I’ll be leaving very soon on a three week adventure (hospital check-up, vacation, and then a conference) and I’m kind of excited and sad. I’m going to miss here, but I’m also excited because I know that I will be meeting my family on my vacation!
I’m also a little sad because I know that when I come back, a few changes will happen. Right after my trip (like, one day after) I’ll be moving into a new apartment. I will be living with another young woman on a different team here (us young’uns have to stick together). That means I will be leaving my wonderful local family that I’ve been staying with for the past five months. I will miss them very much. The daughters in the family are now very near and dear to my heart. I love them so much. I know that I will continue to think of them often, even as I won’t see their precious faces every day. I do hope that I will be able to continue to see them every so often. Right now, I have meals with them four times a week, and after I leave, I hope to have dinners with them once a week. That way, I can continue my relationship with them.
It is actually so sweet how they have come to know and care for me. I see it in the way that they give me food. They found out that I don’t like tomatoes, and so in any dish or salad, they make sure that it doesn’t have tomatoes in my portion. I also noticed that they give me extra of the things I like: carrots, onions, cucumbers, and pickles. I feel very loved and blessed whenever I see the care that they put into my food. I also love playing with the daughters after dinner, and I have learned many hand games, and taught them a few of the ones I know, as well. I also have this fun little coloring calendar, and I save the pictures so we can color them together. I know that playing with children, as an adult, is not really done here, and I think that is part of the reason why they love me so much. I am willing to play with them, and I think that doesn’t really happen that much. There are a few reasons why I think adults don’t really interact much with the children, and so it means something special to the kids when I do play with them. I want to show them that they are cared for and loved. I hope to continue doing that, even as I move to a different place. I have been so blessed with my family, and I want to keep on blessing them.
I am also happy that my language does seem to be improving. My home tutor and I have been busy doing little tests that we neglected to do along my language learning path, and so we’ve been to easily knock out a few of them in one go. Also, when working on a survival phrases test, I noticed that I knew so many of them. It really gave me a boost in confidence, which I had been lacking. I know that with my three week vacation, I will go backwards a little bit, but I hope to practice a little bit while I am gone.
I don’t quite know what life will look like in the coming months (thank goodness that summer is almost over because of the hot weather and no AC!), but I think that I am feeling more ready than I used to. I know that through Him, I am ready for anything. I am strong in His identity for me that I am His daughter, and nothing will change that.