Eight Days
Hello there! Thank you so much for checking out this page :) My name is Erin and I will be joining a creative arts team in Turkey. It's exciting to use my music degree in this unique way. Join me on this journey as I leave for Turkey and learn about God's plan for me in my new home! After months of fundraising and waiting to get that plane ticket, I'll finally be on my way to Turkey in eight days! Excited that the time has come for my teammate and I to leave! It's been a rollercoaster of all kinds of emotions as God has been stretching and teaching us. As we go, I'm asking for prayers for... Read moreJoy Through Suffering
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." (Psalm 46:10) I'm discovering that working with refugees is a job that requires being reminded of the above verse, and more broadly the difficult but liberating truth that we are not the savior. If the gospel wasn't true, I would go crazy working with a population of such great need. From a worldly perspective there are countless cases of hopeless futures, but from the perspective of a loving God, countless opportunities for lives to be transformed and people to find true joy, regardless... Read moreJapanese Practice
Here is a humorous video my roommate and I watch to practice Japanese as a joke. Formal language learning is very expensive here in Tokyo, Japan so we just do self-study, but many of the students we talk to can speak enough English to have a conversation with. Some of my teammates can speak Japanese but I cannot speak Japanese so I really on English. It is definitely more of a struggle this way but it is definitely possible for I have seen God do some great things in the lives of different Japanese students due to their interesting in learning English. All in all, this is just a funny video... Read more
First Ministry Update
Sawadii Kha (Hello) Friends, My team and I made it to Bangkok safe and sound! We had some minor bumps, but God was in control of everything. I spent my first week living in a slum community with some other interns, and now I’ve moved into a low income apartment community with a teammate named Sarah. We love our community! The leaders of the community have really taken us under their wing. We feel more and more at home every day. Our apartment is one room with a little kitchen and bathroom. We sleep on mats on the floor, and we actually have a shower! That’s a BIG blessing! Adjusting... Read more
Beginnings in the Gambia
Kayira be! (Peace to you, a common greeting here) Well, I have officially been here in the Gambia for 3 weeks. Things are very different here as you can imagine. I arrived during the hottest part of the year if you can believe that from where you sit. The period after the rain starts is the most humid and hot part of the year. I was not informed of this until I arrived so you can imagine my surprise at experiencing “the dawg days of summer” in the middle of October. I am adjusting (mainly in front of a fan) and learning different ways to cope and work in this climate. When I arrived at the... Read more
The Backstory: From Southeast US to Northwest Africa
Hey Ya'll! For my first blog entry ever, I’d like to share with you a little about myself and my journey to GoCorps and the mission field. I grew up in a large family in a small community in western North Carolina. Although I only have 3 brothers that live in my parent’s home, I grew up with all my cousins very close by and that made it feel like I had many, many siblings. My mother is one of 10 children and my father is one of 3 and everyone lived in the same town while I was growing up. I am very close to my family and the impact they all had on my life was substantial. I grew up in a... Read more
Faith Like a Child
Hello! My name is Arielle and I am joining a creative arts team in the middle east! My fellow GoCorps Goer and teammate, Erin, and I are in the midst of the final stages of our support raising with the goal of leaving the states by November 15th. This season of support raising has been such an important and stretching experience! I like to refer to it as "missionary boot camp!" God has used this time to point out to me that I am not in fact perfect. Surprising as that was to me, God planned this perfect amount of fundraising time to teach me new lessons about boldness and trust. Having been... Read moreWorth it
Last night as I sat holding my grandma’s hand at midnight, listening to her dementia related fears and dried her tears, my heart broke, knowing that I will be leaving her behind and quite possibly not seeing her again this side of heaven. I knew going and serving the Lord would require sacrifice and I am all ready to give up my comfortable lifestyle, familiar clothing, comfort food and the like. But leave my family? That hits a lot closer to home. Especially when one is sick. But in Mark 10:17-30 and Luke 14:25-33, Jesus reminds us about the rich young ruler. Remember, he was the man who... Read more
One Month=Somewhat of a Routine!
Wow! Can you believe it, just two days will mark one month of living in Bangkok! Things have been going well. I have began somewhat of a routine, waking up every morning at 6 am to get ready and leave by 6:30 to make it to school by 8 am. I take a bus the main road right outside my community to the skytrain, which is called BTS here. Then I walk just a little bit to my Thai language school, which lasts four hours from 8 am to 12 pm. After school, on Mondays and Fridays, I go back to my community or run random errands; on Wednesdays-Thursdays, I have meetings that last until the evening. Some... Read more