One Year In...
After almost a year of putting it off, I thought it was about time for me to finally write another update! It’s amazing to think that it has already been one year since I arrived here, and it’s incredible to think about how different things are now from when I first arrived last January. When I first arrived, I was set to join a group on a campus near the city center, was getting geared up to be an English teacher (something I once swore I’d never be), and was looking for ways to get connected to an orphanage. My Chinese language skills were near to non-existent, and I was confident that… Read more >>A Lesson in Love and Grace
This week, I had the opportunity to meet one of the children from the foster program I’ll be volunteering with, whose name roughly translates to “Sun”, so for our purposes here, I'll call her Sunshine. She lives like an infant, though she’s three years old, because of a lack of strength in her back and neck to sit up or hold up her head. She was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and also suffers from spasticity in all four limbs, which means that the muscles in her arms and legs will clench for long periods of time. As I sat with Sunshine, her foster mother, and a woman from the program, it… Read more >>Western Paradox, Eastern Standard?
Yesterday was my first day teaching English at a local school. Right off the bat, it was clear that there were some gross miscommunications about what was expected of me and, unsurprisingly, I had to adapt quickly. The desire to provide a high-quality teacher and classroom for their students was clear, but the local teachers lined the hallways unpacking the students’ textbooks and decorating the halls indicated that receiving my training just hours before my first class wasn’t out of the ordinary for anyone. From my Western lens, to expect anything prepared at the last minute to be high-… Read more >>
The Adventure Begins!
I’ve been in Asia for two weeks now, and I can’t believe how quickly time has flown! I feel like I’m settling in well enough – I’m getting a feel for where some of the need-to-know places are, and the food is fantastic! The timing of getting here has felt strange, with university students away on vacation and ministry opportunities thin-stretched, I found myself wishing I could be doing more, but I am also thankful for the timing. One benefit to the delays I faced has already become apparent – the language study I started to do on my own has proved itself useful numerous times! It’s not much… Read more >>