My Letter to Future Goers
It's crazy to think that it has already been two years since I landed in my target country. At that time, I had no idea what was in-store for me over the two years. Some things were to be expected like challenges with my target language and adjusting to culture shock, but even those can present challenges in forms that I didn't imagine. Then there's other challenges that I wouldn't of necessarily expected, anything from a fair number of changes in team dynamics with people joining and leaving, figuring out what making friendships look like, trying to balance anything from studying to reaching... Read more
Agape Love
This week the Sp!rit showed me more of G-d’s character of LOVE. (In a devotional series titled “Perfect Love: Maximum Joy Series”) In Greek, there are a few ways to describe LOVE: Eros love: body physical, selfish, getting Phile love: soul, emotional, half and half, getting and giving Agape love: spirit, spiritual, unselfish, giving the kind of love outlined in 1 John is agape love, which is the kind of love which is the very essence of G-d. This type of love is SO apparent in many of the parents of the children I work with. These kids have differing levels of cerebral palsy, which... Read moreThis is Not What I Expected
4 years ago, if you asked me if I’d like to pursue international missions I’d certainly say no and even if I was given the opportunity to do such, I would most likely turn down such an offer. Yet, everything changed for me during college. It's funny because I entered college as a biology major with the plans to be an optometrist, but it only took me a semester to realize how bad I am at science, lol, and so then social work became the new plan. During my freshman year of college, I participated in a weeklong service trip, with only the intention of getting service credits, with my school to... Read more
Ups and Downs of Culture Shock
They say that culture shock hits hardest during the first few months while overseas. Though, considering covid-19 took over just about a few weeks after arriving to my field placement, I’ve barely even been able to interact with locals! So in that sense, I was more “eased” into the culture. Unlike one of my teammates who had to go to school and started early on with ministry work, I am only just now starting to get more hands on experience with the work I came here to do (though it’s still quite limited). At the moment things are almost back to normal though. This said, I’ve had a bit more... Read more
Counting Every Blessing
Earlier this year, my friend sent me the picture above. Just a couple weeks after I got that picture, news about the corona virus started flooding my newsfeed. And though I’m pretty far from the epicenter of the outbreak, many of my friends and family have reached out to me with concerns and some have urged me to come home. It’s only been not even to 2 months into 2020 and I feel like that picture above is already so true. I personally feel fine though and my team is fine as well. So we’re not going anywhere! We’re all safe and have been taking the pre-cautions of the area around us. We... Read moreA Letter to My Former Self: Emily 0% Support
Hey there everyone. Sorry for not posting recently! I haven’t had a post in awhile so I figured I’d make another one now :) And for this post, it’ll be in the form as a letter to myself. Myself now, fully supported, to myself when I just started the support raising process. Dear Emily at 0% support, I know you’re worried about this whole support process, asking yourself questions such as: “how the heck am I going to raise this much money in this amount of time? What if I can’t raise it? Will I really even end up going? What will people think when I meet with them and ask them to join my... Read moreI'm about to do some cool things!
Hello my friends! Growing up, I thought in order to be a missionary, you had to give up every single one of your belongings, move to a third-world country, have no access to running water, and basically risk your life in order to spread the Gospel to unreached people groups. And as these are true for admirable missionaries out there, I’ve learned that being a missionary is not limited to just these qualities. You can see Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:18-20 when he says, “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make... Read moreA Different Route
Hello!!! This upcoming January I will be moving across the world to East Asia!! It's super crazy to think that just a year ago I thought I would now be on my way to graduate school for speech therapy, since I one day want to become a speech language pathologist! But God has taken me on a much different route! A bit about me: I graduated from SDSU with a bachelors of science in speech language and hearing sciences (SLHS) along with two minors in honors interdisciplinary studies and cultural proficiency! I was saved during my sophomore year of high school, but college was a time in my life... Read more
You will Lack Nothing
“I don’t know what God has in store for you when you turn away from pursuing comfort, stability, and security to ground your identity in the family of Jesus. But I do know he will be with you, and that you will lack nothing.” I recently read this quote in a book that I was reading called, “12 Lies that hold America Captive and the Truth that Sets us Free” (amazing book, I highly recommend!) This quote jumped out at me and resonated deeply with the season of life I am currently in. Here I am, three months fresh out of college, finding myself in a place of little security, stability, or comfort... Read more