praying that at least one of them will work out, being of the right size and within the Metro's budget.
We met some really cool people while we were in Y-town. Josh and Aimee Shank are the couple that moved there to start the church; Josh is the pastor and Aimee runs most of the business side of it. They have a little girl, Ella, who's about a year and a half and the cutest little girl you ever met. We spent a lot of time with the three of them, and just being with them you could see the passion they had for God and the vision they had for His people in Youngstown. It was really cool. We also got to know a girl named Lauren, the college student that's planning and putting on the 10 Miles to Cure Thirst race. It's a lot of work and it was really neat to see how well she was doing everything, even though none of them had put on a race like this before and they really didn't know what they were doing. We also got to know a woman named Cece pretty well. She's also a main actor in the Metro and SAR, and she and I got to talk about human trafficking a bit, since it's something she's also passionate about. We're going to keep in touch with the whole thing, so I'm hoping I can learn a lot from her. She's a really neat person. There were several other people that we got to work with and got to know a little bit, and I miss them all already. The worship band that plays at Metro on Sunday nights just put out a CD, which features some original songs by their worship leader, Jesse David, and all of the proceeds of which go towards clean water in Africa. It's a really good CD, and you can buy it online (I'll give you the link at the end of the post).
Basically, I was in Youngstown for a week, visiting the Metro Church, and I fell in love with the church, the people, and the town. You could see God at work in those people and what they were doing, and I loved being a part of that. They offered for a few of us to maybe pray about coming up there next summer and interning with them, and it's something that I've been thinking about and praying about. I have very tentative plans for next summer already, so we'll what pans out, but I would love to be able to go there for a summer and be with them and learn from them. You could learn so much, not just about how to plant a church, but also about how to go into a city where God doesn't have a large presence or following and really reach people, go into their lives with the love of God and let Him change them, and through that start to change the entire city.
"We don't want to be relevent to culture - we want to lead it." ~Josh Shank, pastor, the Metro Church, Youngstown, OH.
Related links:
www.youngstownmetrochurch.com
www.socialactionrepublica.com
www.myspace.com/jessedavidworship
www.tradethemovie.com
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