Greetings and salutations from SE Asia, friends!
I am finally settling in here and finding a little bit more of a routine. I have been spending my weeks at the farm and my weekends back near the city where our team also works.
At the farm I have been continuing to work in the vegetable gardens to improve their production and effectiveness as a training tool. I have been learning new techniques and skills, and I am amazed at how well things grow here! You often can just cut a branch off of a plant, stick the branch in the ground, and roughly 90 percent of the time it starts growing a whole new plant. It is amazing to me how well things grow here.
During June we also had 10 baby goats born! We had 5 born in one day, and I had the opportunity to help clean them up and take care of them. I was able to watch one of them be born which was pretty amazing. It was my first time to see anything being born with my own eyes. What a gift God has given us in life...although it is sure a messy process, right from the start!
During the weekends, I have had the opportunity to connect with some students on campus in meaningful ways. A few weeks ago, I went to visit a friend of mine in her dorm room. She wasn't there, but I was able to meet her roommates. We had some really good conversation together, and I was able to practice using the local language. Later I went to visit some other friends in their dorm, and I was able to connect with them as well. It was a break through for me because it was the first time I really felt comfortable to just stop by and chat for a little while. God is at work in our friend and in me, and I find it exciting to see some of these changes slowly surfacing!
While I was visiting the girls in their dorms I found myself using the local language some, which surprised them and me! My time at the farm is near language immersion as I am the only native English speaker there, and some of the people there know very little English. Praise God, I am learning to speak more in their language.