World Deputation 2010

This blog is moving...

2011-05-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

If you want to keep updated on Deputation for years to come, check out th UMin Blog.

T-shirts arriving in one week!

2011-01-26T11:13:00.000-08:00

Hey yall!

The first set of Luis Sneaks t-shirts are set to arrive on February 3rd. Come and get em! Help support the children of the Dominican Republic.

Final thoughts on Ecuador

2010-11-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

I'm sure all of you readers are wondering how the end of our trip was and what some thoughts are now that we are removed from our experience by a couple months. So I want to take the time right now and write a final, parting blog with some summaries and reflections of how I spent my summer in Ecuador. Enjoy and thank you so incredibly much for all of the support and love you have given all of the deputees! With love, Erica.

Dios le bendiga. That's “God bless you” in Spanish, and is a phrase commonly heard when you say goodbye, accompanied by a kiss on the cheek. This my friends, is a characteristic of the unique and beautiful country known as Ecuador. And is also conveniently the place where I spent 2 months of my summer as a part of the Deputation program with University Ministries.

Other useful phrases in Español, you might ask? “Está bien,” “no soy fea,” “donde está el baño,” and “me gustan empanadas, dame una, por favor.” Just in case you were wondering. [Translations: "It's okay," "i'm not ugly," "where is the bathroom?," and "i like empanadas, give me one, please!"]

Ecuador is a South American country right on the Equator line, above Peru and below Colombia. People commonly think that being on the Equator for the summer would be a.) unbelievably hot and b.) would make people incredibly tan. However, both of these things are false. At least at where we were. Our home for 58 days was a church in small mountain town at 8,000 feet by the name of Cotacachi. We wore pants and sweatshirts most of the time, and it rained pretty much every afternoon without fail. But even that couldn't detract from the amazing beauty around us. Towering green mountains, rolling fields and clear lakes abound left us all completely breathless. Pictures don't do the country justice. I guess that just means you'll have to go to Ecuador and find out for yourself!

The missionary work we did while abroad covered a wide range of things. We worked for families from the church, doing anything from childcare to house-cleaning, and from gardening to working in family-owned restaurants. Which, by the way, is where I learned how to make the aforementioned empanadas. We also taught English in a remote Black-Ecuadorian village for two weeks to people aged 8 to 21, which was challenging, but probably one of our favorite parts of the trip. Other tasks of ours included starting up the first English service at the church for American expatriates, singing worship at church, both in English and Spanish, running games and crafts at a kids camp and painting the church, inside and out.

One of the things that stuck out to me throughout my Deputation experience was an overwhelming sense of God's love pouring out from the Ecuadorian people. The church we worked with was incredibly small and didn't have enough money to always pay the pastor, and yet they would rent a bus and drive 2+ hours to a remote village to talk about Jesus to non-believers. That my friends, is one of the greatest examples of God's love that I've ever seen. Their selfless devotion to spreading the gospel and caring for others less fortunate than themselves was beyond inspiring. How many churches here have exponentially more than a tiny church in Cotacachi and yet don't do as much with what they have? That was a question that constantly was, and continues to be, on my heart. All I can say is that the souls of the people there are beautiful.

As far as personal growth goes, one thing that I was constantly facing was my own weakness and the necessity to rely on God. That said, I'm the kind of person who feels the need to take care of others and get everything done myself. But in Ecuador, everything familiar and comfortable was stripped away from me. My family, my friends, my boyfriend, the types of food I was used to, my language, and even my normal intake of oxygen [there's not really a whole lot of air up there at 8,000 plus feet, friends]. And with all of that came the realization that I can't do everything on my own. And at first, that was defeating. But soon I found myself praying to God multiple times a day for everything. Even it if it was as simple as “please get me through this day, Lord.” As time went on and challenges arose, I became more confident in the power and peace of Jesus. And even though it continues to be hard, I'm learning more and more to embrace my own weakness and turn it into reliance on the wonderful grace of God.

Another thing that struck me while I was on this trip was the idea of God as the ultimate Father. To make it simple, I don't really know what a “father” looks like. However, while I was in Ecuador, this idea of a father was just something I couldn't get away from. And it's something I'm still working through, but I had the privilege of seeing what real and good, loving fathers look like in the men of the church, particularly our pastor host. And witnessing to these very well put-together and connected families led me to thinking more about God as our heavenly father. And as simple as it is, it really hit me that God loves me and there's nothing that I can do to make him love me more or less. To him, I am perfectly done; I am lovely. And I am his daughter. And he would do anything and everything for me. And in fact, he already has: he sacrificed his true and perfect son; something that would agonize any loving father. He lost his perfect child so that I could have the chance to live and love, even with all of my flaws and mistakes. And that is something that will continue to mystify and amaze me.

Overall, Deputation was a challenging but life-altering experience. I met people who are a second family to me now, I tried new foods [although regrettably not the specialty dish of guinea pig], I learned new skills, worked on a new language, and discovered new things about myself and about God. And I got to zipline upside-down through the jungle, snorkel, paraglide off a cliff and boat down a river in the Amazon.

I'd say that's a pretty good summer, wouldn't you?

Sierra Leone travel

2010-08-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

As you heard from Victor, the Sierra Leone team is having some traveling challenges. Their initial flight out of Freetown was cancelled and they are still awaiting the next available flight. We will know more later tonight. In the interim, please join me in prayer for travel safety and energy as they continue a marathon of airport time.

It's About Time...

2010-08-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

For a lot of things actually.
It’s time for our first (but not final) dep blog, time for us to say goodbye to Sierra Leone and our kids at the Banta Home, and also time for us to book it out of the Lungi Freetown Airport where we have at press time, been for the past 25 hours.
It’s crazy to us to try and explain our experience of the past two months here, so most of our stories and little details you will have to hear upon our arrival! But just so you have an idea of what us crazy college kids have been up to, here’s an overview:
• Living in the Banta Mohkelleh Bush in Upper Banta with 100 orphaned and destitute children who have been the loves of our lives as well as our neighbors the past eight weeks.
• Working with nine other teammates (6 Americans, 2 Sierra Leoneans, and 1 Irish man) through the Children of the Nations (COTN) program there.
• Working with COTN’s Village Partnership Program (VPP) in five nearby villages learning new skills such as grinding up cassava leaves, farming, carrying water on our heads, learning Mende (the local language) and Krio (the national language besides English), leading weekly bible studies, attending church, and loving our village kiddos. Victor was in Ngolala (Guah-la), Jessica was in Wondie (woon-day), and Emma was in Mogborie (Mog-bore-eeeee). We all had a partner and a national who came with us four times a week walking through the jungle to our village community. It was one of the best parts of the whole program.
• Spent two weeks running Bible/Community/Summer/Feeding Opportunity/Everything camps! Children’s camp was a huge success although very tiring! All 12 of us interns were split into four houses (red, green, blue, yellow) and were responsible for a total of 269 pekins! (for those of you who aren’t fluent in krio that means children..) Lots and lots of beautiful and hyper kids means lots of fun, not much sleep, planning on the fly, and a great week. The next week was youth camp for kids who were 12 years and older and was run by a team from Florida. We were all so thankful-we were exhausted and they did a great job!
• In the beginning of our trip, the first four weeks we spent afternoons tutoring the kids who needed the most help with English. Very frustrating, but also a great chance to learn the lessons of patience, and to learn about the kids. The school system here is crazy, nothing at all like we’ve grown up with and so we learned to value our education we’ve received and Victor and Emma are inspired to work harder this coming year! We spent a week teaching summer school before the teacher team from Colorado arrived, and that was quite the experience. Stories to come, and make sure to ask Jess her favorite memory verse from that week...(1st Sam. 18:1. But you need to hear her say it)
• We attempted to do personal ministries on a regular basis, but that was not always achievable (see below). When we did get to work in our assigned tasks, Victor was being a computer whiz as usual, and was teaching kids how to type, and how to handle computer class without a reliable electricity source. Jess and Emma were paired up in the clinic where they mostly observed the patients that came in, watched malaria medicine be overprescribed, watched placebo shots be given to every patient, and learned Mende songs! Yes, clinic time was pretty much like a medical day care. It was great!
• We experienced “Africa Time”! Aka, the time you give is not the time things start. For example, we were fortunate enough to experience the nursery and primary school graduations our second week in Banta. The ceremony technically began at 10:45 am and was printed on the “fliers” but when we eventually meandered up the hill to the school as we did each day (which is a half mile walk one way thank you very much) at 12 pm that the ceremony hadn’t started yet and began approximately at 12:45 pm, 2 hours later... So if we are late to coffee dates with you all when we are back, we’re sorry, we’re adjusting from Africa time to Seattle time.
• Finally, one of the best experience we had was a home take over. Each house (and there are 10 of them including the intern house) has an Aunty who looks over the 12-13 kids in each house. The Aunties needed a wee break as Mark would say, and so one Thursday through Sunday, we interns were partnered up and looked after houses. Our duties included getting the kids (but mostly ourselves up) for morning devotions at 6 am, handling morning chores of washing and eating, having meals prepared for the kids, getting them to school/church dressed (oh my goodness, crazier than you would think), cleaning the whole house top to bottom, having resting time, and playing with them. Way harder than we thought. Jess was with House 1 girls (sweetest things you’ll ever say good night to), Emma was with House 5 boys (Ahhh loves of her life), and Victor with House 6 boys (Uncle! Grease!). A fun couple of days but we were so tired by the end we felt like we needed a retreat!

So that is a quick summary of our scheduled adventures... stay tuned for the unscheduled ones! God willing, we will be in Heathrow airport soon and be able to post again! Much love to you all!!! And keep the prayers coming, this travel thing has been a nightmare...
Love,
Uncle Teekeh (Victor)
Aunty Nyadavo (Jessica)
Aunty Seinya (Emma)

Pray for travel safety

2010-08-10T16:44:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone,

Join me in prayer for each of the Deputation teams as they begin their travel home.

Team Bethlehem arrives Wednesday, August 11 at 4:45pm
Team Ecuador arrives Wednesday, August 11 at 7:56pm
Team Haiti arrives Wednesday, August 11 at 11:59pm
Team Dominican Republic arrives Thursday, August 12 at 12:04am
Team Kenya arrives Thursday, August 12 at 3:09pm
Team Sierra Leone arrives Thursday, August 12 at 8:43pm
Team India arrives Sunday, August 15 at 4:51pm

We're off like a heard of turtles-Team Haiti

2010-08-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

Our last blog post in Haite...dun dun!

This week started with three days of solid surveying. We continued our work along Canal Elmay, and each day got a little more difficult than the last. The areas along the canal we had to survey were overgrown with wasp-infested brush, and surrounded by endless banana gardens and swamps. We worked really long days and made a good amount of progress, but by Wednesday we had only gone about 1800 meters (a little over a mile). It took us a total of 5 days to get that far, but in Haiti it's about what you get done, not how fast you get done. Needless to say, we were all exhausted every day after being out in the sun all day. We're very glad to be done with surveying.

On Thursday, we spend the whole day doing data entry on AutoCAD with all the information from our survey. We then created a topographical map from the data we took, and Jeff helped with a report of our findings. On Friday, the report writing continued. Bruce wanted us to give presentations of our various projects, so people were scrambling to put their presentations together. In the morning, Adam and I (Jordan) went with Bruce to measure a reservoir and deliver some construction materials to the school in Foison. By the way, the school in Foison is being funded by the Sunday school children from UPC, and it is looking good so far. On Friday afternoon, a few of us continued working on the metal gate we're welding. This project has provided us with some great experience with welding. Then Friday night, we did presentations for Bruce and Deb.

And that brings us to Saturday...What a great day! We made our fourth and final trip to the beach. The water was perfectly calm and clear so we could see a really long ways underwater. We spend most of the time swimming, diving and exploring the reefs. We saw lots of bright tropical fish, coral, anemones, and schools of cuttlefish (they look like little squid). We also found a few lobsters hiding under rocks. Bruce said if we caught one, we could eat it for dinner...so we spent a good amount of time trying to pry them out from their caves, but had no success. Other than that, we just soaked up the sun (too much sun for some of us) one last time before we leave.

Today we went to church in Moulin, which is a small town in the mountains Southwest of us. Pastor Bernex, who lives next door to us and works around the shop, is the pastor in Moulin. The whole congregation was very excited to have us visit their church. They thanked us for coming, and Pastor Bernex prayed for us. It was really cool to see how appreciative they were of us coming to Haiti to serve God with them, and they spent a lot of time praying for our trip, our work that we've been doing, and our families and churches back home. We also sang "Come Thou Fount" for them, which they recognized in Creole, and we did "Magnify the Lord" again and they loved it. It was just an all around great church experience. This afternoon we had our final lunch prepared by Madam Chrisbon. Once again, it was delicious.

In Haiti, we have this saying: "We're leaving like a herd of turtles" because it literally takes us at least a half an hour to leave the shop once we get ready to go. Hopefully that's not the case Wednesday morning...because WE'RE COMING HOME! We're all definitely ready to be home. It has been a wonderful, challenging, rewarding experience here, and we've all built relationships and done work that we'll never forget. But it's time for us to be home with our families and friends...and Adam might actually be going crazy. So hopefully there's not a storm, because he might try to swim home. We love you all, pray for our safe travels and we'll see you soon. Team Haiti out.

God's Grace,

JJ&A

The Sea of Death

2010-08-08T04:18:00.000-07:00

[As originally posted by Alexander Halaszyn on Infinite God: Christ Without Bounds]
[Is it totally tool-ish of me to always make ^ this note ^ on my Dep blog posts? Guess it's a little late to be questioning my behavior at this point! Oh well, whatever]

Weirdest water experience of my life. Seriously.

The other day on Saturday, we had the opportunity as a group to go to the Dead Sea, not only the lowest point on earth but also one of the saltiest. There's actually a legend I was told that attempts to explain this saltiness, that it is the result of when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (It's actually due to all the run-off from the surrounding hills and from beneath where the lake now stands, from what I understand). This increased saltiness has some rather intriguing side effects. Buoyancy, is as you know, the action of stuff floating while submersed (at least partially) in the water. Or as Wikipedia puts it, "... is an upward acting force, caused by fluid pressure, that opposes an object's weight." In a way, it's very similar to Hot Air balloons floating through the air (but not "at the surface" of the air) because the hot air is less dense... there's more stuff in the air beneath the balloon than within or above the balloon.

In the Dead Sea, there is much much more in the water beneath you than you'd ever expect there to be in water: all that salt! As you're walking out into the water, past the rocks and that pricelessly cosmetic mud-slime beneath your feet, it becomes surprisingly difficult to walk, because you find that your legs no longer want to go down. Just as this realization and it's implications begin to hit, there's no longer anything beneath you, legs and body floating while completely upright. A subtle and nearly imperceptible muscle movement later, knees shoot up in front of you, back goes flat, floating on the surface. Buoyant beyond all reason. Inconceivable.

The mud was also pretty sweet, I guess it's the thing to do: cover one's self ridiculously with the nasty stuff and bake in the 107 degrees of sun for a while, rinse, and enjoy baby's-bottom-smooth skin. (I have to say, my Inner Child was quite pleased with this experience!) Upon the writing of this blog entry, my skin still feels like a good thing to be covering my body, more so than usual that is. Don't take me wrong, I'm generally pretty happy to have skin. But these days, when you're only showering once every 4 or so days... it can be nice to throw off the old man in a manor of speaking. ;)

Looking forward to daily showers when I get home... and church. I'll post more on that later, suffice it to say, I finally had the chance to go this morning. The Church of the Nativity. Pretty sweet.

Also, I would have pics from this adventure yesterday, but my camera is being all wonky, doesn't want to charge anymore. So much for pawn-shop treasures.

For now, Mas Salaama! See you all soon! (Such a very strange fact...)

Trains, Planes, and...Matatus

2010-08-05T23:48:00.000-07:00

Well seeing how I have not written on the blog I thought it was due time for me to put something up. It also helped that we only have a week left!

So from where we left off, we all are still copying, grading those wonderful papers, helping the kids learn that 6 + 4 does not equal 11, and doing anything else that the Rafiki teachers can think of. Personally, I have had a lot of fun helping the teachers with the kids. It’s been such a life changing experience. I have to say some of the work can truly be boring at times but in the end we keep each other afloat with a laugh here and there or just hanging out. We also tutor some of the kids. Barclay tutors a great bunch of kids whose names are Moses, Morris, Steven, and Amos. He really helps them out and has done some pretty creative things to get their mind around math and reading. Megan works with two kids whose names are Stephen and then helps a cute girl named Grace on her reading skills. Drea is busy working on preparing lesson plans for preschool and kindergarten. She really has a knack for it. The boys that I am working with are Elijah who is deaf and Amos who is severely handicapped. Then I work with Victor and Hillary who struggle with math. I truly now know why god had me take ASL (American Sign Language). I work with Elijah on getting comfortable with more signs to Mathematics and then doing oral (he has enough hearing to the point where it’s helpful for him to vocalize thoughts). With Amos I work on building confidence in him, or at least that’s how I see it. He works on puzzles and really has made big strides on how much time it takes him to finish. It’s so hard for us to work with these boys and girls, knowing that there lives are going to be so difficult, but it is also so reassuring knowing that God will be with them every step of the way. Last weekend we took a matatu to Nairobi for some fun. It’s the local transportation, and man, was it roomy! From my head pushing on the ceiling to my knees cutting into the seat in front of me this made for a thoroughly enjoyable time. The feeling of getting off on our own (besides the fact that we had our local friend named Peter, who is awesome and works maintenance at Rafiki, with us) was a blast in a new place. We have a stone wall around us, so for us every time we get a weekend break it’s such a blessing. Not to say we haven’t absolutely loved our time with Rafiki, but it is nice to get out of the compound and experience the real Kenya. Nairobi was so worth it, getting to walk those streets and seeing what a local gets to see every day. We all had a great time with one another and in the end it will definitely be something that we all remember, and I hope that it will be for the others as well.

Sincerely the Kenya team,

Eric Kopicky

Team India

2010-08-04T09:48:00.001-07:00

The beginning of the blog post is from the first two weeks in July.

On Monday afternoon we rested, the all day trip to Mysore left us very tired. On Tuesday we decided it would be nice to make cookies for our host family. We decided to make chocolate peanut butter no bake cookies. As we began making the cookies we realized there wasn’t enough sugar on the shelf for the cookies. Our host mother, Rita gave us a bag of what appeared to be very large sugar crystals. Katie stirred it into the pan with the other ingredients. After several minutes of stirring the cookies weren’t turning into the delectable consistency Katie had made before, instead the sugar crystals were retaining the chocolate liquid and turning rock hard. Katie chose to taste the delicious concoction and ended up with a mouthful of rock salt. Katie grabbed the bag of “sugar” and saw in tiny letters on the label on the back of the bag it said “salt.” We remade the cookies with real sugar and they were quite tasty. On Wednesday we went to Mahatma Ghandi Road (There is one in each city in India) to buy sandals to wear with our Saris. On Thursday we hung out with Aneesha, a teacher in the prevocational class at Asha Kiran. She helped us drape our first Saris (quite complicated!). In the evening the accountant at the school, Subatra, came over and did henna on our left hands. On Friday we went to our first Indian Wedding. It was a Christian service and did not last three days like typical Hindu weddings. The service was similar to Christian weddings in the States. Several hundred people attended the wedding and about 2,000 attended the reception. There was so much food at the wedding! The non-veg line was endless. We decided to join the vegetarian queue, where there wasn’t a long line. A few differences between receptions in the States and in India—There isn’t any dancing. There was a live band which sung several American and Christian songs. The couple greets an endless line of well-wishers on an elaborately decorated stage, with a sign above them that said “Shirley weds Charles.” Our host family said they greeted guests for six hours at their wedding. Wedding cake is eaten by the family of the married couple, not by their guests.

Indian Culture: We have learned a lot about the Indian culture this summer. The following are our findings. We have been pleasantly surprised with the hospitality we have received here. Multiple teachers have asked us to tea and dinner in their homes. We have met several of the locals wherever we go, they are always so welcoming and interested in where we are from and what we are doing in Bangalore. Everyone always asks how we like the spicy Indian food and are pleased to see us wearing Saris and Indian clothes. We can see the delight in the locals as we adopt Indian dress, culture, and customs like making Indian chai tea and the Indian head wobble. Every Sunday at church women comment on our ability to walk in Saris, they are surprised to see white women walking gracefully in them. People aren’t as verbal, or direct in conversation as those in the States. When we have communicated in a direct manner some people are a bit taken aback. Additionally, a month ago we realized how much Americans are afraid of awkward silences in conversations, perhaps it goes hand –in-hand with our chattiness. When our host family has guests over there are always awkward silences intermixed in conversations and a conversation ends after about a minute of silence. Americans are constantly aware of preventing such silences, we have an array of conversation topics in mind and always leave a conversation before an awkward silence occurs. Here awkward silences aren’t “awkward” Indians don’t worry about awkwardness. Life is slower paced and more relaxing here. Afternoon naps are common. Our host family was shocked at the typical work weeks of the careers we are pursuing (business and law). Teachers at Asha Kiran work 25 hours a week. We found that Americans’ emphasize building a career more. Note: we observe this as University students that are constantly confronted with thoughts and questions of what are major will be, what internships to apply for, and assessing future careers. In India there is a stronger emphasis on family (womens’ role as homemaker). Community is valued, there is a small shop down the road from our house, we have the option of paying whenever we shop there, or putting it on the tab of our host family. There is a share the wealth mentality. In the house we live in there is a person who cleans, ironing is sent out, person who waters the potted plants, and a person who cooks. This mentality implies employing friends to do the work they don’t enjoy. Most Americans value independence and self sufficiency. Here instead of having to do everything yourself, they glorify the individual talents of people and try to make use of those talents to benefit all.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers this summer. We have enjoyed our time in India and are looking forward to going home in ten days.
Much love,

Katie and Sarah

One Moto, Two Moto, Red Moto, Blue Moto (Team Haiti)

2010-08-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

For us this week, the return to engineering work meant a return to surveying. We spent a day surveying Canal Elmay which is near Pastor Chrisbon’s church in Poste Metier. There are some problems with this canal, and our job is to determine those problems and find solutions through surveying. This particular canal serves the farmland of nearly 500 Haitians. It will be a very big deal to get this functioning again. The part Bruce is mostly concerned with is about 5km long, which is about 3 miles. Last week we surveyed about 1km of Canal Elmay, and this week we’re going back to do more. The eventual goal of this project is make the canal again out of concrete-right now it’s just dirt.

On Saturday, we all got a lesson on welding from Bruce. Some of us have been bugging him to teach us welding the whole time we’ve been here. He finally gave in and let us get some welding experience. We played around with some scrap metal for a little while, and then we were given a job that requires us to us our new skills. Bruce wants us to make a metal gate out of rebar. So we spent most of the morning Saturday straightening the rebar to weld together to make the gate. We’ll weld it all together if we get any time this week after the surveying gets done.

Also this week, we finally got to use our awesome, stylish motorcycle helmets. There is a lot of stuff going on around the shop right now, so we opted to take moto-taxis to get around rather than having Bruce chauffer us. It’s a very interesting experience sharing a big dirt bike with a driver and another passenger for a total of 3 riders. Motorcycles have turned out to be the fastest way of getting around though. And it only costs $2.50 per ride! (100 gourds) Ok, so it’s not the cheapest way to travel, but it’s fast and we don’t have many other options.

At church today we performed two songs for the congregation with Josh playing guitar. The first was “Grace Like Rain” and the Haitians liked that one. Then, before the sermon, they always do a “wake up” song to make sure everyone is paying attention while the pastor speaks. So we got to do the “wake up” song this week. We did the children’s song “Magnify the Lord” complete with clapping, shouting and hand motions. It was a huge hit! It pretty much woke everyone up.

We have 9 days left, and we’re all ready to be home. This is our last full work week and there’s still a lot to do. We’ll do surveying, write reports, come up with designs, finish up various jobs around the shop, and we’ll be counting down the days until we get to come home and see our families and friends again. We miss you all very much and can’t wait to see you.

God’s grace,

JJ&A

Jambo from Kenya!

2010-07-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

Jambo everyone! With just two weeks remaining we are wondering how the time has gone by so quickly. We are still enjoying Rafiki and learning to appreciate the many blessings that life in Africa brings. It is a simple life but has such an authentic feel to it. Tutoring, grading papers, making copies, fixing internet cables, teaching PE classes still consumes our time during the day. I (Barclay) have also been working on a detailed map of Middle Earth for the Lord of the Rings study for the 9th grade class. It took about 3 days and our team thoroughly enjoyed burning the edges of it to make it look like an old school map. The love for learning and the curiosity of a child can teach us all a little bit about what we may be missing. They never fail to stop asking questions, whether that be about taking a picture, how to do a karate chop, how to say words in spanish, how to be more dramatic when reciting a hamlet soliloquy or inquiring to what a "girl crush" might be. They are also extremely observative. I have a confession to make. I sit at a certain table, the Beersheba cottage with Mama Rose, the one night per week that dinner rolls (my favorite) are served because Mama Rose seems to be quite generous to me in the dinner roll distribution. Today I had a girl named Stephany from cottage Shalom ask me, "Uncle Barclay, why do you always sit at Beersheba when it's dinner roll night?" I could not hold in my laughter. She caught me. This gives our team all the more reason to watch what we do and be the best role models possible. It is awesome to be in the summer business of shaping kids for the rest of their lives. Our deputation team is doing awesome, and even though two weeks still remain we cringe at the thought of leaving these kids without the promise of ever knowing or seeing what amazing things they will go on to do in their lives to serve God and others.

Mingi Karama,

Barclay representing Kenya crew

PS. I am reading an amazing book about the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the reconciliation and forgiveness that has been taking place for the past 16 years. I would strongly recommend! The book is called "As We Forgive" by Catherine Claire Larson

Engineers > Soccer players -Team Haiti

2010-07-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

The theme of this week was definitely soccer. A missions team of 13 people from the east coast arrived last week to run a soccer camp in Poste Metier. 90 kids came to camp every day, and there was a big tournament on Saturday with all the teams. We ended up putting our engineering and construction projects temporarily on hold to help with soccer camp. We had to set up the fields every day, and help the coaches run drills with the kids. Every day the kids would receive a Bible lesson from Pastor Chrisbon first thing in the morning as well as breakfast. Then they would go out and play soccer for the rest of the day. One of the best parts of our experience with soccer camp was that nine boys decided to accept Christ as their savior. During one of the morning Bible lessons Pastor Chrisbon asked if any of the kids were ready to make that choice, and nine of them stood up and said yes. Seeing how something as simple as soccer can bring people to Christ was a very powerful thing to witness.

This week was also filled with interesting travel situations. Due to the large number of people to cart around, we had to contract a tap tap to get some of us around all week. A tap tap is Haiti's preferred method of public transportation. It's basically a pick up truck that people pile luggage, produce, and livestock into and then sit where there's still space. The name tap tap come from the fact that when you want to get out you "tap tap" on the side of the truck so the driver knows to stop. During one of our tap tap rides, the was a huge rain and thunder storm. Since tap taps are open in the back, we had to cover ourselves with a tarp to get out of the rain. We call it the turtle ride. In the middle of the week, there was an even bigger storm that caused the rivers to flood. We were safe in the team house since we're on top of a hill, but the rivers rose by about 15 ft. The flooding wiped out several crops and covered the roads in a few feet of water. The next day the rivers were still high enough that they were difficult to cross by car. This meant that we had to wade across the river crossings and walk about 3 miles down muddy roads to soccer camp. It was crazy to see the destruction caused by the flooding. Luckily, the sun dried everything out by the time we had to go home. On Sunday, a bunch of us got to go to a town called Margo for church. This town is at a point high enough in the mountains that you can actually see the ocean on both sides of the northern peninsula of Haiti. The elevation at the team house is around 300ft, and the elevation of Margo is around 3000 ft so it was quite the drive to get there. There were parts of the road where we had to get our and walk because the road was too bad. It was obvious that not much traffic makes it up there. It was a beautiful place to go to church, and the mountain air did us a lot of good. This actual church building was only about halfway completed, and the congregation was tiny-only about 25 people were there, mostly children. But they welcomed us wholeheartedly and were very excited to see us. Worshiping at Margo was a very humbling experience for us.

The downside of soccer camp was that we ended up being out in the sun all day every day so most of us ended up feeling a little under the weather. By the end of the week we were all exhausted from being in the sun too long and from being bounced around in trucks. Please pray for our health and energy in the next couple weeks. Two of the other interns came down with malaria this week but have fully recovered already. Malaria is a fairly common illness in Haiti and is very treatable. So be praying for them also.

The soccer team left this morning for home, but before they left we got a chance to play them in a friendly game of soccer. They challenged us, thinking there's no way a group of engineering interns could possibly best them in their own game. But they were wrong. We beat them 8-7 in two 25min halves. The lesson learned: engineers>soccer players.

Now the interns are the only ones left in the team house. We got to take the day off to rest and recover from a very demanding week. We'll resume our engineering/construction operation tomorrow. Thanks for the prayers and support.

God's grace,

JJ&A

Chuticas...

2010-07-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

Team Ecuador has had a full couple of weeks since our last blog post. To start with, we miss Kellie very much, but we´re comforted by the fact that she´s safe right now. It´s difficult to look back over everything we´ve done in the last two weeks and summarize, but here it goes.

To start with, we had the opportunity to travel to a remote community of Afro-Ecuadoreans to teach English. The village was called La Loma and was only accessible by a gravel road in the foothills. Getting there was an adventure; of the six times we went, we had car trouble at least half of them. We are now experts in the of art of riding in the backs of pick-up trucks. If it starts to rain, sit with your back to stay dry. (It also helps to remember your rain jacket.) When we actually arrived in La Loma, we had about 25 students from age seven or eight on up. The kids were extremely eager to learn as much as we had time to teach them. On our last day in La Loma we held a graduation for all of our students complete with English notebooks and lots of pictures. It probably took an hour and a half after the graduation to get pictures with everyone and we probably could have taken more!

This week we got to visit our families for the last time. Useful life skills we´ve acquired include peeling potatoes (with a knife, anyone can use a peeler), making empanadas, shuffling cards, and the ability to tell riddles in Spanish. It is sad that we don´t get to spend more time with them, but it has been a wonderful experience getting to share their lives for a little while. We can´t emphasize enough how wonderful the people here are. Many of them have offered us their homes should we come back to visit and we hope that we get the chance to.

At the end of this week we returned to Quito to see a little bit of the historic district. We got to see the Ecuadorean equivalent of the White House, as well as the national library and lots of churches. Construction on one church began in 1603 and it has been under construction ever since.

Our Spanish skills have improved greatly. Now we feel comfortable attending church and Bible studies entirely in Spanish. In fact, last weekend we attended a fire and life safety course in preparation for this week´s teen camp. At first it was a struggle because none of us speak Spanish, but gradually things have improved. We even met a group of college girls this weekend that were surprised to find out that most of us haven´t studied Spanish in years.

And in case you were wondering,¨chuticas¨is the Ecuadorean equivalent of the American expression ¨shoot.¨ The pastor here uses it all the time, even in sermons.

فريق بيت لحم (Team Bethlehem)

2010-07-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

Marhaba kul wahad,
I hope everyone is doing well. It is nice to finally find a break in the action where one can sit down and take at least a little time to write about what is going on here. I myself have been volunteering at a children's Summer Camp so far. Some of the options the children have are Arts & Crafts, Sports, and Singing & Dancing. Standard fare, but incredibly fun nonetheless, especially when I am able to watch the younger children pull out some hilarious dance moves. I cannot stress enough how much joy this has brought me. The situation here is very difficult, but being able to see the happiness in the children that I work with day in and day out is such a blessing. Though I must admit running around for hours in 90 degree weather isn't the least strenuous thing one could do, and for that I ask your prayers! A great thing about these camps is that many children, especially during the Summer, have nowhere else to go. Parks and other recreational areas that are ubiquitous back home are few and far between here. It is much better than sitting at home or ambling through the streets because one's parents are busy with work or volunteering. The people in this culture are very relational, and the children here are no exception. Despite the dialogue being an Arabic-English pidgin, it's clear that having fun and spending time with one another transcends any barrier.
It's getting late here, and as we must get up early for a trip to Hebron tomorrow I have to cut this short. Please continue keeping us in your prayers, it is often difficult here and to have so many lifting us up is a huge blessing. Much love, maa salaama.
Trey

Kenya Update

2010-07-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

Well...It's been awhile so there is a lot to tell.

First we are all doing well. We are enjoying the kids a lot. We have been spending as much time as we can with them as we feel our departure date is sneaking up on us.

We got the opportunity to go on safari to the Masai Mara. It was the most amazing experience. We drove out there, a 6 hour drive, but through beautiful country. We then spent three days and two nights at a camp called Olamara. It was beautiful and they took good care of us. I (Drea) got pampered as they made me gluten free meals all weekend. It was the first time I had soup in a year, so I think I ate at least five bowls. We saw so many animals. Our favorite had to be the leopard and its two cubs (which is pretty rare to see). We also got to see a zebra being eaten by a lion family. It was a good weekend and helped us to refocus our work.

The last two weeks we have been working as teacher's assistants. Most of the time we grade papers, make maps, draw posters, and we have mastered the copy machine as we spend most of our time in the copy room. I am with the Preschool and Kindergarten and so am in the classes in the morning, as they get out at 12. In the afternoon I just copy or find random work. Julie, the Kindergarten teacher has let me teach. It is fun, right now I am just teaching math and handwriting. I am beginning to appreciate the beauty of America and all we have available in the states. It has become a challenge to find some materials and I spent hours making handwriting sheets. After school we either tutor the kids or rest as the day takes a lot out of us.

We have been spending a lot of time at Julie's house, just hanging out and watching movies. I think she enjoys the company and it is good for us not to just sit around and be bored.

Home office is here this weekend from Florida. We are staying in the village with them, helping to prepare meals and watch kids when the mamas are in meetings. Megan and I were hoping to cook ugali (a Kenyan dish that I despise but Megan likes) but instead we are making sandwiches? Oh the irony...

Last weekend I went away to Kisumu, a city in western Kenya for the day on Friday. I had set up a visit with a kid my family sponsors when I found out I was coming to Kenya. I flew out very early in the morning and came back that night. It was the most amazing experience. I got to meet the child, his grandmother, and see where he has grown up. About a week before I was to leave we found out he was in a bad situation, and because of my trip that was planned we were able to find out about it and help pull him out. God works in amazing ways and His timing is perfect. Helped to give me a glimpse of possibly why I was sent here. Barclay also went away for the weekend to go with a friend to an orphanage they are starting in Kenya. It was good to be back together as a team Sunday night.

Other random notes:

- The other day Joseph said that he was going to plant Megan in the garden so that she can sprout a bunch of little Megans. He can then feed her bread, beans, and popcorn through a straw.

- Barclay is giving out a prize to the first kid who can memorize the to be or not to be speech from Hamlet.

- Kindergartners talk a lot and like to chew on pencils.

-I have shopped so much and will most likely bring home over 50 pounds of just souvenirs.

-We are pretty much pampered here, with our beds and laundry done three times a week.

- We also get fed sooo much here. I have mastered the art of secretly giving away my food to the kids when the mamas look away.

Just continue to pray as we only have three weeks left. We have decided the best thing would be to have both worlds in one- home and the kids. Too bad it cant work...The kids have a strong hold on our hearts.

-Drea

Team Ecuador update

2010-07-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

Kellie has been having some health issues over the past couple of weeks which led to her early departure from Ecuador. Kellie arrived in Seattle yesterday. Please join me in praying for her quick recovery as well as for the rest of Team Ecuador as they continue with their ministry.

"Hey guys...Don't do that in your mother's car"-Bruce Robinson (Team Haiti)

2010-07-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

This week we made a road trip 50 miles south to Gonaives. It took us about 4 hours to get there, and we had to drive another hour to get to the dam we were working on so it was a long day of traveling. About halfway through the drive we had to cross Twa Rivie, a pretty big river. Water was literally covering the hood of the Land Cruiser the whole time, but we made it across safely. Once we got to the other side, Bruce stopped, rolled down his window and said to us, "Hey guys...don't do that in your mother's car." The lesson from this experience: Buy a Toyota, they can do anything and don't break. Anyways, we went to Gonaives on Thursday this week to help a friend of Bruce's figure out some ways to improve an irrigation dam. So we made the drive and showed up with our equipment to make some observations.

Our work this week has been very random, so we'll do our best to get everything down. We finished putting up the basketball hoop now that the court is ready to go. Kids have been playing on it almost non stop since we finished it. There is another missions team coming from Virginia tomorrow to run a soccer camp for 100 Haitian kids ages 9-12 tomorrow. We've spent a lot of time cleaning and organizing the shop and team house for their arrival. Jeff and Jordan went with Bruce one day to visit a worker who has been sick for some time. We have had some car troubles so Tuesday and Wednesday we were limited to within walking distance of the shop. That just meant we went out on a hike to a nearby dam to try and rework the canal gates on it. We continued working on a foundation and Bruce and Deb's house. One more engineer arrived Tuesday afternoon from Virginia. While Part of the team was gone at the airport, the three of us spent some time having a Bible study on the roof of the team house. It was awesome to finally get some free time to hang out. During an afternoon soccer game with the kids, Jeff twisted his ankle, but he iced it and stayed off it for a few days and is now almost back to full strength. It did buy him a few rides in the front seat of the Land Cruiser though. And Friday, after almost 3 weeks of bugging Bruce about it, we finally got to go to the beach again. We had a great time playing in the surf and soaking up the sun. That's pretty much been our week. We're finally all ready for the soccer team to arrive. Looks like Amber posted some pictures for us of the cement pour last week. Enjoy.

Hope you're all doing well. God's Grace,

JJ&A

Sierra Leone Update

2010-07-15T14:59:00.000-07:00

Here is an update from Emma's mom: (note, this is from Emma's perspective but both Jessica and Victor are also doing well. Let's keep praying for all of them)

I wanted to let you know that Emma called today! They are now out of the no-contact time and she is hoping to be able to call weekly. She said that they are supposed to have internet access but that hasn't proven true. I told her about Team Ecuador and she was bummed on their behalf.

In brief, they are all doing well. There are 12 of them on the team and they are nearly all from Washington. They will be going on their retreat soon at a mining camp that is comprised mainly of Irishmen, who will be gone on holiday. They are excited because they will have hot showers, flushing toilets and American food. They have been to the mining camp before to watch some of the World Cup games, including the final yesterday. She said that they have been well taken care of in the village - they have all bottled water, they have their laundry done and everyone is super nice. The food is fine although they are tired of fried foods and no vegetables. And coffee .... I think they'll be drinking coffee the entire lay over in London!

Didn't get too much information on what they are doing. Sounds like four days a week they go out in teams to other villages to do work. Emma said that after the retreat there is one week where they will be helping with a youth camp and another week when they'll be doing a youth camp. She said that they will be leaving the village early in the last week so that they have a few days in Freetown to go to the beach, shop, etc.

Health has been good. She told Jeremy that she could send really big spiders, rats and assorted bugs that like to eat you home to him, but he didn't sound too delighted with that offer.

So, those are the highlights. Just wanted you to be in the loop.

Haiti Photos

2010-07-14T14:58:00.000-07:00

Photos of the Haiti team on the marathon concrete day:

Sierra Leone Update

2010-07-12T14:51:00.000-07:00

COTN informs us that the Sierra Leone team is at their mid-term retreat and unable to access the internet. No news is good news!

Mache nan limye Bondye (marching in the light of God) Team Haiti

2010-07-11T18:07:00.001-07:00

So, it's been a week...what could've happened in Haiti...?

First off, we forgot to say...Happy 4th of July!!! Hope y'all had awesome celebrations. Ours definitely lacked fireworks, but had plenty of fire. haha. We had a small American flag to wave patriotically, and we sang every patriotic song we could think of. Including, Bow Down to Washington. I mean, Huskies are pretty much synonymous with America right? haha By the way, we had a 73 year old Haitian man named frere Augiste wave the flag for us as we drove down incredibly bumpy roads standing in the back of the truck.

The work week was also pretty busy for us. On Tuesday, we built a tin roof over the front porch of the team house and cleaned out a storage depot. The roof looks awesome and Bruce was very impressed with our work. Wednesday was an extremely important day around the shop. There was a concrete pour going on for the roof of the new office building. Literally, everything around the shop was put on pause so that everyone could help out. They got out the diesel cement mixer, and carried the concrete in buckets up stairs and ladders to the roof of the second floor of the building. The roof is poured and leveled bucket by bucket. This processes took all day, and was very hard work. Our team was tasked with loading the mixer with sand and gravel. A few of us got to take part in the bucket line. And, of course it started raining...so we all got soaked with rain and covered in dust and concrete.

Thursday through Sunday we got to go to a Haitian run spiritual life conference called Beraca near Port-de-Paix. This conference is run by Bruce and Deb's partner church organization. It is a time where people from all over Haiti come together to meet and worship. There were 6000-7000 people in attendance, and church services were held morning and night with about 4000 people at each one. We did have a small amount of work to do-designing a new amphitheater for future conferences, but overall the conference was a great time for us to rest and hang out as a team. We played some epic games of Risk and Monopoly, got to sleep in, played basketball and hung out with kids, and got to watch the World Cup final. Congrats Spain! We had a great time learning new songs in Creole and worshiping with thousands of Haitians. It was a really cool experience for all of us.

...And now we're back home enjoying one final night of hanging out and relaxing before we get back to work tomorrow. It's been really cool to check up on how some of the other teams are doing. Ecuador, that's terrible! We totally feel for you. We'll keep you all in our prayers.

God's Grace,

JJ&A

Welp...

2010-07-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

Team Ecuador got robbed today. While we were in church upstairs, our room was apparently getting ransacked downstairs. The damage: 1 laptop, 3 cellphones, 1 jump drive and 3 cameras. the worst part? Literally ALL of our team pictures from this trip were on Mandi´s camera, which is one of the ones that got stolen. GINORMOUS bummer. We have the police looking into it, but we are doubtful that any of our stuff will make it back. Heck, it´s probably halfway to Colombia by now. Anyway, prayers would be greatly appreciated. And, if you´re wondering what our trip has looked like, all you´re likely gonna get is the one we posted last time... sorry folks. Wah wah wahhhhhhh. [To be continued.]

Canadians...friends or foes? (Team Ecuador)

2010-07-07T16:43:00.000-07:00

Ecuador is home to the mountain that is the furthest point away from the center of the Earth. Fact. Taller than mount Everest you say? That's right ladies and gentlemen, Mt. Cotopaxi is the mother of all mountains, and we got to experience it from well, about the same distance we as Seattlites experience Mt. Ranier on a day to day basis.

On the equator, water doesn't swirl clockwise or counterclockwise. Fact.

In fact, water doesn't swirl at all, it simply drains directly down the sink and we have the video to prove it.

One hour in the sun on the equator is equivalent to three hours of sun in say Southern California. Fact. And some of us have the sunburns to prove it!

Team Ecuador has had quite the adventure over the past week. First let's discuss the fact that Ecuadorians have an unhealthy and irrational fear of rain. Funny because it rains here quite often. How do we know they have a fear of rain you might be asking yourself? Well it's because on our last visit to the San Juan festival in the main square of Cotacachi, we experienced screaming and sprinting for cover do to the surprise down pour in the late afternoon. This was extremely alarming to the five of us and we originally thought we were in some sort of danger, but we were pleasantly or more appropriate maybe, weirdly surprised to find that the fear and chaos came from such a simple, harmless thing like rain.

Another highlight was our touristy visit to Quito, the giganto capital of Ecuador.

1. We got to take cable cars up the side of a mountain in order to better view just how vast the capital is. Kellie tried, but failed, to talk the rest of us into renting horses to go up the rest of the mountain for a better view. Funny because she's not even legally allowed to ride horses due to her lack of balance. We reminded her of that fact and so descended the mountain shortly after our picture needs had been satisfied.

2. Pizza Hut is severely underrated in the sates. After 20 some odd days of mostly rice, beans, and vegetables, a trip to Pizza Hut in the heart of Quito was just what the girls of Ecuador needed. Yes, our lunch in Quito was spent ordering 4 medium pizzas and a 3 liter Pepsi.

3. Next stop on the tourist journey was a giant crater from a dormant volcano where a town is now present. Sounds a lot less cool in a blog, but trust us when we say that it was pretty legit to see a town in the middle of a volcano.

4. Now a trip to Ecuador wouldn't be complete without a trip to the physical equator line right? We thought that too and so we took a little trip to the place we Ecuadorians like to call the Mitad del Mundo, which in English translates to the middle of the world. This my friends, is the equator. That thick red line on the globe? Yeah that's real and we saw it. Not only that, but we learned a lot about it. For instance, it is possible to stand an egg up on a nail on the equator. Like we previously mentioned, water does not swirl in any direction on the equator. Your shadow on the equator is much more accurate to your actual size as well. Not only that, but fun fact, your shadow disappears twice a year at the stroke of noon for approximately three minutes due to the fact that the sun is directly above you. And don't worry if you don't believe any of this, it's probably all on Wikipedia and also Mandi's camera for documentation of course.

5. To end our fantastic adventure in Quito we went to a concert. Naturally all of the music was in Spanish, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves anyway.

Speaking of music Kellie has decided to learn the Shakira World Cup song, dance. Have we mentioned that dancing is not her strong suit to begin with? Let alone an African dance. We'll keep you updated on how that goes.

In other news:

1. We now refer to Jamie as Santiago because in Spanish Santiago means James. We figured close enough and hence forth she will now be called Santiago.

2. Kellie and Mandi both share the love for farm animals. Mandi's favorite animal is a cow and she has made it a personal goal to get a picture riding one before the 8 weeks are up. Kellie has a love for pigs and claims that pigs are good pets because if someone is attacking you, your pet pig will somehow kill the attacker for you. A guard pig if you will?

3. Speaking of farm animals, Erica seems to be some sort of chicken whisperer. Sometimes it's best to not ask questions.

4. On Sunday afternoons we work with jovenes (young people) and play games with a side of bible study. We have learned that games with instructions in Spanish are rather difficult and create a lot of confusion and asking "wait, what's going on?" Eventually the instructions are interpreted more or less and the fun ensues.

5. Diet Coke and Ruffles are a necessity in team Ecuador's kitchen and we can in fact consume a whole 3 liter Diet Coke and a large bag of Ruffles in the span of just one day. These two American products are definitely worth the extremely inflated prices.

6.Phase 10, a fun card game that can be purchased for just $4 at your nearest Target, has become a nightly past time because really, what else is there to do in Cotacachi after 6 PM?

7. We have become celebrities in a small village outside of Cotacachi. After working at a day retreat with young people, singing songs for them in Spanish and English, and also playing silly games that involve throwing paper in the air, we have earned celebrity status. That's right people, we got our pictures taken with the kids and everything.

8. Potatoes are extremely hard to find when you just want good ole fashion American potato salad on the Fourth of July late on a Sunday. And who woulda thunk that we'd find it in the last tienda (small store) we'd think to look? It just proves that you just never know in Ecuador.

This week and next week we will be teaching English at a village 2 hours away called La Loma. La Loma is home to a large Afro-Ecuadorian community. It is a rural village in the desolate and gorgeous mountains. We had quite the adventure getting there however because our car engine overheated and so we were stranded for approximately 45 minutes until we hired a truck to drive us the rest of the way. We are getting very comfortable riding in the beds of trucks and by comfortable I mean lots of bumps, but lots of laughs. Our first days of teaching English have gone well. Surprisingly, the older women know a lot more English then we thought and we are looking forward to working with them for the next two weeks.

Cars breaking down is a common theme throughout our trip as well because on Monday we had an expedition to some hot springs for a little fun in the sun, and ended up overheating our car engine for I believe the fifth or sixth time since we've been here. Good thing we're not scared of exploding cars or else we'd probably never drive anywhere here. Luckily we made it to the hot springs and had a great day. Erica and Mandi had a blast dunking the boys, but got dunked in return. I am pleased to report that even though both of them probably drank far too much hot spring mineral water, neither of them ended up sick and we all went home happy and exhausted.

To conclude this week's update we are all pleased to report that Spain beat Germany in soccer today. Life is good. Stay tuned for another update from the equator next week, until then...

"Ya neva know in Ecuador..."

Kenya Update

2010-07-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

It just took me like 15 minutes to try and log into this blog.

Finally, success.

So the other day we went on a walk through Mwiki, which is the town that the Rafiki Orphanage is by. A few things to note:

1. Stephen, our dear friend who led us through town hates pigs. I think this is because he did not grow up reading Charlotte's Web or watching Babe. Cultural differences...

2. Kenyans love to display bloody raw animal carnage in the windows of the Butcheries.

3. Kenyan children love having their pictures taken, Kenyan mothers do not-once they see a mzungo (the word for a white person! Sidenote: one of our recent team goals is now to yell mzungo at as many white passerby's as we can find.) they go inside their home and close their door. It helps make you feel more like an awkward tourist.

4. Kenyans are really good at riding bikes piled high with crates. They're everywhere, it's impressive.

School starts next week. Weeeee! Can't wait.

I am assisting with grades 5/6

Eric is grades 3/4

Barclay(s) is grades 1/2 (There's a bank here called Barclays and Jeffery one of the men who works here repeatedly calls Barclay, Barclays)

Drea is grades pre-k and kindergarten.

We celebrated the 4th of July with some other American missionaries and we got to make apple pie-so fun! By "we" I mean me and Drea. Barclay and Eric helped barbeque chicken outside. We love re-enforcing gender roles. For example, Drea and I scrapbook or work in the library while Barclay and Eric mow the lawn.

Earlier that weekend Yeenlan arranged for us to visit two of her friends who live in Kibera, the largest slum in Africa. After that we went to the giraffe center, and finally to this thing called Bomas where people preform tribal dances. The circumcision dance was the best-hands down.

Time is going by so quickly! It still feels like we just got here. Getting to know the kids and their mama's has been so fun, interesting, enlightening, rewarding...&c. There is so much to learn about them all.

Quotes from the week worth mentioning.

"Oooh you smell gooood. You smell like Chapatis!!" (note: chapatis are flat bread, painted and fried with lard.)

-Aaron

"Please, please during nap time I dream about you."

-Grace W.

"Please, Denise is fat, Denise get off the seesaw, please! Denise is too big!"

-Kilonzi

Also we have been making good use of Barclay's banana grams since the kids all scatter into their cottages around 7 pm. And now we are going to go catch some of the world cup at one of the Julie's (one of the long-term missionaries here).

Thank you for your prayers!

Bethlehem: Happy Day-After American Diplomatic Immunity Day!

2010-07-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

[As written 7/5/2010 11:55am (+2 GMT) ]
[And as posted on Alex's other blog]

[Note: Anyone interested in seeing better quality photos or to comment on them, visit Alex's Picasa album]

Wow.

An incredible weekend.

I mean, seriously. If you could measure a time by the quantity of pictures one takes, well… I think I took about 200 pics. I feel tempted to overuse the word "breathtaking" to the point that I'd basically be admitting to suffocation.

Our group from Holy Land Trust had for us a weekend-long adventure through the northern bits of Israel and Palestine, giving us our first opportunity this whole trip to really be “tourists.”

Here’s what our weekend’s itinerary looked like:

Bethlehem -->

Jordan

“River” --> Sea of Galilee (Including a boat-ride! Complete with Titanic soundtrack) --> Capernaum à Mount of the Beattitudes --> The Golan Heights --> Haifa --> Mt. Carmel --> Caesarea (Beach on the Mediterranean) --> McDonalds --> Bethlehem

Now that I’ve just written that out, aswell as cross-check with my map, the prospect of describing all these places seems like an overwhelming task! How about bullet-points and pictures? Ya’ll good with that?

Jordan “River”

Pathetically small, ever since the Israelies have been pumping out more and more water from the Galilee and creating dams and such, there really isn’t all that much to this water-way anymore. BUT, there’s this “Baptismal Location” you can visit (as we did… felt like they were – dare I say it – marketing baptism. It was honestly disgusting… get your photo while being baptized! Get your bottle of “Holy River Water!” Get your samples of holy dirt, holy oil, holy smokes! Felt like overturning some tables…) There was a place you could stick your feet in the water, and these fish would eat off your dead skin. Totally exfoliating.

Sea of Galilee

From Deputation

Small wonder they called it a Sea! Seriously, the most vast body of fresh water I’ve ever seen. You couldn’t even see the farthest end of it! We took a boat to the otherside, ate some horrifically overpriced fish (“Jesus Fish”… the “same fish” that Jesus ate. So I gained like, 200 Spirit Points).

Capernaum

Now, a Tourist Trap. It was pretty alright, had some sweet reconstructed ruins. A massive Aloe-Vera plant thing that seriously looked alien. Someone made a comment about it being a giant venus fly-trap. Ironic, visit the West Bank, get killed by a plant.

From Deputation

Mount of the Beattitudes.

Traditionally believed to be the location where Jesus preached His sermon on the mount [Mathew 5-7]. I actually was just reading through that passage, so to be able to put a place to the words: ridiculous. The view of the Sea from there is breathtaking. The church there is also pretty alright, lotsa nuns. More gift shops.

The Golan Heights

[multiple pictures, coming soon]

!!!!!!!!!!!
Stunning.
We spent the night here in a hostel, in this small town up by the border with Syria… I’ve never seen anything like it. The Mountains literally all around, a view down into Israel like nothing else… ending up playing soccer with some kids and Trey and Eric (another HLT participant)… sunset like nothing ever…
Me and Trey both firmly belive we’d come back to this place… it was also the only place I’d say we got to more than simply “taste” for half an hour, like most the other places listed here.

Hafia

Most industrialized city in Israel.
Nuclear Power Plants --> totally sweet [photo coming soon]
Ba’hi Gardens O_O
Mount Carmel

Mount Carmel

From Deputation

Neither sticky nor sweet, yet had a killer view
Place where Elija did some awesome stuff
Spetacular view of the Meditterean and the Ba’ai Gardens
Ice Cream Truck

Caesarea

From Deputation

Beach on the Meditteren
Were only there for 30 minutes… =(
Ancient Roman aquaduct right there on the water! Poor choice building on the Sand, silly Romans. Should have visited the Mount of the Beatitudes first…
Got my jeans pretty soaked, Trey and several others decided to strip down and jump in (Skivvies only…or, as Jenny our Brittish friend would say: Pants only)
Never getting time at the beach = a piece of my heart never getting satisfied. Right next to the part of my heart that never get peanut butter or bacon or mashed potatoes or tacos or milk or OJ or cerial…..

McDonalds

Our single act of patriotism. Supporting Cooperate American Supremacy. I opted for for the chicken sandwich from the 10-Sheckle Menu. Total Rip-off. Trey got a Big Mac ™ . Paid for it later.

Oh geez…. *takes big breath*

That’s a lot of stuff, there.

Infused amongst it all, and almost more importantly… I had ample time to reflect while on the bus when I wasn’t socializing.

Praying a ton, reading… and really feeling God working in me about patience and judging others… to unpack this statement completely would take more than what I’ve already said… suffice it to say, there’s some interesting characters on this trip. And my heart, being full, in some respects cannot wait to get home, or to someplace where I don’t have to be on edge. And being patient to let this time do it’s work is key… but I’m starting to miss home. The green forests. The deep blue bodies of water where-ever I turn in Seattle. The Music, oh… the music. The Friends. The Lady… it’s rough. And honestly, there are times where if I could, I’d teleport right over there from here. And then I have to tell myself:

no. This is where I need to be. If I keep looking forward, I’ll miss the significance of the right-now.

And keep telling myself.

And get to my host-home, and feel so completely the opposite of “at home”… almost the exact antithesis. To be tired regardless of how much I sleep.

It is trying to my soul, but I know it must be true: that I’ll be better for this. I’ll be stronger. I’ll have a better understanding of myself, and how stinky I can get. Of who I want to be, and who He wants me to be. Of me. For me. Through me.

Honestly, politics aside, people just need to be loved. That’s all I see here, when it comes down to it…. Everywhere. And we’re all just so stubborn and reluctant to do so…

Christ, preserve me. Uplift my spirit, encourage me and Trey. May Your peace soak us in this thoroughly dusty land…

India Week 2

2010-07-05T02:01:00.000-07:00

O how the adventure begins! Our first full week in India has been jam-packed with school, site seeing, sampling of Indian delicacies, yoga, and much more. It’s been full of fun, yet a bit exhausting – needless to say we’re happy it’s finally Sunday, the day of rest.

School:
We thoroughly enjoyed our first full week at the school. Everyday our morning begins at 5am when we get up to go walking with our host mother around the park across the street. After walking around 5 times (30-40minutes) we come home and get ready to go to school. Sarah and I usually make toast or cereal for breakfast along with fresh papaya and banana – the fruit here is soooo good! (we’re spoiled). We eat our breakfast on the rooftop terrace and normally read our bibles for half an hour each morning after breakfast. This has become a great new habit and one we hope to continue when we return home. At 7:25am we catch the school bus to school and take the half an hour ride through the busy and chaotic streets of Bangalore. Once at school, I go to assembly with the younger kids and Sarah goes with the older kids. As assembly with the younger kids we usually practice spelling and saying the day, week, and month, greet eachother, and either sing nursery songs, or do a small activity (such as passing a ball around or learning to blow out a candle). At the assembly for older kids they practice morning exercises, sing a short song, and hear a daily bible story. I’ve been working with the nursery age kids (age 4-8) and Sarah has been working with the kids in second standard level class. The little ones are a bit of a handful, they are always running around, it’s hard to get them to ever sit still, but they are a lot of fun. I have multiple biting and pinching marks as evident battle wounds of struggling to get kids to sit quietly even for a moment. Sarah has been enjoying working with a few of the students one on one teaching reading and colors. In the second standard level class there are 8 students, 7 boys and one girl. There are many more boys than girls at the school, as having learning disabilities is more common among boys (according to our host mom). In the class, Sarah sits between Aswin, a non-verbal autistic child and Mouly, a deaf child. Her work with Aswin is to encourage him to stay focused on the lessons and his class work. In the past few weeks Mouly has taught her the abcs in sign language. She uses that and pictures to describe the lessons and help him complete his class work. Manjunath struggles with reading, so Sarah has created a few worksheets that use the words learned in class and pictures to make sentences. The school has about 100 students, housing a large range of disabilities. Getting to know the teaching staff has been a great opportunity to glimpse another part of Indian culture. The school is very different from schools at home. It’s nice that the entire school is dedicated to special needs kids as it creates a large community and safe place for kids to feel accepted amongst each other and form friendship with other students of their same level of learning. The work is tiring, but the kids are very loving. Prayers that God may work in and through us as we form relations with the students and teachers.

In addition to attending school, we have also had the opportunity of experiencing a little Indian culture on a daily basis. School finishes at 2pm, so we usually have the afternoons open for exploring. The following accounts our daily adventures and new experiences throughout Bangalore. Some come as a bit of a culture shock at times, but we are definitely learning a lot from the Indian people, gaining insights to a different way of life.

Sunday:
Last Sunday we attended church with Prem and Rita (our host parents) at the Indiranagar Methodist Church. The service was longer than what we’re used to; there was even a 20 minute prayer! But the singing was very nice and the worship music was good. We were familiar with most of the worship songs – they were a little taste of home.  Also, for Sunday dinner we went out for Chinese food (our host mother doesn’t enjoy cooking…hahaha). The food was very good. Every restaurant here tends to be a bit over staffed however, there were 4 different waiters watching us eat (a bit unnearving, o well, must be a cultural thing…)

Monday:
On Monday we were back to school. Monday afternoon was had quite the fun cultural experience! We went shopping for our very first saris! Our host mom, Rita took us to the silk and sari shop where we were quickly overwhelmed with a multitude of colors, choices, patterns, and designs of fabric. At the sari shop, they sit you at a table and then start pulling out heaps and heaps of different sari fabrics spread across the table. You simply shake your head yes or no and they continue to pour out more fabrics from the large display of folded saris that runs against every wall of the shop room. We were shopping for saris to wear to the upcoming wedding we will be attending next week! I was so overwhelmed with choices, I thought I wouldn’t ever be able to make a decision. Sarah was a bit more decisisive, but in the end, we both ended up purchasing beautiful saris. Sarah’s sari is deep magenta with fabulous gold trim and lots of sparkly accents – a perfect sari to wear to a wedding where the goal is to “see and be seen” according to Rita. My sari is deep purple (true husky purple pride thru and thru ...hahaha) and is trimmed with a simple gold floral design – chic and sophisticated. After the silk shop, we had to go to the Jeweler to get the appropriate bling to wear with our saris to the wedding. The jewelry is very lavish, yet extrememly inexpensive. It is strikingly similar to jewelry you might wear to play dress up as a child. It’s perfect for the wedding.  We each bought matching purple and maroon bangles. Also, the necklace and earrings come as a set, so we each got blinged-out, diamond-encrusted sets. The man at the jewelry store kept trying to convince me to buy a dangly head piece to wear on my forehead as well; I politely refused. With bangles, earrings, necklace, and sari to match, I didn’t want to over-do it any more than necessary. After leaving the Jeweler, we were off to visit the tailor! Each sari dress must get a custom made belly shirt top, known as a blouse, to match. Thus, at the tailor, they only measured from the bust line up. Hahaha. The front of the sari is covered by drapey fabric, but the back is open. We each got to choose a different custom design for the cut of the back of the blouse. This was a lot of fun.

Tuesday:
On Tuesday, we ventured out on our own! After reading the detailed guidebook section on Bangalore, we decided our best option was to visit one of Bangalore’s main attractions, the Botanical Gardens. We took an auto (small taxi rickshaw) to the gardens, which was a bit difficult, seeing as we’re obvious foreigners, so everyone always wants to rip us off. But luckily our host mom has taught us all the tricks of the trade, so we managed to get an auto for a decent price (still a bit over charged however…haha). When we arrived at the gardens, we followed the guidebook instructions, and hired a buggy tour guide to drive us around the whole of the gardens. The gardens are more than 96 acres. The buggy guide man took a huge liking to us! This was wonderful! He offered to hold our cameras and take our photos for us at EVERY SINGLE stopping point. It was a bit ridiculous to be entirely honest, especially seeing that there were at least 6 other people on the same buggy ride as we were, and he didn’t offer to take their pics nearly as often, it ever. At one point, while we were trying to take a photo of ourselves by outstretching our arm, he snatched up the camera and took a photo of not just Sarah and me, but of the whole buggy ride gang (!), forcing everyone else on the tour to stop and pose for my camera! O gosh, all I can say is he was most flattered when I asked to take a photo with him; I thought his eyes might have begun to tear up. All in all the gardens were a lot of fun. In addition to the attention we received from our guide, we also attracted lots of attention from other people passing through the park. Multiple people came up and asked to take photos with us! And lots of people tried to take sneak photos of us on their cell phones and cameras. People came up and asked our names and wanted to introduce themselves. At one point, a man asked me to hold his baby daughter and pose for a picture! He was so excited I couldn’t refuse. I felt like we were celebrities or something.

After we left the park, we caught an auto home and did some running around with Rita. We went to the grocery store and stopped along the street to drink fresh coconut milk straight out of coconuts! The man simple cut a hole and dropped a straw inside so we could sip on the sweet milk. After the milk was finished, we passed the coconut back to him and he sliced it open to reveal fresh coconut meat/cream for eating. It was delicious. I felt like we were in the tropics!

Wednesday:
On Wednesday afternoon we decided to go exploring with Rita. There is a small lake located fairly close to our house which Rita said had recently renovated with the addition of walking paths around the lake. We all jumped into an auto and went to the lake to take a lengthy stroll around. We started the journey around the lake, but after only 20 short minutes of walking, we encountered a slight problem. Come to find, the path we had thought encircled the entire lake, in fact only went half way around. Our 20 minute walk had landed us in the middle of a garbage pit and 12 foot fence with no exit and nowhere to turn but back the way we had come. Hahaha. I guess it was a naive to assume the renovation would have made a path that went around the lake, why not only half, that’s far enough I suppose. After our half-walk around the lake, we went back home and went out for Indian kabobs. Once again we encountered 5 waiters staring at us eat, I guess we’ll just have to get used to that…but after dinner, we stopped at the sweet shop to sample some Indian delicacies. Most of the candies here are milk based or rice based, as is every food in India. I had no idea you could use rice is so many different new and creative ways; rice cakes, steamed rice, vegetable rice, rice tortillas, rice dessert, rice milk, on and on and on. People who can’t eat wheat/gluten would be in food heaven here!

Thursday:
On Thursday afternoon we went to Rita’s friends house to attend a yoga session. Although we were looking forward to experiencing authentic Indian yoga, we couldn’t have been prepared for what the session had in store for us. The yoga instrucot insisted we come early to the session so he could introduce himself and meet both of us. What this really entailed was the instructor giving us a long-winded lecture on the philosophy of life and how it’s only through yoga a person is able to experience inner peace and happiness. Sarah’s brave soul was quick to counter his argument, stating that we find peace from Jesus and contentment with His plan for our life. This was not acceptable to the yoga instructor. He has been teaching yoga for 36 years and needless to say is a very eccentric man. No matter what we could have said, I doubt he would have listened to a word of it. After our awkward and slightly uncomfortable introducing, we proceded to the yoga class. This was held on the rooftop terrace and we sat on reed mats. It was lovely. Except for the fact that the yoga instructor kept picking on both of us throughout the entire session; there wasn’t one exercise we did correctly the whole hour! The session was more religion focused than anticipated (I have an inkling he was trying to convert us to Hinduism…haha), and the instructor was very intense about breathing properly. Hmmmm. It was a bit odd to say the least. After the session was over the instructor approached Sarah and me and proceeded to look us both up and down and then began evaluating us! I was in complete and utter shock. He told me I have funny spots under my eyes and that I have poor blood circulation and other physical things I should try fixing. He recommended I eat more fennel seeds and a bunch of other jibberish home remedies. The audacity of this man was simply outrageous! Sarah told him thank you, but surprise surprise we were happy with ourselves and our bodies before he began evaluating them and we weren’t in need of any of his advice! Hahaha. I was so happy when it was finally time to leave. I don’t think we’ll be returning for future sessions…

Friday:
On Friday we went to school and then had a very relaxing afternoon. We did a bit of shopping around when we live. I purchased my first India outfit (for daywear, not a sari) and we bought some pirated movies on the street. :) It was a nice afternoon.

Saturday:
We woke up very early on Saturday because we planned a daytrip to the neighboring town of Mysore. We booked the trip through a guided tour bus and were eager to meet the other people traveling on the bus with us. Since it was a guided tour, the only natural assumption was that there would be other tourists from around the world on the bus. I was looking forward to traveling with other American, European, or Asian tourists, so we would better blend in crowds of people. WRONG! When we arrived on the bus, to our great surprise we were the ONLY non-Indian tourists and the ONLY young women on the bus! We couldn’t have been more naïve in our assumption. It turns out Bangalore isn’t a very popular place among tourists and the schools in the northern part of India have summer holiday during the months of June and July, so many of the other people on the bus were Northern Indian Nationals. I have never felt like more of a minority. It’s exhausting always standing out from the crowd, never feeling like you really fit in, and receiving ceaseless stares from onlookers. But that aside, the day trip ended up being a lot of fun. Our guide took a liking to us (we must have looked like lost puppies on the street) because at every tour destination spot, he came and personally delivered the instructions to us, making sure we fully understood and guiding us through the security, camera checks, etc. We visited a beautiful palace, a Hindu temple (one of the eight most holy places in all of S. India), the botanical gardens with a light up dancing fountain, and the silk and sandlewood factory (what Mysore is known for). It was a very long day, but luckily we had packed plenty of snacks for the bus ride and took lots of great pictures. The only slight detraction was the constant haggling of street vendors. They are very persistent and would follow us for ages shouting prices for goods over and over again. Finally I told one man I thought his carving was very ugly and would he please go away. This didn’t work. Our tour guide was able to shoo off a few of the hasselers for us, but the day would have been much less stressful without the constant oncoming of vendors; we must look like easy targets.

That concludes our daily adventures for week one in India. It’s been quite a ride. 

Prayer Requests:
Prayers for good health as our host dad was been a bit under the weather and Sarah missed one day of classes due to pink eye last week. Also, prayers that we may connect with the other teachers at school and form friendships with not only the kids, but with the teaching staff as well. Thanks to God that we are getting along with our host family so well, they are wonderful to us! Prayers for safety. Prayers that God would continue to open our eyes and hearts to a world outside our own; that we may be open to new experiences and learn from different ways of life. Prayers that we adjust to being starred at all of the time and don’t get discouraged or frustrated by this.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read our blog and thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers.

Blan! Blaaaannn! (Team Haiti)

2010-07-04T13:37:00.001-07:00

More "blans" (White people) are here! And our team of engineers has more than doubled. Jeff made it here safely, along with another familiar face, Josh Kennedy, Reed a high school student from Georgia and Michael a physics major from Whitworth in Spokane.

Our first day with everyone here, we went out to a new job site to do some surveying. This particular place has a huge pumped water system that supplies irrigation water for 700 people. For those that may not know, surveying is basically taking digital data points with some cool instruments and using them to make a 3D map of an area. From that data, we can then design a solution to the problem. The existing system was washed out by hurricanes a few years back and now it's totally out of service. Our task was to survey the area and exiting pump system to 1) design a newer, better system, and 2) determine whether the existing equipment could still be used. It was a long day out in the sun, but we got everything we needed. We then had a nice lunch of MREs (Army food), picked up the bags from the airport that came late, and headed home for an awesome dinner with the Robinsons. After dinner, we had a great devo lead by Bruce and Deb, and then went home and had some time to hang out, play cards, make gatorade, etc...

Today, we went to Pastor Chribon's church again. It was really hot out, but church here is awesome. Every Sunday the pastors ask if there is anyone in the congregation who is new and wants to accept Jesus as savior. This time there were a few new believers there, which is amazing to see. Haitians also love to sing. There is always a lot of variety in the worship music. Some songs are done in Creole, some in French, some songs are sung by choirs, some are solos, some are duets. You can definitely hear an African influence on the musical style. It's very interesting for us to try and sing in a different language and still be in rhythm. And of course, Sunday means lunch made by Madame Chrisbon. Sooo good! New favorite items on the menu were breaded, fried cheese balls, and pasta salad.

Also this week, We worked on building a basketball court, pouring cement at Bruce and Deb's house, tying more rebar. Adam and I also got the priveledge of going deeper into the mountains than Bruce has ever gone before to find a new spring. It was quite the adventure, but we found the spring. We had to do a lot of off roading in the Land Cruiser, hike through a jungle, and climb halfway up a mountain to get there. We also took a little time to climb farther up the mountain. We reached a peak, and the view was amazing. We could see all of northwest Haiti. What an incredible experience!

We're all doing really well. Thank you all for prayer and support. Hope all is well with the other teams and at home.

God's Grace,

JJ&A

Ecuador: Las pollitas americanas = the American chicks. This is what they call us here.

2010-07-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

Ginormous bullet ants. Tarantulas. Mosquitos the size of your hands. Giant flying beetles. A humidity that left us sleepless and heat rashed[Erica is still suffering from this malady, if you can believe it]. Staying in the basement in mattresses on a perceived bug-infested floor. This my friends, is Lita.

Last Friday and Saturday, Team Ecuador treked to Lita with a bus full of Kentucky doctors. Yes, they had accents, yes, they were cool. Though they laughed when we asked if they ate Kentucky fried chicken.

Anyway. Each morning we would clamber into the back of a truck and ride windy and crumbling roads up the mountain to a remote village of indigenous people. Although a bit terrifying at times [Jamie has video to prove it] the area is absolutely beautiful. Very much a jungle with beautiful butterflies, banana trees and the sounds of cicadas abound. We each had various jobs at the clinic the doctors set up. Mandi and Jamie weighed everyone who came through and put it on their charts, Kellie was compiling necessary meds and toothbrushes into take home baggies for the patients, Erica kept track of who came in and out and directed families to open doctors, and Allyssa treked supplies and food for the team up and down the mountain with our pastor host, Washington. There were a lot of heartbreaking cases of widowed 2o year old mothers who couldn´t take care of their children and one man who blew his hands off while fishing with dynamite. Don´t ask.

Other notable mentions about Lita: we pretty much suffocated when we all bug-sprayed the crap out of our beds for fear of waking up with a beetle on our faces. [Trust me, all the locals really built up the bug issue, so we were terrified]. Jamie slipped and fell in the mud multiple times while going up the mountain. Preeeeetttyyy sure she has the record for most falls in the dirt this trip. Erica is surprised because normally she is the biggest klutz. And last but not least, Mandi freaked out when a puppy woke her up one morning. It was a harmless, tiny, little white ball of fluff, people. Needless to say Erica still mocks her to this day for it.

On our way back from Lita we stopped in Otavalo, which has the biggest artesian market in all of Ecuador, if my sources don´t deceive me. We were all afraid to buy something at first, because seriously, in Otavalo once you start buying you don´t stop buying. FYI: Allyssa is a heartless haggler. "Cinco dolares. No mas." Accompanied by a flat out hand motion. That´s a direct quote. Erica also felt like a baller when she got a sweet handpainted item for 8 dollars instead of 14. Who knew?

The church we are living in, "Amigos en Cristo" also had it´s first ever service in English for all of the expatriates living in Ecuador. There was a great turnout, we heard a message from one of the German missionaries here and we sang worship songs. Everyone was really happy to finally here something about Jesus in English. Seriously. There is only so much you can get out of a sermon when you don´t fully speak the language. Unfortunately Erica and Allyssa were sick during this long-awaited for event. They were really bummed, but there is another one in two weeks, so they are eagerly awaiting it.

For the past week or so there has been a giant festival going on with all of the indigenous people celebrating San Juan. We had no idea that this many people even lived in Cotacachi. They are literally coming out of the woodwoork and mountains to celebrate in the town squares. Notable things about this festival: All of the men wear giant furry chaps and large black cardboard cowboy hat-ish-things. Also? They like to dance through the streets. And throw rocks and fruit at each other. You heard me correctly friends, they throw rocks at each other. For fun. Only in Ecuador! It has been really cool to see how other people celebrate and dont worry, we haven´t witnessed any rock throwing, only heard about it from everyone we talk to.

We have still been working with families this week: babysitting, working in restaraunts, cleaning, cooking and sometimes just sitting and watching how the people live here. We all really love the people here. They never hesitate to make us feel like we are family too and have a home in Cotacachi.

We also attend Bible studies three times a week and absolutely love them. Of course, the messages and conversations are all in Spanish. Sometimes we have trouble with Bible references - "wait, was that mateo veinte-cuatro or mateo treinta-cuatro??" But we absolutely love them since they are with the families that we work with during the day a lot of the time.

Other notables:
- pretty much everyone has been sick off and on. Save Mandi and Jamie. How they do it, I have no idea. Kellie, Allysa and Erica have all had their turns at being sick. Wah wah wah.
- Allyssa made BALLER cinnamon rolls from scratch. She will be getting a request for more soon. Trust me.
- Erica and Mandi changed their first diaper today while babysitting. Yes, it is gross. Yes, it smells. But you know what? They were warriors. And they high-fived after. Preettty much an epic moment.
- Mandi and Erica also very [almost] seriously considered buying a baby duck from a guy selling them on the street today. It was just so cute! After weighing the pros and cons, they decided that it probably wouldn´t be very practical to have a baby duck in the church. It also could have rabies. So sadly, they decided against it.

Well that´s all I have for you know, but stay tuned folks, and next week be ready for another exciting adventure with las pollitas americanas in the beautiful country of Ecuador!

"Ya neva know... only in Ecuador."

D.R.: The two weeks are up!

2010-07-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

So we had to wait two weeks without internet access but now we are back online and able to update you all on whats happening! We wanted to give a quick update on some of the different things we've experienced thus far and go into detail a little later.

We started off with tons of mosquito bites, amoebas and bacteria. Totally agree with team Ecuador that all mosquitoes should die! We are working with six other ladies from Oregon and Tennessee plus our two fearless leaders; Ingrid and Desiree. Over half the team has gotten sick but we've got the process down of get to the clinic, deposit our samples and get some meds. (sadly Mary's in the middle of the process right now so please be praying for her!!)

Meredith and Megan purchased a live un-plucked chicken on a string and carried it from the market to our home base called Casa Betesda. This involved walking, a "concho" ride (a cross between a motorcycle and a dirt bike meets a scooter) and a van ride just to get Richard the chicken back home ...in time for lunch.

While talking about conchos we fit three girls plus the driver and managed to safely make it to our destination(s).

We are all getting used to living with our host families and think we can all agree that despite the language barriers and acclimating to their family rhythm and culture- we love 'em!

Theres been lots of plantains, yuca, mangu, chinola and RICE & BEANS. There has also been a phase with us Interns about CRAVING peanut butter and oreos, peanut butter and crackers, peanut butter and ice cream, peanut butter and just about anything that tastes like home.

Last but not least for this quick and dirty update:

MWF- In the mornings Meredith has been tutoring grammar, reading and math ALL IN SPANISH in the batey Los Robles. In the afternoon she goes to the COTN Office to teach English to about 20 of staff's children.

Each morning Mary and Megan have been working in the clinic; helping out with a visiting doctor team, updating crazy storage spaces, and observing patient visits. On MWF afternoons they also go to teach English; Mary in the batey Don Basco with lots of younger children and Megan is off to the batey Algodon to teach about 20 older students English as well.

T/TH mornings, Meredith works at the office thus far creating order out of the chaos that is the storage room. Then in the afternoons we all head out to work with the Sponsorship Program, helping to update profiles and photos of the kids.

In closing- all of us interns are excited to be getting together this sunday for a Fourth of July Celebration- American Style at the beach (minus the fireworks, minus the hotdogs, plus all the fun!).

Until next time!!- M^3

Kenya: Great Days in a Unique Land

2010-06-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

We have officially ended our second week of our Kenyan adventure. The time sure is flying by! We continue to love being present in the lives of the children and are trying to live every day to the fullest, keeping in mind that we only have a short amount of time here. As Drea said in the last post these kids have come from some of the gravest conditions imaginable and to see them laughing and healthy is something beyond amazing. They are so full of joy and do not take what they have been given for granted. During the last two weeks we have been putting on a mini camp for the kids since they have three weeks off of school. The camp is called GAMES which stands for Games, Art, Music, Enrichment and Sports. I, along with three others have been in charge of Sports. Last week we held a basketball clinic where we are hoping to produce the next Michael Jordan:) The kids have had a ton of fun with b ball and it is great to see them so eager to learn about the game. It has been just as enjoyable for me to teach them.

Every Saturday and Sunday night we have a giant soccer game with the kids as the sun goes down resulting in one of the most epic experiences I have had. Our team has loved running around and going crazy when goals are scored. There is a mama for every ten children at Rafiki and one of the mamas, Mama Lydia, is an avid soccer fan. She always comes out with her hat backwards and try's to keep up with the rambunctious little ones (hilarious to watch). The mama's of these kids are some of the most impressive people I have ever met. I can't imagine being a single mother and having to take care of ten children under the age of 12. It's unreal to see the strength they have and they give all the credit to God. Truly amazing.

The meals continue to be our team's achilles tendon:) The kids on the other hand love every meal, eating everything on their plate. I have literally never seen such clean plates at the end of a meal, so we are trying to learn from their ways. At dinner tonight I had a boy ask me with a completely straight face if I was from the North Pole....Haha

The work this week after games has been challenging, but as we keep in mind who we are serving we get that extra encouragement. Eric and I extended the soccer field about an extra thirty yards with this massive machine of a lawn mower. We plowed over several small trees and bushes that got in our way. It was quite a fun task. We have also mowed an additional five acres or so in preparation for a Kenyan ministry of education inspection on Thursday. Drea and Megan have also been working extremely hard after Games is over, working on preparing books for the next school semester and organizing a library for the junior high students. They have taped and repaired a ridiculous amount of books.

As we get to know the people, experience the wonderful Kenyan culture, and become more acquainted with this unique land the more we fall in love with it. Blessings to all of you and we will continue to keep you posted.

Much love,

Barclay

Haiti: Mangos are delicious!

2010-06-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! It’s been an awesome weekend down in Haiti. The mission team from Denby Pres in Virginia left for home Friday, leaving the 3 interns behind. We spent most of the day Friday working on creating a digital 3D map of the surveying data we took last week. We’ll start the actual design of the dam and canal soon. On Saturday, we got some good rest by sleeping in until about 8am. Bruce had a few tasks for us that day, but they were quick and easy. It was mostly just bending rebar and connecting some new parts to a car battery charger. We’ve had two visitors this weekend from a company called Protos that works with Bruce on many of the water projects. Martine is Belgian, and Julie is French. They’ve been working with Bruce on accounting stuff. We have definitely managed without his supervision though. With our spare time, we like to play with the neighborhood kids, start soccer games, explore the beautiful Haitian countryside, hang out…There’s always stuff to do here. Church on Sunday was an awesome experience. Everyone dresses their absolute best to worship the Lord. We went to Pastor Chrisbon’s church in Post Metier this time. He gave on great sermon on the 5^th Commandment. After church, we got to accompany Bruce and Pastor Chrisbon to Madame Danielle’s house to pray with her for her family. It was really cool to see how the church community will come together to support each other in times of need. And, of course, Sunday afternoon was spent at Pastor Chrisbon’s house where we had a marvelous feast prepared by Madame Chrisbon. So good! Then Sunday afternoon we went to visit a Toutoun, a man who works for Bruce, and his family. And we spent Sunday evening eating amazing mangos and popcorn and hanging out with the Robinsons. What a great weekend!

This week is going to be really busy for us. Bruce has several projects he wants us to start working on. Wednesday we even get to travel up into the mountains to find the source of a river to see if we can use it to supply water to the towns below. And the rest of our team arrives on Friday, and we can’t wait for them to get here. We’ve got plenty to do until they get here though. We’re doing great! Hope everything’s well on the home front.

God’s grace,

J&A

Bonsoir! from Haiti

2010-06-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! we're having a great time in Haiti so far. Internet access is spotty, so this is kind of two posts in one. A lot's been going on, and we're excited to tell you all about it.

The Haiti boys (Jordan and Adam) are back from another tiring day of foundation building up in Foison. We are dust and sweat covered but we’re having an awesome time. We’re a little late on updating everyone so we’ve got a lot to talk about.
Our trip started out with about 26 hours of total travel time. We arrived in Port-Au-Prince (PAP) at about 8:30am after flying from Seattle to LA to Miami and down from there. In the Miami airport we met up with the mission group from Virginia that we’ve been staying with for the first 10 days. They are awesome and we’ve had a lot of fun hanging out at the team house and working with them. There is one other intern here (Kester) along with Adam and I. We arrived at Bruce and Deb’s house at about 7pm after battling the red hats at the PAP airport, sneaking oversized carry on bags onto the Tortug Airlines flight to Port-De-Paix, crossing a river in sinking boats, and a 40 min truck ride with Pastor Chrisbon over some of the bumpiest roads we’ve ever seen. What an experience.
Since then, we’ve been hard at work. The very first day we got the opportunity to survey a section of river where we will eventually be designing a dam for an irrigation canal. We finished the surveying on Thursday thanks to our brand new Nikon total station. Other than that we’ve been working with the Virginians on the foundation of a new school in Foison, a small village in the mountains about 10 miles South of Bruce and Deb’s house. That has involved digging holes; gathering, rolling, carrying, shoveling, throwing, and smashing huge boulders; tying rebar to make foundation columns; carrying and mixing cement. We’ve also had plenty of time playing with the local kids. Around the team house itself, we’ve put together emergency tents that were just delivered, moved building supports, attached a dipole radio that can communicate with the rest of the world, eaten delicious food with the Robinsons, toured Bruce’s previous projects and shop, and explored the area around the team house. We also got to go to the local outdoor market and bakery with Deb. A couple nights ago we attended a Haitian funeral, which was a very interesting experience. We met our first real opposition at a work site where we were building the base of a culvert. A man was throwing a fit that made a lot of the Haitians stop working. It was decided for us to leave the situation and so we went to a pastor’s house nearby. It was a nice drive back to the house with the pastor through the Haitian countryside.
We have loved getting to be a part of Bruce and Deb’s ministry so far and hearing their vision for the future of this remote corner of Haiti. So much of their vision has already come to life, and we’re very excited to see what other amazing things will happen here in the next few weeks. We’ve been very busy, but we’re having a great time. Please keep us in our prayers, especially that God would comfort us from homesickness, would give us strength to complete our tasks, and would be with us in developing our team unity.
We hope you’re all doing well, and we can’t wait to hear about the things God is doing with the other teams. Much love,
J&A
Note: The above blog entry was written several days ago, but we were unable to post it due to power and internet issues.
Today was Beach Day!
The week long mission trip of the Virginians is coming to an end, so we got to celebrate by spending the morning at a beautiful beach near Bay De Mustique. It was a beautiful sunny day. We got to swim, snorkel, and play all morning. We found Nemo, dove for sand dollars, and Adam even made a treasure map. All in all, it was a great day enjoying God’s creation.
Haiti is an all around beautiful place. Each little town is different. There are tropical beaches with white sand and turquoise waters near, harsh deserts with cactus and all things prickly, huge rocky mountains, lush tropical jungles, vast banana and mango farms. What an amazing place.
The Virginians will be heading back to the US tomorrow leaving the 3 engineers to continue working. We had a great time getting to know and hanging out with them, and we will miss them. But there’s plenty of work still to be done. Every day is a new adventure in Haiti, and we’ll do our best to keep y’all posted on our activities.
Peace,
J&A

Kenya: A week of adventures

2010-06-22T09:47:00.000-07:00

It has been a week since we have been here. We finally got the internet up and running. I am very thankful that Barclay brought his computer because the one here is very slow. We have een very busy working and playing with the kids.

Our flight over was good. Nothing went wrong, we had a delay of about an hour in Ethiopia but our driver was still waiting for us. We are living in the village, which is surrounded by walls. All four of us are living in Wageni, which means guest in Kiswahili. There are five other people here and we all share the space. One more lady will arrive tomorrow. It is very nice. We eat our breakfast here by ourselves but every other meal is will the kids and momas. They do our laundry three times a week if we want and clean those days as well. They provide us with all the food we want, including the most amazing mangoes I have ever tasted. We run out of the a lot.

Our days are pretty routine. We get up at about 6 or 6:30 and get ready and eat. We then have devotions at 7:15 but for some reason, we never get there on time (or they just start early). The devotions are with the staff members and the village director. We sing and read the Bible. The next three weeks we are having a competition of sorts where we get asked questions about the books they just finished. We of course have no idea what the answers are because we havent read Ezra or 2 Chronicles. After devotions we pray and then prepare for the day. This week and next week we are doing games. It is just in the morning and the kids are in groups and go through different stations. Thankfully the kids all have shirts with their names on them. Otherwise we would be lost. There are about 90 kids and it is hard to know all the names. It is very cool to get to know the students though. We have learned some stories that break our hearts. One little girl Miriam was found in the bottom of a latrine. A latrine is basically a whole in the ground that is used for the bathroom. Two other kids, John and Susan, came to the village because their mom was killed by their dad while they were in the room. All the stories are very sad. It makes me so happy that they have come here and found a better life.

We have been mostly in the village. It is a completely different world that outside the village. We havent had much culture shock (at least speaking for myself- Drea) but we have a visit planned for the slums, which I am excited about. This past weekend we have been to the market and the tea farm. This weekend we are going to the market again and to the Giraffe center/Elephant orphanage. It is nice to see the rest of Africa.

The food has been hard for us. It is hard to adapt. We eat beans at almost every meal. We have had some interesting meals. The other night was a mixture of eggs, rice, and some green veggies(I think spinach). It has been interesting. A lot of the time we give our food to the kids when the momas arent looking. At dinner it is silent. No one talks, it is sometimes very awkward as we as Americans talk when we eat.

The kids are just amazing! I have fallen in love with some of them. They are all very quiet. They call me Auntie Drea. Megan is also auntie. The boys are uncle. Barlcay is trying to establish his own nickname. He has gone from BK to broccoli. The kids are calling him broccoli. It is really funny to watch them. On the weekends we play soccer. The kids are all very good and I get caught up in watching the sunset as the kids play.

We havent seen much wildlife yet. There are lots of birds and lizards. The other day I was wearing my only white shirt and an ibis ( a big bird that makes a lot of annoying noises) pooped on me. All the kids died laughing.

A lot has happened for me since I (Drea) have been here. My boyfriends sister had her baby, and it didnt make it. It has been hard for me to be here and have this all happen at home. I have never prayed more in my entire life. This week has already changed my life. I have learned not only a lot about myself but a lot about God and the way he works. I can't wait to see what else He has for me to learn. I am learning to trust more and more. It has been hard. I am asking for continued prayers as they are dealing with this issue at home. God has a plan and I pray for peace and comfort as I am here.

The team is good, I have a cough but overall we are ok. We are still getting used to the schedule and so we are a little tired. We can feel your prayers and we ask for more. We hope to get on later and update you more on our experiences.

God bless,

Drea

Team Kenya

2010-06-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

Team Kenya arrived safely but has had limited internet access. Keep them in your prayers.

Ecuador: Mosquitoes should die

2010-06-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Team Ecuador is here safe, and loving life.

Our brains hurt from trying to understand and speak in Spanish todo el tiempo.

We are like old ladies because we go to bed at 9 o'clock. Last night we stayed up till 11; we are so wild!

We have been sent to different families for Tuesday through Thursday each week. We help with dishes, sweeping, making the bed; we are just here to help :)

Erica had to cut up dead animals. Ha.

We live in the church, and it is always freezing. When we meet people and tell them we live in the church, they always ask us if we are freezing. Our immediate response is yes. Si, muy frio.

We need keys for the church, but unfortunately a few days ago we went into town, locked the gate to our church, and forgot the keys. People were not supposed to meet us at the church for a while, and it had started to pour. Kellie decided to break into our house; the only problem is there is barbed wire and spikes all around our gate. Did that deter her? Nope. She found a place where there was just chain link fence, and began to climb. It wasn't until she swung her leg over the chain link that she realized the chain link in Ecuador is NOT like the chain link in the US. It was sharp, and her pants got caught. So Kellie was stuck, up on the fence, which her pantalones ripped and stuck to the chain link, not able to move. Jamie was helping while Kellie screamed and laughed. Quite humorous. By this point she was soaked. Awesome.

She made it over, and she broke into the house, and she got the keys. She is a hero. Her pants are destroyed.

We´ve had a few aventuras (adventures) with the bugs here as well. Mandi´s family actually convinced her to try a fried grub of some kind. She won´t eat meat, but she´ll try insects. Go figure. We also found a giant centipede in our bathroom. Jamie was the only one brave enough to catch it and take it outside.

One night a very nice church member brought us a pitcher of some kind of fermented milk beverage. After we figured out that he was offering us a gift and not begging we took the pitcher and thanked him. Allyssa was the only one brave enough to try it. Everyone else was scared off by the curds floating in it. It tasted kind of like cheese. (Allyssa is still perfectly healthy by the way.)

Yesterday we went to Otavalo, which has a huge market. So fun.

We love empanadas here.

We tried to go to a waterfall, but it started pouring rain... and 11 of us were in one sedan, with two children in the trunk.

That is just how we do.

The mosquitoes? Too painful to remember the horror of their

More to come :)

Team India: The Adventure Begins

2010-06-20T01:23:00.000-07:00

After 20 hours of flying and layovers in Vancouver and Hong Kong we arrived in Bangalore at 3 a.m. on June 16th. After a day of rest we went to Asha Kiran Special Needs School. This summer we will be assisting the principal and the teachers at the school. School begins at 8 a.m. each day and ends at 1:30 p.m. At 7:30 a.m. we take the school bus to Asha Kiran, the drive to school is one of our favorite things. The half hour drive takes us through the busy streets and slums of Bangalore. Several times we saw cows in the middle of the street, yesterday there a man walking a camel next to our house. The school teaches kids with a range of special needs; including Down’s syndrome, autism, physical disabilities, and hearing impairment. On Thursday Katie assisted the preschool age kids as they learned to count, name shapes, and know their abcs. The kids at the school are mesmerized by Katie’s golden locks, the teachers had to explain to the them that all of the yellow stuff was her hair; they had never seen blonde hair before. We get a lot of stares from the kids and locals as we are the only foreigners. Class is taught in English. English has become a necessity in the Bangalore, many of the overseas call centers are in the city. The language is used nationally, Rita, the Principal and our host, says that English has “united the country.” All Universities teach in English. Sarah assisted a prevocational class on Thursday. The twelve students learn different life skills and how to sit quietly for periods of time during their first class, breathing exercises. On Friday we helped in the prevocational class, we went on a field trip to the store to teach the students how to write a grocery lists and purchase items. On Saturday we went on a walk to CHM Street where there are a few shops. All of the streets are uneven and are broken and slabs of concrete are missing. Dirt piles and garbage line the streets and people are everywhere and cars constantly honk. From what we can tell there are no real traffic rules, or lanes. There are no stop signs, or working street lights where we live. Walking around the city is an adventure because we constantly have to be aware of ourselves, the cars and motorcycles, the garbage, and the broken uneven streets. A misstep can land you in a four foot ditch between concrete slabs; we thought the streets north of 45th were bad. This weekend we are planning our first shopping excursion to buy traditional Indian clothes and a Sari for the wedding we are attending on July 2nd. We are hoping the clothing will help us to not stick out as much. Sometimes locals ask us where we are from and why we have come. In our daily walk around the park next to our house a few elderly gentlemen talked to us about our trip to Bangalore and their kids in the States.

Bethlehem's Got Photos

2010-06-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

From Deputation

Me and Trey in Beit Sehoor (House of Waking) just south of Bethlehem where we're staying. We're on top of one of the more significant buildings in the area, because it's owned by a related member of our household (as is just about everyone on the block! Things are like that around here...huge families that cluster together.

From Deputation

Looking north toward Bethlehem

From Deputation

Me and the other Beit Sehoor-ers outside The Shepherds Field (Like, where the shepherds saw the angels! Or at least the traditionally believed location. Probably close enough )

From Deputation

The "Peace Wall." An ever-present reminder of the crazy prejudice going on here... from inside looking toward Israel, you'll see all the graffiti. Some it it is pretty powerful stuff...more to come. Not to sound like the political agenda is sinking in, it's just that the local politics are ever present and the grim reality of the situation inescapable.

I've got more pics from the other day too I'll be getting up here. We got Trey's bag from Jerusalem (Thank the Lord!) and spent some time exploring with one of our friends along with more of Bethlehem. Today we're doing some traveling also, I'll keep ya'll posted. ;)

Mas Salaam!

(Post originated from http://boundlesschrist.blogspot.com)

Bethlehem: Day 1.5 -- A Journey Ends, an Adventure Begins!

2010-06-17T22:34:00.001-07:00

Someone once said, to live would be an awfully big adventure.

I can certainly say that we have lived life in a big way these past few days.

Getting here amounted to what was probably the most stressful 24 hours of either me or Trey's life. Getting everything gathered and packed the night before leaving (with time for zero sleep) only compounded the problems later in the day: in Dallas, about an hour before our plane was scheduled to leave, Trey discovered that his bag had been misdirected to be dropped of in Texas. He had to run down, grab his bag, take it back through security... etc... terrible. In all, about an hour long process, all the while, I had no idea what was going on (no cell phones. O_o ). Got back in time to find out that he got booted from the flight, and had to make it on another, leaving us with no time to coordinate what we were doing once we were in London.

All I knew was I'd get there two hours before he did, and that he was now flying American Airlines, not Brittish. Along the way, I ended up sitting next to two Mormon gals who were heading out for their year-and-a-half long missions trip and were very interesting to talk with. Spent quite a long time talking about God and what we believe "Oh, I just love learning about what other people's beliefs are!" I think were "Sister Alexander"'s words. Mm... they were pretty cool though, left me with a couple things to think about. One of them was talking about how after she had prayed, God had given her a verse and how it was exactly what she needed to hear and how great having relationship with God is and etc. How this book has really changed her life... made me wonder what was really going on. When we departed ways at the airport, they gave me their only extra copy of the Book of Mormon (I tried to refuse... *sigh*... I have no idea what to do with it! At least it's not going to someone else, I suppose).

In London, I and Trey were met with another nightmare. Essentially, we spent the entire 14 hour layover not having a clue where the other person was and trying to wait in various places hoping against hope of finding the other. Trey did venture into the city, whereas I chickened out at the last second. Thought it'd be lame to visit all by myself, and from the sounds of what Trey said, it was pretty lame. Crazy stressful.

I figured that if all else fails, we were to meet at a terminal for our flight out at 1030pm. I woke up from a nap at 9:40, headed over there, and I'm telling you, there are few other faces that could make me feel so suddenly good as Trey's as we ran into eachother in the bathroom....

The flight to Tel Aviv was wonderfully uneventful. I will say that the food on these flights was absolutely incredible. I mean, I haven't had anything besides peanuts or pretzels to eat on a plane in goodness knows how long. Curried Chicken, rolls, salad, dessert, drinks, milk... so good! =D

Tel Aviv: turns out Trey's luggage didn't make it from London. -_- HOWEVER, we made it in the country without a hitch, which was such a blessing! We made it! Met at the exit by a man (not to be confused with this who took us to Bethlehem from the airport...where we met our host family (who are going to be pretty sweet, especially the food!!!! and the couple of kids that are totally awesome! I was playing with one of the kids and his mom told him that I don't actually speak Arabic... the kid disagreed, a fact I found quite amusing).

Trey is still trying to track down his Luggage and may have to visit the airport to get it all figured out... something that's just killing him. I don't blame him =/ . Be praying for his situation! That he get's his stuff! Otherwise, we're alive and well, thinking of home much... it's just starting to set in how far and away both in space and time we really are from Seattle...

[IMAGES TO COME SOON]

Sierra Leone is on the ground

2010-06-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

Emma, Jessica, and Victor have arrived safely in Freetown. They, along with other COTN interns are on their way to Banta where they will be living for the next 8 weeks. Please pray for continued safety as they travel.

Haiti Team has arrived

2010-06-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

A message from Bruce Robinson:
Jordan and Adam are here and we are very impressed with them. The whole team’s bags are supposed to come in the morning. They are going to start working on an irrigation canal survey and design in the morning.

More later.

In Christ,
Bruce

India & Ecuador: More safe arrivals

2010-06-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

Team India and Team Ecuador have both arrived safely.

DR team arrived!

2010-06-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

The Dominican Republic Team has arrived safely in Barahona. Updates to come once they get settled in.

Deputation 2010

2010-05-04T17:25:00.001-07:00

Get excited! There are only 6 weeks until the 2010 Deputation teams take-off! The teams will be serving in 7 countries this summer. Please join me in praying for each team as they prepare for the summer.

Team Thailand: Emma, Jessica, Victor, and Dan

Team Kenya: Eric, Megan, Drea, and Barclay

Team India: Sarah and Katie

Team Haiti: Adam, Jeff, and Jordan

Team Ecuador: Kellie, Allyssa, Mandi, Jamie, and Erica

Team Dominican Republic: Mary, Megan, and Meredith

Team Bethlehem: Alex and Trey

The Island Life: Final Edition

2009-08-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

Yes! Team Philippines is all home and well. (As I am sure many of you have seen us back in the States!) Talk about D-E-L-A-Y-E-D blog...I guess time really got away from us towards the end, so much to do...so little time :D Our plane landed aprox. 10 pm Tuesday the 25th and after fully 16 hours on 2 different planes, we were all happy to set foot on American soil :D. Back to the real world once again.
In the last couple of weeks we managed to:
Hike during a monsoon
have a going away party with Habitat for humanity
Hang out with our host family (aka fake mom, dad, sisters, and brother) LOTS
Visit the American Memorial Cemetery close to our house
Go to a Filipino cultural night with Mia, our Habitat coordinator
Eat some authentic Filipino cuisine (John ate Bolute-an aborted duck egg...complete with feathers and bones! hooray! needless to say, the rest of us DID NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
We also were blessed to support a new friend getting Babtized on a beautiful beach north of Manila
Our last weekend we stayed at the beach for 2 nights with our mission coordinator to reflect and debrief with the team and take a break from the hard work :)
All in all, our progress report for Habitat for Humanity was:
CIB-215 bocks
Bending of rebar-3,436 pcs.
Cutting of rebar-2,629 pcs.
Tying of rebar-24 beams
sand sieving-7 cubic meters
Hauling of black sand-1,585 sacks
Hauling of white sand-2,718 sacks
Transferring of CIB to 4th floor (with help from lots of friends!)-3,106 blocks
Wow, what an amazing summer!!! Through all the hard patches and good, we all made it home safe and had a truly life-changing experience. Thank you for all of your prayers and continued support, praise God who deserves all the glory
"For we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose" Romans 8:28
I'll (Britt) sort through some picts to post up, so check back! God bless!
Paalam!

There and Back Again--A Kenyan Tale by Bilbo Baggins x 4

2009-08-27T06:24:00.000-07:00

In a house called Wageni, there lived four young mzungus.

In other words, our summer in Kenya is coming to a close, and we are feeling a bit nostolgic. Tomorrow is our last day of teaching. We honestly can't believe that we accomplished 6 weeks of full time teaching. It is all by the grace of God. We are trying to squeeze as much as we can into our last few days here. Tomorrow we are going to try to learn how to make some traditional Kenyan dishes that we have grown to love over our time here.
There are so many things that we will miss about Kenya. It really has come to feel like home, and we feel like family. Everyone on staff here is so great. The mamas are constantly giving us encouragement, and very generous extra helpings of ugali. In other words, we've grown in body and soul. But it was worth the "weight" ah hahahahahaha. The missionaries here are so good to us as well. We are always being invited over for good food and good company. The stories of how they came here are all so amazing.
Amy has been transitioning her teaching roles every week. Now she has found home with the three year old class. Needless to say she has finally found a group that she can relate to. Mindy is loving her seventh graders more and more every day. If only she could say the same about Pilgram's Progress, which she has to teach. The kindergarteners continue to be her daily entertainment. Abby's 8th graders just finished their final class debate, which was about intervention in African affairs. She has enjoyed learning the perspectives of the students who live outside of the compound. Megan is enjoying answering irrelevent and often hilarious questions posed by her 2nd graders. It has been challenging in ways she never expected. They will be missed.
We will be home soon, and can't wait to tell you all our stories in person.
Love,
Amy Wagoner x 4

P.S. Zac Efron is The Derby Stallion

It was a lot easier for Team Ireland to get out of the country than it was to get in.

2009-08-16T13:20:00.001-07:00

Despite our negative feelings toward the Belfast International Airport, we were forced to go back. They were much happier to let us leave than they were to let us in 2 months ago. Our trip back was relatively painless, though I think we are all suffering from serious jet lag. Especially considering the fact that we got little to no sleep the night before we left, as we were busy catching up with friends from the various camps we had worked at.

Our last week was quite challenging, but a great place to be for our last few days in Northern Ireland. We worked in Lisnabreen Presbyterian Church, holding events for 11-18 year olds who came from very rough backgrounds. We were definitely given many opportunities to practice patience and love. The kids were crazy, but full of questions about what it means to be a christian, which was really encouraging. Our final week showcased our exhaustion- mentally, physically, and emotionally. It is nice to be settled in at home, though a very hard adjustment to make. Thank you for all of your prayers and support. This has been an amazingly unique experience for each one of us.

Team Ireland

The Tech Campers created an awesome video about "The Seattlites"- which can be found on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U07FPqRyyDA

Kenya: yes we are still here :)

2009-08-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

How long has it been since our last post? One week? We're just so busy we lose track. It gets hard being full time teachers, and then having all our other work at night. Sometimes we only get to see our kids for an hour or so a day. However, we LOVE the work we're doing here and our time is never wasted.

Our latest task was to cover and label every book in the school K-8. We finished grades 7 and 8 in a week's time. We aren't sure if we'll finish them all before we leave but we'll keep working at it. We spent most of our evenings this week working on them.... except when we watched Titanic... oops :)
Our hearts are going on... and on... and on...

Overall it wasn't an ridiculously eventful week. This weekend was the first time we stayed on the compound and didn't go adventuring around Nairobi. We ended up playing knockout (or bump) with the older kids for approx. 3 hours. It was bliss. It's such an accomplishing feeling when you win against them all, but then you remember that the oldest kid is 12.... and all that accomplishment vanishes. The weekend has been restful. Haven't had rocks in the soup in a few days, so that's been good. We played some good hardcore soccer tonight, followed by a great jam session in the guest house with some new visitors. Life is good.

2 more weeks here and we'll be on our way. The permanent missionaries here on site have been trying to convince us to email home and try to raise funds to stay until the end of September. I wish. 2 more weeks it is... :(

Please be praying for us to be able to emotionally handle leaving these children; and that the children will be able to adjust to us leaving as well. We've seen people come and go and it isn't easy on the kids. Also pray that we make the most of our last few weeks here. Hope everything at home is wonderful :)

Signing out,

Amy Wagoner x4

.5 of Team Turkey is Home....

2009-08-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

Friends-

Saturday morning as we got ready to leave for the airport Landi's wallet got stolen- passport, credit cards, everything. The consolate can't do anything for her until monday morning. Kady and Brittany made it home safely- Kate and Landi are booked on a flight from London to Seattle monday afternoon, but are flying standby from Istanbul to London. Please pray that Monday morning goes smoothly for them- getting a passport and getting on that plane!

Team Bethlehem is safely home, jetlagged and enjoying the wonderful weather (read: not 100 degrees)...

2009-08-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

One Long Last Update from Team Bethlehem:

3 weeks ago:
The Saturday trip was to our very own Bethlehood & only K decided to join in, while the others did their own thing because we've a lot of the stuff here already: L went with the kids from the Ansar Center to Ramallah where they swam, went to a fun park and ate an excessive amount of sugary treats. C went to Deheiseh refugee camp to help with a kids camp one of our friends has been working at there. J was in Tel Aviv at the beach.

On the Bethlehem tour, we went to the Herodian - Herod's palace & harem - where we saw ruins, underground tunnels used during the Bar Kokhba revolts, and the place where currently archaeologists think that Herod was buried. We also saw the Shepherd's Fields in Beit Sahour, the Nativity Church - including the cave where they think that Jesus was born - in Bethlehem, and ate lunch at Afteem (Falafel King: where Bethlehem's best falafel can be found), then we went to Solomon's Pools and Aida refugee camp where we heard from the Lajee (which means refugee) Center and got a tour of the camp. Afterwards some of us went to Cafe SiMa to hang out, because the cafe was set to close for the next two weeks.

On Sunday the four of us headed into Jerusalem with our adopted fifth member, Joey, to do some of the stuff we had missed the past couple of times. Unfortunately we found out that both the Dome of the Rock and the Garden Tomb closed just before we got there, so we headed out to do the Holocaust Museum instead. That was a really interesting experience. The Holocaust in itself is one of the most shocking and sickening things to learn about, and all of us walked out with heavy hearts. But to make it all the more disturbing was the similarities we noticed between the oppression of the Jews in Europe to that of the Palestinians in Israel - you could literally just replace the word "Palestinian" for "Jew" and "Israel" for "Germany" and it would be describing the conflict here: injustice, racism, etc. In the very first room there was a particularly poigniant quote: "A state is not just what it does, but also what it tolerates...."

This past week, C and K finally finished painting the railing they've been working on for the past six weeks: YAY!! L and J are also feeling their work winding down at their volunteer sites.

On Friday we all helped to paint at J & C's host family's house, L & K's taxi driver asked them to a rodeo (we said...um, no...), and we had dinner at the Salman's (Catherine and Jessica's host family from last year).

Two weeks ago:
Our trip this weekend was to Caesarea (a port city built by Herod), Capernum (where we saw the house they think Peter and Jesus lived in), the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth and Golan Heights. It was about 110 degrees on Saturday so one of the highlights was swimming in the Sea of Galilee after going on what is called the "Jesus boat," a replica of a boat that comes from the era of Jesus, that plays a random mix of music (Black Eyed Peas and ABBA, anyone?) as we drive around the sea. In a small village outside of Nazareth, we met with this organization called House of Hope, an organization working for peace and justice. It was interesting to hear from them particularly because they are Palestinians living in Israel.

We spent the night in Nazareth where we got to see the Church of the Annunciation and Joseph's Church (built over the spot they think he lived). Then we went to the Golan Heights where we met with Golan for Development. Our tour included a lookout point on a hill filled with bunkers used by the Israelis in the 1967 war, overlooking the Israel-Lebanon border. After a delicious meal, we headed home early because our meeting in Haifa had been canceled.

Our last week:
For our cultural night we got to spend the night at Tent of Nations where we explored the area, roasted hot dogs, slept on sketchy matresses and had a great time. J visited friends in Ber Sheva. L got to make wadak dawali (grape leaves and zucchini stuffed with rice and lamb) and K & C helped eat it :)

On Sunday we went our last trip to Jericho (where we saw the ruins of the city), Qumran (where Bedouin shepherds discovered the dead sea scrolls in 1947) and the Dead Sea. Either the tourist destinations didn't live up to their expectations or our tour guide decided to give us the boring version of the story, because it was kind of a lame trip.

Monday we had our last meeting, mailed home all of our potentially pro-Palestinian belongings, and hung out for the last time with our host families, which was very sad :( On Tuesday we said goodbye to Bethlehem and headed out to Tel Aviv. It was a really nice day: we got to hang out on the beach, swim in the Mediterranean (or if you were K, get totally dominated by the waves...), eat a relaxing and delicious dinner while we watched the sunset, and hang out on the beach at night with three of our favorite people: Flora, Joey and Rob.

Wednesday morning we woke up really early, said goodbye to them, and headed to the airport. We got through security relatively easily & were very happy to finally be headed home. We got to spend a little time in London during our layover with our friend Miriam & were all very happy when it began to rain. Way too many hours later, we finally arrived in Seattle, home sweet home.

We will all miss the place, the people, the culture and the group of internationals we have all come to fall in love with. But we are very glad to be home.

The B-Team

el fin

2009-08-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

here's one last message from team DR... we all got home on Tuesday night and cannot believe that this part of the deputation experience is over!

in the last few weeks...
** Alicia and Lauren witnessed eye surgeries first hand... like we were literally wearing scrubs in the operating room at the clinic! a little weird, a little unsettling, but we both feel really lucky to have been able to see this. it gave us a lot of closure to actually see something happening in the clinic, after spending the majority of the summer collecting a lot of information. the clinic was hopping and it was wonderful!

** we all finished up our english classes with parties and treats... to varying degrees of success. In Los Robles, word spread quickly that Elisa and Dylan were bringing cookies, so they had to fight off the crowd of children with a bat in order to leave the village! Lauren had a rough time saying goodbye to her class in Algodon, after forming some really cool relationships with the older girls in the village (and continuing some from previous trips). She's really excited about some girls who are starting at the university in Barahona in the fall- it's great to see them pursuing their dreams! Alicia also got to know some older boys from Don Bosco, who have made their name known in their village as Christian reggaeton singers/rappers. it was amazing to see the impact that this has on their community, especially when you saw all of the younger boys singing their songs. they performed at our despedida goodbye party last week, too.

** saying goodbye to our host families was full of mixed emotions, since that experience brought so many ups and downs throughout the whole summer. we were excited to spend time living with all of the other interns at the mission house, but it was sad to say goodbye. Elisa went on a weekend vacation to Santo Domingo with her host family, which helped her to get a lot of closure as she said goodbye. her family was always busy and running around, so she loved being able to spend some solid, quality time with them and to see more about their life. Alicia's host family tried push her back in the truck when they were supposed to be dropping her off. Lauren's family cooked chili (which she introduced), bought ice cream cake, and held a dance party the night before. We all left our host families very grateful for the experience. We also enjoyed the freedom and independence of living at the mission house all together :)

** we made some goodbye tours of all the villages, and explored some waterfalls nearby before leaving barahona on saturday morning to spend a few days debriefing in Santo Domingo. while we're still figuring a lot out, here are a few things we learned...
- we learned to be content in the Lord in any situation
- we saw a lot of prayers answered, including the healing/recovery process of a burned 6-month old baby, and a young girl with chronic eye infections, and of course the cataract surgeries
-we learned to trust that God is always working, even when we can't see it or understand

God got us through a lot this summer, and our team of interns was able to get really close. it was hard to say goodbye, but we all learned a lot from eachother and are incredibly grateful for the experience. now we just need to figure out how to keep the mission going at home, and see what that looks like. Best of luck to everyone finishing up on their trips! you are in our prayers and we'll see you at home soon :)

TIDR,
lauren, alicia, elisa!

Too many Bibles?

2009-08-13T02:07:00.000-07:00

We fail at posting. Yet, I guess all the teams could say that at one point or another.

A brief recap. Since our last post we have had school, a vacation, and other adventures around Bangalore.

We took another trip the Bible Society to pick up a Bible for Brian to take home. This trip prompted us to count the number of Bibles that we have just in our flat of the house. At the end we now have: Lauren: 2 full, 2 halves, Dexter: 3 full, 1 half, Brian: 3 full, Antje, 3 full, then adding the 2 full and 1 half that are here in the flat of Prem and Rita's. = 15 total. WOWZERS!

Asha Kiran isn't just a school but also a hostel for about 12 boys. Dexter and Brian wanted to spend as much time there as possible from the beginning of the trip. However, that plan failed until last week. Last week they spent one night, and they are spending the night again right now. (Whooo, girl's night in!). They play cricket with the boys, help them with their homework, play indoor games, and talk...anything further you'd have to ask the boys about...

The past two weeks of school have been really tough. We are now making sure the kids understand that we are leaving and they won't see us again after Friday. Some of them understand fully but others just wave at us and say "bye bye." Like they'll see us again Monday. There are certain kids we're each especially attached to, but we'll surely miss the entire school, it's not just a school but a family.

Friday night we took the train to Goa, which is on the Arabian Sea. It was awesome. When we first got there Saturday afternoon the first thing we did was head straight for the beach. We could see the beach from our rooms and walk right out onto a trail that with a 30 second walk we were on the beach, kicking off our shoes and running into the waves. Lauren made friends with three women who ended up just wanting to sell us jewelry, henna, and sarongs. We quickly realized what monsoon season does to the waves and headed for the pool. That evening we spent walking North along the beach, collecting shells and watching the locals fish. We met our friends again and I bought a few things while Lauren held off.
Dinner was our first expedition into the town of Colva, we ended up at this little hotel where the food was good but the service was lacking - I didn't get my food until we were standing up to leave.
On Saturday we adventured South along the beach. We started at about 10:30am. We walked for probably four hours, had lunch at a place called Funny's. Dexter had shark, which he said tasted a lot like a regular fish. Then we walked back to the hotel. At this point Lauren and I realize that our legs were scorched AND we had an hour walk back to the hotel. Lauren was already in pain about fifteen minutes into it and the sun was still fairly high in the sky. As soon as we got back to the hotel Lauren polished off the bottle of aloe we brought with us while I put more sunscreen on and jumped in the pool to cool down. The boys departed from us part of the way back to explore the main area of Colva. Once they got back we goofed off in the pool for a while then headed into town for dinner. We found a great place called Kentuckee, huge menu and the food was great.
Monday our original plan was to hire a taxi to go to another city and go to a sandal shop our guidebook told us about, but that became too expensive quickly. Plan B was to rent four scooters and drive there. BUT, three of the four of us didn't bring our driver's licenses to Goa. I thankfully had mine. We rented one scooter for the day and the others took turns exploring the back roads and villages around Colva while the two leftover played cards, read, and journaled in our favorite coffee shop (Coffee Day).
At one point Dex and I got up to 80 km/h. WHEEEEE!
Dex and I also ran out of petrol on another expedition and he pushed the scooter to the nearest general store. Apparently they rent you the scooter with little to no petrol in it.
We all had fun riding through jungles, fields, and football pitches. Trying not to get lost - and succeeding on that mission!

Other hi-lights of Goa:
Brian talking with some Christians at the general store before heading to dinner.
Finding two different puffer fish.
Brian body surfing.
Our friend the cat, who I named Sooty (he looked like he sat in a pile of soot, 101 dalmatians style).

On the train ride back Lauren and I got off to get snacks at a stop and decided to jump on the train while it was pulling away from the platform. It pulled away sooner and faster than we thought. Lauren made it perfectly fine and thought I was going to get in at the back door because I had the snacks in my arms. I decided to legitimately run for it and made it to the front door. Though Brian - who was inside the train and saw us running past the window thought I wasn't going to make it and Dex who was standing in the front door didn't think we'd make it at all. We did, safe and sound.

This is it from Team India.

We'll be home at about 5pm Seattle time on Saturday!

Love and blessings,
Antje and Team India

Team Serbia: Suffering for Jesus all over the Balkans

2009-08-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

While many teams have been sleeping on the dirt, showering once a week and truly suffering, Team Serbia just got back from a beach vacation where we suffered for Jesus on the shores of the Adriatic Sea and spent the equivalent of a day and a half on buses.

The adventure began July 24, when we left at 11:30 p.m. to take a 9-hour night bus to Podgorica, Montenegro. We were warned that the bus trip would be awful, with winding roads through Southern Serbia, no air conditioning, multiple bathroom stops in the middle of the night, and passport checks of every single passenger at each border. We ignored the warnings and took the bus anyway. Needless to say, we are surprised we lived to tell the tale. We vowed never to take the night bus again…or so we thought. We arrived in Podgorica and took yet another bus to Niksic, Montenegro where we would be staying with Stan and Vicki, a missionary couple from Southern California. Total bus time (TBT) so far: 11 hours and counting.

We spent 3 days in Niksic, a small town in the mountains about the size of Issaquah. Stan and Vicki live in a beautiful house with many guest rooms, a small vineyard, a massive vegetable garden and Stan’s workshop where he builds violins. They used to live in Southern California, but moved to Montenegro 13 years ago when there were fewer than 20 believers in the entire country (Montenegro has a population of about 620,000 today). Today there are about 120 total believers, and 3 thriving churches in the entire country. Stan and Vicki are incredibly hopeful that their ministry will continue to bring people to Christ, but know that the road ahead is long and daunting. Vicki cooked incredible meals for us each day, some of which included salsa (we all miss Mexican food!) and peanut butter. We also got to visit with some of the young adults at the church in Niksic, and were encouraged by their optimism and strength despite the tough climate for ministry in the country.

All four of us were sad to leave Niksic and Stan and Vicki, but our next stop was the coastal town of Herceg Novi, Montenegro. We took a two-hour bus ride (TBT: 13 hours) to Herceg Novi, and were met by Eric and Susan, a missionary couple from Chicago. They have lived in Herceg Novi for 5 years, and not one person has come to the Lord since then. We learned that a lot of the difficulties involved with ministry in Montenegro are a result of peoples’ distrust and hardened hearts. Montenegro means “black mountains” and rocks litter the hillsides. Eric said that ministry in Montenegro is like moving rocks: first removing the rocks from their hearts, and then trying to plant seeds. We learned from Eric and Susan that our success on this trip is not determined by how many people meet Jesus. Instead, we might be just a link in the chain, or more water for seeds that have already been planted. We were really encouraged by our discussions with them.

While we were in Herceg Novi, we had the chance to visit the ancient city of Kotor, Montenegro (TBT: 15 hours) and Dubrovnik, Croatia (TBT: 18 hours). It’s safe to say that all four of us have fallen in love with the Adriatic Coast. Visiting Dubrovnik was definitely a highlight of the trip for our team. We spent the whole day there, walking around the fortress walls that enclose the old city, enjoying wonderful Croatian sea bass, eating ice cream multiple times, and taking a dip in the Adriatic to cool off. Dubrovnik was by far the most tourist-populated city on our journey, and we met a lot of Americans there. Despite almost missing our bus back Herceg Novi and begging a taxi driver to accept our last few cents and take us to the bus station, the day was wonderful and a great time for our team to relax and enjoy one another’s company.

The rest of the time in Montenegro was spent on the beach. Carolyn and Cassie (or Cassandra as she’s known here) are golden brown, Casey has about a million freckles, and Emily is probably giving Team Ireland a run for their money in the pale department. Our last night in Herceg Novi was spent talking to the woman whose house we were staying in. She and her family are refugees from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina who arrived in HN 17 years ago with only the clothes on their backs. They left Sarajevo 6 days before the war began in Bosnia in 1992. Their family of 5 lived in the same trailer for 10 years, surviving only on meat pie. They’ve since built a house and their children are going to university in Belgrade, but you can tell that they still struggle with a lot of pain and hurt from the war. We were all really grateful to hear a story that is not often told, as many people aren’t quick to share how the war affected them personally.

We left the next day for what we thought was a 7-hour bus ride to Sarajevo, but instead turned out to be 9 hours of hairpin turns, Turbo Folk (search for it on YouTube, then imagine listening to it for 9 hours), and body odor. Believe us, the 2 extra hours seemed like eternity (TBT: 27 hours). We arrived in Sarajevo and were brought directly to the best cevapi restaurant we’ve been to thus far. Over the next couple days we experienced the culture primarily through food and drink, which included Turkish coffee and a truly authentic Bosnian meal. Money was tight because of a miscalculation at the exchange office, but we still managed a carriage ride down a peaceful road lined with trees that led to a park filled with fountains, walking bridges, and spring water so fresh we could kneel down and drink from our hands. Oh how we suffered for Jesus! In the early evening on our last night we attended a church service and immediately following it we hopped on a bus to trek back to Belgrade. It was a night bus. Remember how we said earlier that we’d never take a night bus again? Oops. A poor life decision we will never make again.

Thirty-six hours of bus rides, 10 days, 4 different currencies and 3 passport stamps later, we were all very relieved to be back home in Belgrade. As we finish out our trip, we are all experiencing the bittersweet feelings involved with wanting to be home, but also not wanting our time here to come to an end. Please pray that our team will finish strong for our last week and a half and that we would continue to build relationships even though we are leaving. We’re all hoping that God will continue to help our friendships blossom even after we’ve left, and we trust that God will work through the distance.

Samuil’s first impression of Team Serbia based on the picture of us on our prayer card:

Emily – Looks more like a “Stacy”. We’re not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s because it sounds a lot like Casey? Which sounds a lot like Cassie? Which is pretty similar to Carolyn? (i.e., “Stacy, you are talking little bit much”). Looks sassy because of arm placement in picture.
Casey – The little angel who is always happy and bubbly and doesn’t know anything.
Carolyn – Or, “Fancy Carrie”. She’s naïve: “Oh I am going to Serbia, la la la la la”
Cassandra – The quiet businesswoman who you wouldn’t expect to speak her mind, but when she does, she really means business.

Quotes, funny moments and other cultural misunderstandings…

Cassie: “I would never wish a night bus on anyone!”

Casey: “We could go to the 24 hour market!”
Cassie: “I don’t think it will be open…”

Samuilo, Director of EUS: “GIRLS! Don’t baptize my floor with your cup of water!”

Total number of wrong buses Casey and Cassie have taken: “I don’t think we can keep track of that anymore” – Cassie

In Sarajevo, Casey accidentally took the largest cup of wine for communion. She gave it to Emily, who then felt buzzed on the Holy Spirit. Blasphemy? Maybe. Funny? Very.

Jelena, Carolyn and Emily’s host and EUS staff member: “Emily, what is wrong with your hair today??” (We think she meant: What did you do differently with your hair?)

Joke from Samuilo: “Jewish custom is to put a baby between a bible and a stack of money and if it crawls to the bible it will be a preacher and if it goes towards the money it will be a banker…and if it grabs both…TV evangelist”

In Cassie and Carolyn’s English class, while playing “Would You Rather…?” a 21 year old male student asked “Would you rather me take off my shirt right now, or go to drinks with me later?”
Šmeksi (shmexsi) = a slang term used by younger Serbians to describe a macho, cocky guy

Lots of ljubav,

Stacy, Fancy Carrie, Cassandra (The Soap Star), and Casey (who really needs a nickname…)

Story time with Team Kenya

2009-08-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

Since we have the wonderful opportunity to work with 80 children everyday, we thought we would entertain you with some magnificintly comical children stories. Our kids are constantly being unintentionally hilarious.

1. Megan's second graders were learning about how big God is. She was asked "Is God bigger than the world?" followed closey by "Is he even bigger than YOU?"

2. Mindy's kindergarteners love to share anything and everything and the most inappropriate times. Once in the middle of a lesson, Sharon raised her hand and said "Last night I shared my milk with Ruth...and then I vomited."

3. Amy was sitting next to Joseph (fourth grade) who claimed that a magician was better than a doctor. He continued to describe what magicians can do. For instance, magicians can touch your sweater, and make your sweater disappear. He can drink soda and make a handkerchief come out of his nose. Most importantly, he can appear out of thin air in the bathroom and make you bald and then wear your hair on his head.

4. Another one of our mini-missionaries, Lena, walked in on three year old Hannah in the bathroom. She proceded to roll up her sleeves, and wash the toilet paper in her own.... you know. Oh the humanity!

5. In Megan's second grade class, Victor (a child who we believe may be a distant relative of Mr. Bean) has been placed in the middle of the room away from the other children. Why? You might ask; has he hurt another child? Well, no, but his constant "polluting" (or gassiness) was hindering the learning of the rest of the class. Isolation is the only answer.

6. Catherine explained to us where babies come from. Thank goodness we finally know that babies come from your wrist, starting as a tiny ball and then travel up your arm, down your throat and to your stomach when you are married. That's why you hold hands.

7. Milk in the face. Milk in the beans. Stir the beans, stir the beans. Thanks again Hannah for the warm memories.

8. Stella peed in the gazebo and hugged Megan. Abby didn't tell Megan.

9. One night during devotions baby Peter ran into the bathroom, both hands forward pushing the door open. The door was left open. Drip, drop... drip drip drip. Uncontrollable laughter ensued.

10. Abby walked into her fourth grade class, thinking it was just another day. However, every student had a colored bat cut out taped to them, and one was dressed like batman. Explanation? The teacher gave us bats. Oh... of course.

11. Another one of our missionaries went to devotions, having just showered. Soon she noticed that one of the young girls had licked her hair. When asked why she licked the hair she said "It just smelled sooo good."

12. "I spy" is a pretty safe game to play, right? Right. Until they say "I spy something white" and you are that something white.

13. Joseph: Can I cradle you?
Megan: No. ... no.
Joseph: Do you like to cradle Aunty Abby?
Megan: No.... again, no.

14. How could you not love these kids?

15. We hunted hyrax's (we know you use wikipedia for everything anyway, look it up). We used machetes. We fought a jungle and won. Children watched like it was a movie.

Signing off: Amy Wagoner X4 (hey, it was actually part me this time...)

We Need Bigger Luggage...

2009-08-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

...so that we can bring home all of our favorite Turkish things. The sea, the public transportation system, the saturday market, Magnum ice cream bars, gözleme ladies, and our beautiful friends- just to name a few. We can't believe it is the beginning of our last week here- we'll be home before you know it, but I'm not sure we've soaked in all the Turkey-ness yet. Hopefully we can get it all in this week.

Since we last updated (sorry it's been so long!) we have had a lot of new fun experiences. Unfortunately, the camp still isn’t ready to open so we haven’t had the opportunity to work there at all. Our time has not been wasted though, as we have continued to fill roles with the English conversation classes, at the rehab center, and now decorating a kreş(preschool). Over the last few weeks we have been helping and running three different conversation classes, with all different ages. We have worked with teenagers, college students, and adults- reading fun stories and teaching vocabulary from them, playing games, and mostly just talking about anything and everything. This has been a wonderful way to connect with some of the local people here in Antalya, and we have built some great relationships with them. Many times after our afternoon class we would hang out and play games, eat good food, learn how to dance, make jewelry and just hang out with the younger girls- both from the church and from the English classes. We have loved seeing great progress in so many of the students- mostly in their confidence to speak English. This last week was our last with the classes, and it was sad to say goodbye to our friends.

We had a few more weeks at the rehab center, which was just wonderful. The friends that we made there are so dear to our hearts, and we are hoping to go see them one more time before we leave. They have been closed the last two weeks for holiday, so we have really missed spending time with them. We consistently saw a lot of the same kids and it was a joy to see their faces light up when they would come do crafts with us. It was a complete blessing to watch these kids express their personalities and their talents through the simple art projects that we brought. We also made friends with a lot of the staff- especially Seval who we got to spend time with outside of the center, which was really fun and another wonderful example of the hospitality of the Turks.

Last week we got an invitation from Verna’s friend Tanşule to come and decorate the rooms in her newly re-opened kreş. This has been such a fun project as we have complete creative freedom to as much of anything that we want. We’ve spent our days cutting out and creating all types of shapes and creatures with construction paper and lots of glitter glue. We’ve completed three rooms and look forward to doing a couple more this week before we leave.

Over the last month we have traveled to Ephesus, Side, and Cappadocia. We went to Ephesus in two groups and had very different experiences, but all loved it. It is an incredible places full of beauty and rich history. Side is another beautiful place, only an hour and a half outside of Antalya. Here we visited more ruins located right on the beach and just enjoyed the beauty around us as the sun went down. Cappadocia was a really fun place to see. There are tons of natural rock formations because of volcanoes that have been turned into houses and hotels and caves. We took a tour and saw a huge underground city and some old churches built into the sides of a canyon. These have all been really fun trips showing us a lot of different sides of Turkey.

We continue to have lots of laughs as we move through our days here. I think that we are all pretty much on the same page- we love this place and there is so much that we will miss, but we are also ready to come home. This last week is full of spending some last moments of quality times with friends, finishing our project at the kres and then heading to Istanbul on Thursday for a couple days of sight seeing.

Thanks for all of the prayers, can’t wait to see you!

nos vemos, barahona

2009-08-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

well things are wrapping up here in the DR which is pretty hard to believe.... we've said our goodbyes to our host families, the staff, the bateyes, and the city, and we're going out to enjoy the beach one more time this afternoon. tomorrow we head out for the capital, where we'll spend three days debriefing and exploring, and tuesday morning we all fly out to come home! it's been an insane journey and we'll try to conclude a little more in the near future, but for now, please pray for safe travels, elisa's stomach, and closure as we tie all our experiences together and figure out how to make sense of all this at home. happy trails, we'll see you soon!

lauren, alicia, y elisa

Tech Camp Radio Spot

2009-08-06T07:58:00.001-07:00

Hello all!

The BBC bus came to Tech Camp today and the campers worked hard at putting together a mini radio show about their week at tech camp. Our opinions are featured. Listen up!!

http://www.zshare.net/audio/63719308c11da66e/

Team Ireland

Team Ireland goes to Tech Camp

2009-08-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

We have gone from having an hour of internet access between the four of us each week (if we were lucky), to pretty much constant access at our fingertips. It is a blessing and a curse, but part of the blessing is that we finally get to update the blog on a more regular basis! We are helping at a tech camp for teenagers this week, being held in Derryvolgie Halls of Residence. Before the week started we were all a little worried about how useful we would be (since none of us are particularly tech-y, apart from Chase), and unsure of how we would feel about doing a residential camp. We are halfway through and I think we can all agree that we love it! We've had an opportunity to get in alongside the kids and learn lots of cool stuff- ranging from how to use twitter and sound systems, to creating short videos and animated movies. It has been really great to build relationships with the campers, and we have found that 13-16 year olds are great to work with because they are sarcastic and fun, but not yet annoying. Plus we all get our own rooms, which has been a huge blessing- it is nice to unpack our things and not feel like we are living out of our suitcases-- for this week anyway. It's also been really great to talk to the campers about their faith- Chase and Thoma have been leading worship each night, and it is followed by a devotion on the theme of "getting connected with God." Tyler has been in charge of waking everyone up in the mornings (even though Lindsay has to wake him up every morning), and Lindsay has been helping out in the kitchen.

We had the afternoon off today so we met up with some friends from a camp we did a few weeks ago and walked downtown to the best Christian bookstore we have ever been in. It's a beautiful day in Belfast, though we have noticed via facebook that the rumors are coming true: while all the other teams are getting thinner and tanner, we are getting fatter and paler. It is hard to believe that we only have 9 days left in this beautiful country, and while we are trying to finish strong, the closer we get to departure the more we begin to think about home.

Hopefully once our videos are done our new techie friends will show us how to upload them to the blog and you can see what we've been working on.

Team Ireland

scoobadydoo

Team Ethiopia Update

2009-08-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Selaaaaam from Mekele

So as usual we haven't blogged in over 2 weeks. Our time is flying by here, we have less than 2 weeks left in Ethiopia. Amber leaves this Sunday to head back home and we leave that Wednesday to begin traveling to Lallibella.

Earlier this week, one of our Canadian teammates (Reuben) returned from Egypt. We also got another teammate from England (Tim). Amber and Alyssa pretty much spent most of the time he was here picking on him and imitating his accent whenever possible.

On Monday, we went to the "Market," which was a true African experience in itself. There are souveniers, fabrics, clothes, vegetables, spices, etc. We also went to one of our favorite habasha restuarants to watch some traditional Ethiopian dancing. It was quite interesting, especially when Justin tried to get up on stage and imitate their crazy shoulder dance. We would say the highlight of the week was when we went hyena hunting after dinner one night. We have gone a few times before, but never on top of jeep. It was as close to a real safari as we could get. Unfortunately we never saw any hyenas but always wondered how high they could jump, just in case...

This past Saturday we performed in a program at the Mekele Youth Center. There was a unicyclist, mens and women's gymnastics performance, and of course our HIV/AIDS cheer and dance was the best part of the show. We used Amber's 8th grade cheer routine to "Four Minutes" by Madonna and Justin Timberlake. Its was pretty awesome.

After church this last Sunday we were invited to our friend's (Rufael) house for his gradutation party. We got there around 1:30, but apparently the program was running late. We were invited in and his sister made us some coffee and popcorn (yes they serve popcorn here with their coffee). Well an hour goes by and Rufael still isn't home.
We get a call from one of the missionaries we are working with asking us where we are. Well it turns out we are not at Rufael's house and it is not his sister who invited us in. We were actually at one of the circus girl's houses. She wasn't even expecting us, but still invited us in and fed us. Obviously there was a miscommunication, the girl spoke Tigrinia and Karen spoke Amharic. Go figure. An hour later we arrive at the right house in a slight state of embarrassment.

Later that day we decided to go see a movie, which wasn't playing due to technical difficulties. A.W.A. (Africa wins again). Instead we found a bomb ancient army tank at the monument nearby and pretended to be marines for an hour or so. Yes, this is how we do in our spare time.

Although we have had power for the last 5 days in a row now, our phone has taken on a mind of its own and decided to go dead. AWA.

And since all the other teams are apparently vacationing at the beach every other week, we decided to be adventurous and go pirate hunting in Somalia. Pray for us....

Justin - would have bought a monkey at the market yesterday if he had enough money on him. He is still currently searching for his habasha wife and is willing to pay up to 4 camels, 2 donkeys, and a monkey for her.

Amber - tells all the children she is habasha, and when they tell her, "no, you have white skin," she says, "no, see my skin is black," and they think its the funniest thing in the world.

Jason - really enjoyed going to the Castle last night and tasting "tej." He is currently working on a new website for MYC. And finally found a Wii, and thus much more adjusted and at home here

Alyssa - is still lost somewhere out in Somalia. We are still negociating her ransom....Things aren't going as well as we hoped...Apparently 200 birr doesn't mean a whole lot to Somalian pirates. Please pray for her.

Pray for our travel plans these next few weeks (Amber will be by herself for 2 days) and we will be drving for 90+ hours through Northern Africa soon. Pray that everything goes safely and smoothly.
Many of us, ironically, have the common cold (AWA) so pray for health too. Especially pray for energy and that we may finish off these last few weeks strong. As always pray for team dynamics (Amber conquered the world in Risk, as predicted Alyssa was wiped off the world, and Justin and Jason nearly annihilated one another). Some of these issues have continued outside the game. Just kidding. But seriously....

P.S. some of the above statements may or may not be true....

India never ceases to amaze us

2009-08-01T23:58:00.000-07:00

Well, a lot has happened since the last blog! The trip to Mysore was a huge eye opener into the heart of cultural India. We saw many ancient temples and buildings, several of which are still used today. The outsides are beautiful and ornate, but I was honestly a little shocked at what I saw inside. Nothing extreme, but I guess I was thinking “tour bus” and “sightseeing.” To walk in to see big statues and guys with incense and water was a little different, and to see people bowing down and worshipping these statues completely caught me off guard. We left and didn’t see the main idol, and didn’t go into any of the rest of the temples, but I guess I’m glad I went in and saw what I did. I realized how much these people put time and energy and much of their lives into wood and metal and stone. (Habbakuk 2:18-20) Brian had a conversation with a worker at school, asking him why he was a Hindu and stuff. He replied he didn’t really know and it was mostly just because his parents did it and it’s the culture. Hinduism is a belief system practiced by people here, but it’s more commonly a ritual, custom and tradition that the culture is immersed in.

After Mysore we went with the hostel kids to the zoo and stopped by a high ropes course called Breakthrough. At Breakthrough every physical challenge has a lesson in it, which they bring faith into if the incoming group is Christian. Very neat. The zoo was FANTASTIC and fantastically Indian, lol. There were nearly as many snake exhibits as other animals exhibits. Highlights were the humongous hippos, the pelicans swallowing each other’s heads, the white tigers, and the lion—which we saw on the mini safari. The kids were also a blast to get to spend a day with outside the school, and the boys thoroughly enjoyed spinning around at ridiculous speeds on the park playground contraptions.

We also just came back from an amazing overnight trip to Kerala. We took a train to get there, which was one of my highlights of the weekend. My teammates and I enjoyed sitting and standing between the cars and staring out at the whizzing by scenery of rural India. It was beautiful and very surreal. Still feels that way. Then we arrived at our hotel/resort, and since it is off-season for India, we nearly had the place to ourselves. After spending the night there, we woke up and went by taxi to our next destination—an authentic Kerala houseboat. You have to see pictures. The most peaceful part of the weekend by far. We got on, went to the little upper deck/area/hideout, and just sat and watched the boat head down the canal of water surrounded by trees and houses and head towards the open backwaters of Kerala. Incredible. We explored a rice field later that night when the boat docked. Dexter and I ended up accidently exploring the mud a little more than the other two, but I have to say it was worth it. Dexter was covered in disgusting black and brown mud up to his knees! Needless to say, we ended up washing off with a little swim in the backwaters, per instructions of the crew…well, they told us to wash off at least. After a semi-miserable, sleepless night from the heat and bugs, all of us enjoyed a peaceful morning return to the hotel. We headed home shortly after, and enjoyed a slightly less comfortable train experience than the first, although it was still enjoyable and got us back.

Between weekend trips, working at the school has been an incredible experience. All of us have very unique experiences at the school, so I can’t speak for everyone, but I do know each of us is having a great time there. I am enjoying my classroom a TON and will miss it SO much. I’ve seen development in the kids over the two months, which is incredible to witness. In the classroom I feel I can be a support and extra hand to the teachers, as well as just love the kids and be there to support them—trying to speak encouragement to them beyond the schoolwork (although often it’s just trying to manage the kids and some of their terrible behavior). Some of the best moments with the kids I’ve had, however, have been on the playground, away from the classroom. One of the kids with the worst behaviors has grown attached to me and it will be so hard to leave him, as well as all the others, too.

Thanks for all the prayers and encouragements and support. God has yet to fail me this trip. He has been good to me and all of us in health, safety, and looking after us in the little things. It is great to witness the Lord provide for each other as teammates. You can be praying for health as we finish the trip, safety in our trips to Goa and Chennai, for the kids in my classroom and their needs both emotionally and spiritually and situations in their homes, for the provision of the right teachers at Asha Kiran (the school), and for God to reign in these last two weeks—starting with my life, and then overflowing into everything else.

Miss you and love all of you back home and around the world, Lauren and team India.

Team Ireland heads South

2009-07-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

Since we've spent pretty much the past 5 weeks in Northern Ireland (other than the first two weeks, where we were farther north, yet still in the Republic- good luck figuring that one out), we decided to head to the South for our second holiday. We spent the first two days in Dublin, where we saw U2 and the book of Kells at Trinity College. Then we headed even farther south, to Lindsay's favorite place in the world- Dingle! It only took 10 hours by bus. Too bad someone told us it was 3. It's been a lot of fun exploring the small coastal town, enjoying some pub grub, and getting some much needed rest. Today Thoma went horsebackriding, Chase spent a lazy afternoon at a coffee shop reading Mere Christianity, and Tyler and Lindsay got lost on their bikes during their 30+km trek around Dingle Penninsula. Tomorrow we head back to Belfast to prepare for our week at Tech Camp!

Team Ireland
oogabooga

Jambo from Kenya!

2009-07-28T23:52:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!
1. We have safely returned from our Safari, which is actually a very significant aspect of the trip considering our daily near-death experiences. We saw 21 lions total. The first night we watched a lion crouching and hunting a herd of wildebeast, and later saw 9 lions eating one. EPIC. The next day we stalked a few lions in the grass and then watched the vultures eat the leftovers of the pregnant lion. At one point Megan was sticking her camera out her window to take a picture and only shut it when the lion was approximately 5 feet from the car. Probs a good idea on her part. We walked amongst hippos and crocs in Tanzania (don't worry we had an armed soldier with us; that didn't calm my nerves though). We also saw cheetahs, a black rhino (the rarest), countless zebras and wildebeast, ostriches, hyenas, impala, elephants, giraffes, etc. You name it, we saw it (except leopards). We slept in tents at night and one night we heard a very cat-like growl and panic ensued. I thought I would be eaten by a lion in my sleep. But the Maasai people (who were our guards) have to hunt lions with spears before reaching adulthood so my confidence in them was high. The driving is where death nearly came in countless times, but it seems to be that way no matter where you go in Kenya. This drive was 5 hours on roads that felt more like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland than a road. We almost ran over a snake but were told to wait until it passed and back up because it can spit in the car or slither up inside... sick. Overall, it was AWESOME.

2. We have started our second week of school here, teaching various subjects and have had some negative encounters with the Educational Director here. She is newer than we are and is implementing new ideas which are not sitting well with the national teachers, and in turn do not sit well with us. The expectations they have for us seem to be very high and as none of us are qualified teachers, the stress level among our house (which includes 12 mini-missionsaries like us) is rising, but we are all feeling the exact same thing so we are in it together. Our relationships with the other mini-missionaries here is awesome. We are like one big family and it's been wonderful getting to know them all.

3. We still have not gone to see Harry Potter yet. Hopefully this weekend.

4. We miss you all and love you!

Signing out,
Amy Wagoner x4

Weeks 2-5 in Ireland

2009-07-24T17:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been so long since we updated! When we do get internet time it ends up being about 15 minutes each which is barely enough to check our email. We are having an amazing time here though!

Week 2: We did a holiday bible club in Convoy (the tiny town we were staying in) in the afternoons with help from a Belfast team. We also did a teen drop in event in the pool hall under our flat at night. The first night we had about 10 kids, but after that word got out and we had between 30-40 kids coming through on Thursday and Friday. They asked if we are coming back next year, which was really encouraging. Even though it didn't feel like we were really evangalising, it was obvious that we were helping them out by giving them a place to hang out off of the streets and engaging in conversation with them. We were very blessed on the 4th of July- the family that was hosting us planned a huge barn dance/ social for us, and there were about 175 people in attendance. There was lots of dancing. And American flags. :) It was bittersweet leaving Donegal since we spent two weeks there and met lots of great people, but we were excited to move on and experience new things...plus, it was onto our holiday!

Week 3: Vacation!! We spent two nights in Downhill, at a hostel owned by a former Inn-goer. It was so beautiful- right on the ocean. We managed to pack all of the North Coast tourist attractions into one day- the rope bridge, the Giant's Causeway, PortRush, Mussedin Temple and the Downhill estate. The last we stumbled upon on our walk home. It was absolutely amazing. It was about 10:30 at night (thank goodness it stays light until at least 11 pm each night) when we found it, so we were the only ones there and looking at the beauty of God's creation definitely helped us to connect. We realized how small of a world it was when we met the two hostel employees- both from Seattle. One was best friends with Chase's brother from UPS and the other a fellow Inn-goer and classmate of Lindsay's. We invited the latter to join us for the rest of our holiday and became Team Ireland +1 or rather Team Scotland for 3 days. Edinbrough is the most beautiful city we have ever seen. We went to the castle, museums, a couple of walking tours...basically we packed as much in as we could. We also tried the traditional scottish meal of haggis, nips and tatties (sheep inards, potatoes, and squash like veggies). Though it sounds horrible, it was actually pretty decent. Holiday was great, but almost more tiring than actually running the holiday bible clubs. We had one day to recoup at the Presbyterian Residence Halls and then it was off to Ballykelly for Week 4!

Week 4: We were on our first official PCI outreach team this week. Basically that means we were living and serving with 16 other Christians (aged 17-29) from Northern Ireland. It was absolutely amazing. We didn't have the best turnout to our activities because it was the week of the 12th of July (a national holiday over here) and a lot of people were off on holiday, but we are confident that the children God wanted us to reach were present, and the low numbers allowed us lots of time to bond as a team. We ran a holiday bible club in the mornings- the theme was Joseph, and we had a complete setup with a mummy and everything. It was pretty impressive for a holiday bible club. Chase and Thoma got to participate in the drama each day and Lindsay had some fun with the bible quiz on Friday- she got her face covered in whipped cream and the kids threw cheetos at her face for points. We had outreach activities in the afternoon, which involved things such as Rounders games (which is just like baseball), pea hunts, football games (soccer), and face painting. In the evenings we had teen events, which involved SingStar and Mariokart tournaments on the Wii and the sharing of testimonies. It was really great to be with people our own age for a change, and allowed us the opportunity to build lots of great friendships. But as soon as we were starting to form a little family, the week was over and it was onto Tullycarnet!

Week 5: This week has definitely gone by the fastest of our whole trip. It was easy to come into this week with low expectations, especially after the amazing week we had in Ballykelly. But we have been blown out of the water with our week of service here. In the afternoons we have been cleaning up the area through a Streetreach, picking up rubbish, clearing public walkways, and tending to people's gardens. It has been great to finally be doing something where we can see the difference we are making. We've also had a lot of theological discussion with our team leader, which Thoma has really enjoyed. We've been doing various activities in the evenings- Monday was girl's pamper parlour and boy's football, Tuesday we had the Christian Motorcycle Association bring their bikes in, Wednesday we had crafts and activities for the kids and an inter generational tea dance for the older folk of the community. Thursday was a bbq, and we finished off the week with Tullycarnet's Got Talent on Friday. Lindsay entered with a cheerleading routine, and Tyler and Chase got to judge. Though it's a smaller and younger team this week we have still been able to form some great friendships.

Please pray that our team is able to stay focused during our last three weeks. We have another week of holiday starting tomorrow, where we will be heading to Dublin and Dingle (for the U2 concert and then a few days of rest and relaxation), followed by a week in the Presbyterian Residence Halls for a tech camp, and finally a week of outreach in Lisnabren.

Much love!
Team Ireland

"HALLO" from Serbia!

2009-07-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry that we have not been able to blog for a couple weeks----we have been traveling on weekends and have been running (or bussing) around Belgrade and keeping very busy during the weeks.

Two weekends ago we went to Pancevo (pronounced Panchevo), to visit EUS students over fresh-squeezed orange juice in a café that was built inside an old train. The next morning (Sunday) we woke up early and road-tripped with Samuil to the south of Serbia. We met EUS students and others from a small protestant church in Leskovac (pronounced Leskovach), where we were warmly greeted and had a great day touring their town, sharing stories, and getting to know each other. Leskocav is famous for their barbeque (AKA meat), and so we ordered lots of Cvapi, bread, and “salad”, and had a family-style lunch in the middle of the small church meeting area. Dragon (the pastor and father) brought a big honeycomb for dessert----everyone took spoons and dug in! The whole day was filled with fellowship, optimistic spirits, laughter, and encouragement on both ends.

We have completed our first session at the Bozidar Adzija, the English school where we are teaching, completing a total of 60 classes. Emily and Casey’s (teaching 7th graders) had a student cry on the last day of class! Three students in Cassie and Carolyn’s class (teaching 16 year olds- adults), invited us over to dinner at their house the other night, which was a blast as we continued to build cross-cultural friendships. It is times like these that you really realize that you can be all the way across the world, yet find way more similarities than differences in people.

Because of our busy schedule and a more sporadic summer schedule at the Roma school, we have only visited the gypsies once since our last update, and there were fewer children because the rest were on an excursion outside of Belgrade. The children LOVE “baby shark” (a classic, if you ask anyone who has been on the Dominican Republic spring break trip!).

We continue to have EUS “parties” and have had a pretty good number of students, new and old, come each week---even with many being out-of-town on summer vacations with their families. Tuesday nights are a great way to meet university students who are involved in EUS, as well as invite friends that we have met outside of EUS so that we can continue to grow in those friendships as well as introduce them to people like Samuil, Jelena, and other EUS students.

All four of us would agree that the best part of our trip thus far has been the relationships that we have started to build. Whether it is with our students at the English school, EUS university students, or people we have met through Samuil’s many “connections”, the friendships that we have built with people here have presented opportunities for positive growth and challenges---the openness of Serbians invites dynamic conversations, the sharing of honest testimonies, laughter, and funny cultural confusions. These relationships have been such a blessing to us!

Tomorrow (Thursday, at 11:30pm), we leave for Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia. We will return on August 2nd (tentatively---with Serbian timeliness, this could likely change!), and get ready to embark on our last couple weeks in Belgrade.

Some other points of interest:
1.) In Serbia, their version of “the third wheel” is “the 13th piglet” because pigs have 12 nipples for the piglets to eat from, and the 13th is left “alone”.
2.) On Friday it is expected to be 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of the abnormal rain that we had a couple weeks ago, the city was unable to spray the anti-mosquito chemicals, so we were eaten alive (Cassie had 40 mosquito bites----just on her legs). Thankfully, yesterday it was sprayed and we can already tell the difference.
3.) One of our weekly highlights are our times with Samuil, drinking coffee, having bible studies, planning our crazy weeks, eating gelato----and never without a lot of his hyper-speed energy and contagious laugh.

We will post an update upon our return of trip!

Team Ethiopia Update!

2009-07-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

Salame from Mekele!

Sorry about not writing for the past couple of weeks. We have said since last Friday that we were going to blog and roughly about 5 days ago we started a game of Risk so that has taken priority over our lives. But have no fear Alyssa is almost dead (in the game) so we should be wrapping it up shortly.

We have been busy busy with English classes, Women's Discussion, Men's Discussion, Boys and Girls Club, Bible Studies, and running sport activities. Our team is leading an English Class every morning from 9-10 for 3rd to 5th graders. We have been meeting daily for the past 2 weeks and things are going great. We taught the kids how to say I am awesome! (Instead of I am doing fine), numbers, colors, actions, and seasons. There are 4 of us teaching but we have roughly 50 students so that is sometimes a bit challenging especially considering we don't speak Tigrinya, but we are absolutely loving it. So far in Women's Discussion we have discussed friendship, love, and sex. It takes awhile for the girls to get talking but when they do they have really interesting points and it is always fascinating to see how things such as dating work in their culture. Justin has been leading some heated Men's Discussions about identity, culture, westernization, and gender equality. Boys and Girls Club meet twice a week and it is basically a mini Sunday school lesson. We sing Father Abraham, If you are happy and you know it, go through the story of Abraham, and go over some bible verses. We have probably sung Father Abraham about 455 times, but that is okay the kids love it.

About a week and a half ago we went to Wukro and visited about 5 rock churches. Some of them were up huge mountains, some are built literally in the side of a mountain, and others have sketchy wood steps that you have to climb to reach to the top. It was a pretty incredible experience. We found priest bones...and a couple of others....just lying there no big deal. Don't worry we took pictures with them. Each church is filled with amazing and colorful murals of stories from the Bible. Mary is really big here so in each church their was always pictures magnifying her. Each church also has a special room for only "the most holy" and only the priests are allowed to enter in. You have to take off your shoes and socks before entering each church, which got a tad annoying but we decided it was worth the cultural experience. Our van also broke down in the middle of nowhere so we hung out of the side of the road and watched some wild monkeys!
It was awesome. At the first church we got to actually witness a ceremony and for some reason we were standing at the front of the church and were right next to the chanting priests and drums. In summary it was an incredible day and we got to witness a lot of church history.

Amber and Alyssa went to an Orthodox Church last Sunday with some of the local girls here. We had to wear white head scarves as is the tradition in Ethiopia. You stand the whole time while priest chant over microphones or speakers. It was truly amazing to see how far people walk to attend service here and you are standing next to 80 year old women and men who stand for about 4 hours every Sunday. We only stayed for about 2 hours because we got a little dizzy. Oh did we mention church starts around 5 in the morning?

Justin- ate goat heart and intestine. he said it was disgusting. we are very glad the rest of us were not with him. he loves playing tug of war with the kids everyday and often oversleeps his alarm.
Jason- is glad the Canadians are finally gone. Is getting a little intense while we play Risk. And loves getting Ethiopian food at our favorite restaurant Hawk Finn (Huck Finn)
Alyssa- almost ate a bug that looks like an espresso bean. Is getting wiped off the world which she is not too happy about. (Risk) And loves sketching for the little children.
Amber- rode a wild camel and lived! It was awesome. She came back from almost being dominated and is now taking over the world. (She has South America, Africa, Europe, and is working on killing Justin off North America) She loves teaching English to the little kids and playing Mango Mango with the little girls.

Our time in Mekele is flying by and we are loving every minute of it.
Thank you for all of our supporters who are praying for our team while we are here. We ask for prayers for health, we haven't gotten sick in awhile and as our time is wrapping off we want to continue to stay strong and healthy, energy, the days at the youth center are often long and draining and sometimes it is difficult to find the strength to go back, continual team unity (Risk has put some division in our team) :), and continual seeking and guidance from the Lord to serve Him and the children of Mekele.

God's Peace!

Team Ethiopia

¿cinco semanas?

2009-07-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

hi friends!

so what´s been going on the dominican these days. most excitingly, last night there was an epic rainstorm ALL night long... which is a lot louder when you´re sleeping under tin roofs! but we all loved it. with coffee this morning, it was like a little taste of home! however, downpours tend to make working in the bateyes a little more difficult, as don bosco and los robles are pretty much out of reach unless the roads are clear and dry. where last week we were pretty much spending both mornings and afternoons in the villages all week, this week has looked quite different, and in the mornings we haven´t been able to leave at all to do physical and eye exams in the bateyes. instead, the clinic recently got a gigantic shipping of supplies, so we´ve spent some time trying to organize those into their "places" and taking inventory. today, we got a fun new task! COTN recently approved an abstinence and HIV-AIDS education program for the DR. they have used it in africa before, so we are currently running through and translating the manual into spanish, as well as trying to figure out how to make it culturally appropriate, by talking with the nurses and translators here. we´re really excited to be a part of this project, since HIV-AIDS education is something we´re all interested in! even though we won´t actually get to go out and teach any of these things, we´re happy to know that the program is available for other teams and the staff to use in the future. while AIDS isn´t a huge problem in the DR, as it is in many other countries, there is a lot of negative stigma associated with the disease. so we´re hoping that this program will try to curb that by distributing accurate information.

in other news, english classes are still going well. i think we´ve all experienced moments of great frustration as well as moments where everyone is excited about what they are learning, so that´s been great insight into the life of a teacher! we´ve really enjoyed the relationships we´re forming in the bateyes. additionally, our entire intern team has really enjoyed being able to all come together and work on updating sponsorship files in the different villages. we LOVE the days when there are older kids around to help us organize. this is a concrete way that we know we are making a difference and doing something here, which is always very comforting, since there are a lot of things we do where we don´t see the results.

this weekend all of the interns and their families have a day trip planned to one of the nearby beaches, and we´re really getting excited about the surgery team coming from the capital in a week and a half. its crazy to think that we only have one more full week working in our various ministry groups! two weeks from today we move out from our families and into the mission house, to start finishing up, debriefing, and beginning the process of saying goodbye. crazy. but in the meantime, we still have three weeks of crazy dominican life left!

we would love some prayers, if you get a chance... we´re feeling pretty physically and emotionally drained as we enter our sixth week here. pray that we will find the motivation and energy to really make the most of the rest of our experience, and that we will continue to be open to what god is teaching us, especially as we start to think about how this all applies to our life at home.

thank you and god bless!
ps sorry for the lack of pictures, none of us was technologically prepared to share any of them with you!

love to all our families and friends,
lauren
alicia
elisa

The Island Life (issue III)

2009-07-22T04:54:00.000-07:00

Photo 1: Brit & John with our Filipina friend walking around our site in Caloocan City. There is so much garbage and mud from the monsoons piled in front of their doorsteps. So we are currently fixing their drainage problems for them!!
Photo 2: Brit & Ash trying real coconuts for the first time at a nearby market. Brit of course thought they were tasty because she is a health freak and prefers the more naturale taste as compared to the US coconut flavoring. Ash thought they sucked (tasted like sugary potatoes) and needed way, way more sugar! Photo 3: Sir Mikey with dear John Michael on his shoulders. (his name really is John Michael....weird coincidence huh?) We were babysitting some lads at Samaritana (organization that works to get prostitutes off the streets) while their mums were at Bible study. The little bugger adored Mikey and kept ordering him around in Tagalog which was real successful. It should be noted that John Michael bit the last sitter and luckily he liked Mikey enough not to give him human rabies! Photo 4: Brit & Mikey riding robotic stuffed animals. We had an unsuccessful racing session however the locals seemed to love filming our adventure; check us out on youtube! Photo 5: This is a jeepney, they are equivalent to taxi cabs back home. And yes, there are usually this pimped out. Common names for these beauts are: Baby, Amazing Grace, The Computer, etc. Owners like to have baby Disney characters, American Eagles, and Godly words painted all over the sides of them. They cost about 2 US pennies and we rebeled and went on them even though the tour books said they were "dangerous." Photo 6: This is our Filipina housemate/pal Dior. We finally got out of Metro Manila on Monday and went volcano hiking!! We took some crazy boats out to this little island that had more horses (which all looked like they where half-dead) than humans. The view was absolutely b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l! The volcano is still active, note the steam in the photo! At one point their were 4 different nationalities on top of the volcano. (American, Filipino, German, Austrian) There is a lake inside the middle which has quite an upbudent amount of fish inside. It was a glorious day and definitely were awstruck by God's endless creations.

Team Bethlehem: Update #4

2009-07-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

Team Bethlehem would like to offer a profound, collective apology for taking so long to update the World Deputation blog. We assure you, however, that this lateness is due almost entirely to our preoccupation with many adventures.

In last trip of Session 2 we went to Jenin and Tulkarm. In Tulkarm we talked to the Palestinian Authority (PA) governor. Initially we were excited but the whole thing was basically a press conference, and none of us felt like he was honest with his answers to our questions. It was all very political. In Tulkarm we also saw how the economy of a city can be effected by the wall. A once bustling city next to Tulkarm had been decimated once the wall was put up in the middle of it. Jenin was famous for suicide bombers and heavy resistance to Israel during the Second Intifada. It was the site of one of the bloodiest and longest lasting battles during the struggle. Many Israelis and Palestinians lost their lives. We heard horrific stories of kids staying next to their dead parents for days. Jenin was interesting because it gave us a different perspective to the Second Intifada ...it was all very real.

One significant happening that has occurred here during the past couple weeks is the change in the PSE group from Session 2 to Session 3. We said goodbye to around 10 people that we spent our first month with as they prepared to return to their homes around the world (Hawaii, Chile, Great Britain, Washington, D.C, etc) and we've started incorporating about 10 new individuals into our group. To commemorate the end of Session 2, we had a huge hefla (party) which most of our host families attended, along with PSE participants, HLT staff, and representatives from our volunteer organizations. the evening included a number of speakers, one of the msot powerful being a Muslim woman whose family is having their house rebuilt by HLT after having it torn down by the Israeli government twice already. In addition, a number of PSEers, including L, performed 'dabkeh' (traditional Palestinian dance), despite their fears of completely desecrating Palestinian culture with their performance. It was tough saying goodbye to the first group since we've experienced and processed a lot of this place with them, but we're looking forward to getting to know the newcomers.

This last Wednesday through Saturday, during a break between PSE sessions, the four of us travelled with 2 other members of our program (Joey and Alex) to Eilat and En Gedi. C was particularly grateful to get out of Bethlehem for a while, since the entire female population of this town and its surrounding villages has discovered that he is an exact look-a-like of Haliil, the male lead of a very popular Turkish soap opera that people watch here called "Mirna and Haliil" (we think it has something to do with C's fledgling beard look, though the same look on Johnny gets people around here mistaking him for a member of Hamas). Eilat is beach town located at the tip of the Red Sea by both Egypt and Jordan and feels a lot like Hawaii (minus the humidity, plus 10 degrees of dry, desert heat). During the couple of days we were there, we laid on the beach, snorkelled around the Red Sea's coral reef, and enjoyed Eilat's vibrant night life. We also got our fill of American movies (Transformers 2 and Harry Potter) at Eilat's theatre, though we were a bit put off by the intermissions that came halfway through both films. Ironically, half of Transformers 2 was set right between Egypt and Jordan, at the tip fo the Red Sea (sound familiar?), though in our time there we saw neither Megan Fox (much to Johnny's chagrine) nor Shia LeBeouf saving the world from the Deceptacons. Bummer.

On Friday, we headed to En Gedi where we stayed in a youth hostel overlooking the Dead Sea. After a float in the saltiest water on earth (which was quite possibly the moment in time that the boys complained about their chafing woes the most on our trip so far), several of of us covered oruselves witht he mineral-rich mud found on the shore. The next day, we hiked En Gedi, which has been the most refreshing excursion on our trip thus far. All the way up the dry, red hillside we were able to jump into 3 or 4 freshwater springs with waterfalls, which made for excellent swimming.

One sobering element of our mini-vacation, however, is the fact that our host families cannot travel to the places we visited without the documented permission of the Israeli government. In fact, our Palestinian host families are not allowed to go to Eilat under any circum stances. We're all dealing with the fact that we can be here for onen month and travel easily to these beautiful places, but our Palestinian friends who have spent their lives here cannot. Just one of the many ways we are witnessing manifestations of this unjust reality.

In addition to our trip to Eilat and En Gedi, we've taken 2 trips to Jerusalem with the entire PSE program to see religious sights and meet with Israeli groups that are combatting injustice against the Palestinians. We went to the Dome of the Rock, though because we aren't Muslims, we couldn't enter the mosque building itself. We also walked the Via Dolorosa (the path jesus took to the cross) and toured the various holy sites on the Mount of Olives (where Jesus wept for Jerusalem, the garden of Gethsemane, Mary's tomb). In addition, we met with Rabbis for Human Rights and the Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) to learn more about what Israeli groups ar doing to combat the human rights abuses that Palestinians are experiencing at the hands of the Israeli government. It was encouraging to meet with Israelis that are responding to these human rights violations and it gave us hope to witness with our own eyes the ways that members of Israeli society are committed to changing the situation of the Palestinian people.

All of us are having trouble believing that we have a mere 3 weeks left in this beautiful and overwhelming place. We are continually learning what it means to surrender our anger, despair, and confusion regarding this situation to God, trusting that His heart is infinitely more broken by what is happening here than our hearts are. Pray that we'd have the energy and continued courage to take advantage of the remaining opportunities God gives us to invest in and receive from the relationships we've established with our Palestinian brothers and sisters here.

Ma'salaame,

Team Bethlehem

Pics From Team Kenya (A.K.A. Yes! The downloading finally worked!)

2009-07-19T07:19:00.000-07:00

The Africa we always dreamed of...

Kibera, One of the largest slums in the world

Abby with Glen and David

Brian, Moses, Kevin, and Hilary carry laundry

Michelle, Margaret, Mindy, and Stephany

Baby Peter

The Latest from Team Kenya!!!

2009-07-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

At the top of Mt. Longonot :)

1. We're about to start week 3 here. The last two weeks have included putting on a sort of camp/VBS type experience, and Monday the kids start up school again. Consequently, we will become teachers in a matter of days. We are really learning to rely on God in this area; none of us are qualified or prepared to be teaching these brilliant minds. There is a mutual feeling of not being equipped to do this work, however we are fully confident that God will give us the confidence and the wisdom to conduct a science or geography or Bible class according to Christian curriculum. PLEASE be praying for us in the coming weeks. We will be doing these same classes up through the end of our time here.

2. Friday night concluded our GAMES week, and ended with a barbeque that we put on for all 81 children, the mamas, and the staff here. We skewered raw meat for 3 hours. I now have clothes ruined by raw meat splatter... delish. The kids had never had anything quite like barbequed meat but enjoyed it. The cottages each performed a song for the group. They also made smores. Sidenote: Kenyan marshmallows=not very marshmallowey... odd things...

3. Today we were able to experience a little slice of what heaven will look like. We visited a Kenyan tea farm owned by a British woman. She gave us a tour of her old house and of the property. We were also served their finest quality of tea and a delicious 3 course meal. This was a part of Kenya that none of us had even dreamed existed. It was rolling green hills and flower gardens. Unbelievable.

4. Next weekend, Thursday through Saturday, is our Masai Mara Safari. Please also pray for safety among the wildlife and also for some great moments experiencing God's creation.

¡Ay Mi Madre!

2009-07-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

Since we last updated we have been on a wonderfully relaxing retreat. We have realized how much we take for granted after experiencing two nights with air conditioning and hot showers (without buckets) at Ponte Vedra. We had the opportunity to sit on the rocky beaches of the Caribbean in solitude, finally being able to refoucus our minds and process our experiences. This time away from our host families provided us with the space we needed to actually think... and grow as a team. Don´t get us wrong, we love our hospitable host familes, though we have found that they love us so much they never want to leave us alone! Balancing our family life and our work life has been a great challenge that will prepare us for our futures (we thought you parents would appreciate that insight!) but, really both expereiences are very dense and make for long days. The Domincan coffee has been helping greatly though! (If you are lucky we may even bring some home)
For the last day of our retreat we took a road trip to the border of Haiti, it was very surreal to imagine that life in the Batays is better than life across that fence! The end result of the road trip lead us to one of the most breathtaking beaches on the Southern Coast of the DR...Bahia de las Aguilas. We spent the day snorkling and eating fried chicken at a private beach only accesible by a row boat that we packed 17 people into. We have come to appreciate God´s beautiful creation in a very personal way here.
We are back at work in the batays. We have been partnering with a local eye doctor, performing eye exams and extending the opportunity to those who need various corrective eye surgury and or glasses. We have learned that honey eye drops are probably not a good reccomendation. Though this may sound light hearted, it was a disheartening reality we wittnesed while treating an older almost blind man who had been using that remedy. When we are not working with the Doctor we are performing door to door health exams for sponsored children in the batays. To be invited into the houses of so many has been very eye-opening to the living and health conditions these kids face.
All in all we are healthy and have discovered how much we need to depend on God to keep us alert and give us strength and patience. We can not believe that we are half way done! Pray for energy for us in the last few weeks that lie ahead of us. Also, pray that the Lord keeps teaching us new lessons that we can bring back to the states to share with you all. We love and miss you all very much. Dios Les Bendiga! ps look how far our spanish skills have come! Until then ..
Alicia
Lauren
Elisa

Team Ireland is in fact still alive!

2009-07-16T06:10:00.001-07:00

Hello all!

Sorry we haven't had time to update! We still don't actually have time, but we wanted to make sure everyone knew we are still alive and kicking, serving God!

Team India (I couldn't think of a good title)

2009-07-15T05:13:00.001-07:00

Attempt 2. The good part about my last post being deleted is that now I get to write about more stuff. First, I want to pick up where Antje left off because I feel that the couple of sentences about our meal to celebrate the 4th didn't do justice to it. I think I speak for us all when I say that food is the thing we miss most about home (just kidding,it's for sure you guys but food is second!). That's not to say that we don't enjoy the food here because we definitely do, as Rita is an amazing cook, but eating American food made us realize just how much we miss it. The girls ended up getting good 'ol fashioned cheeseburgers, while I got filet mignon (about 20oz. of filet for $8? Yes please!). Dexter decided to order a "Whopper" which we thought was the same as the other burgers but with different condiments. To say we were wrong would be an understatement. It was literally the size of his head and weighed 5 pounds. Even if that's an exaggeration, it's not much of one?the thing was HUGE. Anyway, finished the ridiculous amount of food, which was a team effort and we topped the meal off with some apple pie and a nice food-induced coma on the drive home. Great conversation, great company, and way too much food? Perfect way to spend the 4th abroad.

On Tuesday of last week Prem took us to the India Bible Society headquarters because he had a meeting to attend there. While he was in his meeting we got to look around the exhibit that they had there, which was basically a visual display of the history of the Bible's translation into different languages. It was really interesting seeing some really old versions, some as old as the 17th century. By far the best part, for me at least, was seeing a piece of the Qumran Scrolls (aka Dead Sea Scrolls). The particular piece we saw was from the book of Isaiah and dated back to the 1stor 2nd century BC. My parents should be happy to know that contrary to my previous belief, there really are things older than them out there (just kidding, love you guys). They also had some other cool novelty biblical things like the entire Bible on one page and the book of John made into an image (I can't explain it, but a picture is worth a thousand words...literally, I guess)

I wanted to take some time to write about a pretty cool opportunity that Dexter, Antje, and I got to experience. On two consecutive days last week a teacher at the school was absent and Rita asked us to fill in as substitute teachers. This particular class was the Vocational Training class, which is a class for some of the older kids where the emphasis of the curriculum is put on practical life and job skills. The first day was...let's say "rough". Antje was working on another project for the first day so it was only Dexter and me running the class. We were initially kind of hesitant to be assertive with our authoritative role. In addition, the kids' only previous perception of us was as the goofy American kids who liked to joke around and play games. This DEFINITELY did not bode well for our control of the class. At several points during the day we told the kids to do something and they simply replied "No." That was frustrating, to say the least, and made us feel like we had lost control of the class. However,by the end of the day I think we had figured out the necessary balance of being assertive yet not unapproachable. This balance went a long way the next day. The kids were much better behaved and Antje being there made it much easier to give each kid more attention. Overall, it was a very teaching (yet positive) experience.

-The Team's worst blogger (Brian)

Many Things from Team Kenya

2009-07-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

What We've been doing:
1. Oh yeah, we climbed that mountain. And, proving that the world we live in is incredibly small, on the way down the mountain we met two people who are members of University Prez. And they had been on deputation before! God is Good...and very funny.
2. Every morning at 7:15 we have devotions on the porch with the employees. We sing hymns. Our favorite is when we sing "What A Friend We Have in Jesus" in kiswahili. There's bible trivia. We lose. I'd like to see you point out what territory the twelve tribes of Israel each got on a map.
3.We play soccer every saturday and sunday with the kids. Amy laughs whenever she gets the ball. Mindy looks at the ball, doesn't know what to do with it, and trips over herself. The kids seem to think we do "baby kicks". I think its because we don't hit anyone in the face when we get the ball, which they do often.
4. We have formed a friendship with our driver James. He is filled with wisdom, and answers all our stupid questions about Kenya, even the ones about the Lion King......
5. We get to go to church with the Kids on Sunday. Abby knocked a pew over while greeting the congregation.
6.Chipatis are really good fried bread circles. However chipatis with ants are not.
7. First week of games went well. Megan:19 preschoolers-dead inside. Abby: Art-tried to recreate middle school geometry project. Mindy and Amy: Music--taught songs in hyper speed.(Amy can't say the word gush without laughing fyi)
8. Twice a week we get to attend devotions with the kids at night. THEY ARE EXQUISITE! when they pray. and all the time pretty much.
9. Today we walked through Kibera, which is one of the largest slums in the world. Can't even describe it. It was so much to take in. But the 3 guys that showed us around were amazing christians and it gave us hope that they had such strength when they are faced with such extreme poverty.
10. Apparently we will be teachers when school starts because they are short staffed. Prayer needed!

Signing Off,

Amy Wagoner x 4

Добар дан иѕ Београда (Hello from Belgrade)

2009-07-08T06:58:00.000-07:00

We thought we'd type the whole blog entry in Cyrillic, but we didn't think you'd all appreciate having to translate the whole thing.

We've really seen God working through our team this week in really amazing ways. Last week was really exhausting, with teaching English in the mornings, coffee dates in the afternoon, and late nights. Our team was looking for a way to relax and enjoy each other's company, and God definitely was faithful to us in that!

Last Friday, we went to the USA vs. Finland basketball game as part of the Universiade, basically the Olympics for University Students held here in Belgrade until July 12 (http://www.universiade-belgrade2009.org/). We found out Quincy Pondexter was on the US team, so of course we had to go see him play. We wore our UW stuff to show our Husky pride all the way across the world, and we went up to him after the game and managed to get a few pics with him. We saw him again a few nights ago, and have enjoyed seeing the US team in action. Hopefully, they'll play for the championship this Saturday. They beat Serbia by 2 points last night, so we have enjoyed reminding all of our Serbian friends about the US Victory.

This weekend was also some really great, relaxing team time for us in Novi Sad. We took a bus to Novi Sad on Saturday (about an hour and a half north of Belgrade) and visited Vanja, one of the former interns at the INN. Novi Sad was incredibly beautiful, very relaxing and a great way to slow down. It was fun to see how the Austro-Hungarian Empire influenced the region, since Belgrade was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. There are many cultural and architectural differences that still exist today. We really hope that we can go back to Novi Sad sometime soon, and get to know more of the EUS students that live there, and of course spend some time with Vanja, who was a great hostess.

Last night we had our second big party with EUS students. It was held at a new coffee shop near the University student housing, and it was a huge success. We had about 10-15 students show up, in addition to some of the EUS staff members. Some students even traveled down from Novi Sad to enjoy the evening. We hope to continue to build relationships and follow up with the students we met last night, as there were a few girls that we met that aren't involved with EUS and are really excited to get to know us.

Thank you all so much for your continued prayer for our team. You can be praying for the students that we've met, that Jesus would open their hearts to hear the Gospel. We are learning how to slow down and be still, so continued prayer for strength and rest amidst our busy days would be wonderful. We also pray that Cassie doesn't contaminate the rest of the team with her cold. It's not the swine flu...or at least we pray it's not.

Ljubav (Love),

The Seattle Dragons

2009-07-08T01:38:00.001-07:00

Greetings from Mekele!

So about the last blog…..we just want to clarify that everything we said in that blog is completely true. Minus the thing about Justin and I not getting along because team dynamics are great! We just wanted a blog to be entertaining for you all to read.

This past Saturday we had a carnival for all of the kids which they loved. Played games such as 3-legged race, dizzy bats, face painting, limbo, etc and all of the kids got a little prize bag when they left which is a pretty big deal considering prizes aren't given out too often. Then to celebrate the birth of our country we went to the Nykamps house, 18 of us total (Irish, English, Canadian present) and we had a big BBQ with REAL hamburgers, baked beans, and potato salad. We finished the night with singing patriotic songs and playing catch phase.

The North Carolina team just left this morning, which will be a weird transition for us because they have been such a blessing and so much fun to have around. They performed a little puppet Bible story every morning for the children and they had SO many children lined up (usually about 100) outside our gate at around 7am, a little frustrating for us girls because it was our house and the program didn't start till 9 so they would be pounding on the gate yelling our names.

Today is a "day off" for us. We are planning for the transition that starts tomorrow. We will be teaching English classes every single morning so we are attempting to prepare a couple of lessons. They cap the classes off at 60 children so we will see how it goes… The rest of the day we are just spending some team time downtown and relaxing.

We are planning this weekend to go to Woodrow (?) to visit some rock churches. Its about a 3 hour drive through the countryside so we are looking forward to that. Women's and Men's Discussion have been going on and so far they have been awesome. The topics that arise have been really interesting and God has allowed us to talk about some taboo topics in this culture.

Thank you so much for all of the prayers. Please continue praying for energy and strength to get through each day, health and safety, pouring our love onto each one of the children, and for personal growth in our relationship with the Lord. He has been teaching all of us so many things that it is almost overwhelming to take everything in.

Hope you appreciate this less sarcastic blog.

Love, Alyssa, Amber, Jason, and Justin

P.S No running water or showers, so continue to pray for that

P.S.S Matt we don't know what you were talking about there is TONS of sugar here. It is actually overwhelming.

quick update from the DR

2009-07-06T17:53:00.001-07:00

we have been running around all over the place for the last few weeks... sorry it's taken so long to update!! here's a little bit of what we've been up to...

1. buying live chickens at the market.. and carrying them on conchos to the mission house...
2. teaching english classes every afternoon (lauren in algodon, elisa in los robles, alicia in don bosco) to varying degrees of success and noise making
3. helping out in the clinic every morning, today we finally finished updating files and next week we hope to start working in the bateyes so that yanet (the head nurse) can have a set of files for all the kids in the clinic AND the bateyes... so its much easier to access them.
4. we've had various adventures at the hospitals... lauren got sick on the 4th of july and had to run to the emergency clinic that night. everything's fine, but it was an interesting experience of being IN the health care system and dealing with some sort of a language barrier. alicia witnessed a concho accident and her family drove the victims to the public hospital... which was another experience in itself. people all over the place, little sanitation, sounds like it was chaos and defnitely an insight into what's going on in the public sector.
5. tomorrow we leave on a 3 day retreat at the PonteVedra hotel that we all know (almost) and love. we're going on some adventure in the middle but who really knows where. but really, a midway retreat?? its only been 3 weeks. but that's almost midway which is a little insane.
6. all in all, our spanish is getting better and better and we are more or less as adjusted as we are going to get to life here. the reality of what we are seeing is starting to hit us a little more, so we're working through that on a bunch of levels. but we are loving our time and the experience has been great :) we'll give more of an update when we're all together, this is lauren from an internet cafe with her host brother!!

we would love continued prayers for health, safety, and wisdom as we try to figure out everything that we are doing and seeing.

love from barahona,
lauren
alicia
elisa

the island life (issue II)

2009-07-06T02:03:00.000-07:00

highlights since the last time we wrote:

1. drank iced vanilla dark roast coffee jelly caffe lattes from Starbucks!! basically an iced vanilla latte with chunks of coffee flavored jello-stuff. you know how it is when you drink bubble tea and than you get a surprising blast of tapioca balls? that is exvactly how it is. quite interesting how there are Starbucks on pretty much every corner near our house, are we in some sort of Asian Seattle?!!
2. Saw Transformers 2 in the theaters with our host dad for our first official bonding outing. Lets just say due to sitting in the front row, Britt had to visit the comfort room because her chunky latte didnt agree with her! muah ha ha ha. fun regardless, though :)
3. We have discovered public transportation here now!!. It is very convient but a tad interesting being squeezed into a small box with hundreds of other moist (aka sweaty) people.
4. On Saturday we had our first college Bible study which takes place at our host families house and they made it Fourth of July themed!! Yeah for their kindness out here. So we ate very American food and it was a hoot seeing some of the locals wearing red, white, and blue that day. there were some people from the USA and a few regular locals in the group. it was great to get to see the body of Christ from around the world in action.
5. Sunday we went to our first church service at Union Church of Manila and like everywhere else here were very kindly welcomed. We always get very grand introductions everywhere we go so that was loads of sweetness. The service was really intriguing and just so everyone knows, the head pastor at UCM used to be the Worship Pastor at UPC five years ago (Pastor Steve) and we feel that .is a very special connection that we have a fellow Seattlite all the way out here in the Philippines!! After service we were introduced to the college group that we will be doing a bible study with every Sunday while we will be here. Most of the people are between 16 and 19 because ppl graduate HS at 16 here then go off to college! We did some worship and prayer which was cool.
6. At lunch after church yesterday we ate ox tail! Nothing goes to waste out here. In my opinion, it tasted like a small chunk of flavored fat. Really scrumutous huh? Per person the meal was about $5-and that is at a gourmet restaurant!
7. I really bizzare thing to see here is how there are aisles upon aisles of skin whitening lotions!!! Dark skin is considered ugly so most people sadly try very hard to lighten their skin. We asked and found out that they have this mentality because they want to look like American celebrities. Also, most ads are are about 98% white models, it is really important for me to stress how idolized whites are here. Because of the idolization, we get stared at so incredibly much no matter where we go. Slightly uncomfortable at times but than again it is flattering that they think we are so beautiful. (especially how most of the time we look like living hell due to the fact that it is like living in large sauna here!) That might be a weird thing to blog but tis the truth.
8. Mikey got in first place out of 21 people during lazer tag yesterday!! The rest of us were so proud to be American after his beautiful victory against the Filipinos we played against! We are allowed to say this because they (college ministry kids we were bonding with) said our skin would glow while playing lazer tag. Ashlynn told them it was because he has naval training....they bought it.
9. Today we took the train to a flea market....not sure where we were but it was nice getting to see a new area. We were really confused at why there were penis shaped ashtrays at about ten of the stands....do Americans like genitalia themed sovereigns? On a brighter note, we saw a few Catholic churches and nice Filipino statues. John Fay highly enjoyed the more historical sites we saw today.
10. It is very saddening to see how much need and poverty there is everywhere. Sure we live in very nice accomadations (nicest area in the entire country) but if you just drive about 5 minutes down the road it is a completely different world. To try and paint a clearer picture, most of the Philippines (at least the greater metro Manila area) looks like one of those TV commercials you see were they show extremely saddening imagines of straving children with flies all over their bodies living in the slums asking for support. The people that Habitat helps out have an annual income of about $500. That is about $4 a day if you are lucky. It is very hard to witness and we would like to ask for prayer for the people we seeing living like this. Seeing this on a daily basis has really reaffirmed our team why we are here in the Philippines and how much our outreach is needed.

Fun Filipino Fact: 20 million people live in metro Manila during the week to work. We fall just behind Tokyo. Also, all the grocery workers (that are female of course) wear uniform dresses and heels! Same with the women security guards. So professional here!!

Words of Wisdom: What do you call a person that can speak three languages? A: Trilingual. What about a person that speaks two languages? A: Bilingual. What do you call a person that speaks only one? A: American. -Joke cracked by a college kid here.

Happy 4th of July from Manila

2009-07-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

We started our work with Habitat for Humanity on Wednesday at a site in the city of Pasig where Habitat is building two 120 unit buildings for families that are being kicked out of their homes, on the Pasig River, so that the government can "beautify the area." Everything is done by hand here, so we spent two days making bricks, cutting re-bar, and bending re-bar.

TEAM KENYA: YES WE ARE ALIVE

2009-07-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

JULY 3, 2009
1. Heathrow: missed flight to Nairobi. 10 hour delay. Dead inside.
2. What is Chutney? and why was it served for breakfast on an english muffin with cheese on British Airlines? Cold. we wanted to know.
3. Rerouted through Tanzania. Bird in airport. Amy: "Smells familiar."
4. Megan's first cultural misunderstanding: Employee: "welcome!" Megan: "oh i'm from seattle"
this may have been funnier due to the 40 hours already traveled without sleep...
5. Took propeller plane to Kenya where we were served mango juice and chicken pitas. best airline food yet.
6. 70 year old man got out of seat on flight to Tanzania. His pants were too loose, they stayed in the seat, his bare butt did not. Amy was across the narrow isle; needless to say, she was mooned.
7. Went to Massai Market. Got seriously ripped off by our inability to bargain well. We'll learn. (except Abby who wanted to run and cry...never want to go back)
8. Roads: no rules. there are giant holes. and they play chicken.

ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE: Blessings in disguise:
1. Due to our flight rerouting, we flew directly over Mt. Kilimanjaro on our flight from Tanzania to Kenya. Incredible. Also, within 10 minutes of leaving the airport, giraffes were sighted. This wouldn't have happened if we came on our original flight which came in late at night and it would have been too dark to see them.
2. On our flight to Tanzania, Megan was able to talk to 2 girls from Denmark who were atheists but curious about the gospel. God really provided Megan with this opportunity to share Jesus.
3. Not that we needed it, but we were given more team bonding time and we were able to see each other at our worst and we avoided all conflicts where they could have easily happened.
4. We've been here 1 day and the children know our names and call us "auntie." Words cannot describe our children. It will break our hearts to say goodbye.
5. Everyone here at the compound is unbelievably generous and the Kenyan people are really friendly and faithful. We had devotions with the village staff this morning and their knowledge of scripture was unmatched. We got to sing "What a friend we have in Jesus" in Swahili and it was awesome.

Tomorrow we're climbing a volcano.

Signing off:
Amy Wagoner X4 (our airport greeting from our driver)

Bethlehem Update #3

2009-07-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

Marhaba from the house (beet) of meat (lachem)

This past weekend we went to Hebron and stopped at a small village on the way to hear from the Christian Peacemaking Team (CPT) that was living there. On our way to this village, we were stopped at a flying checkpoint (for those that don't know, this is a checkpoint within Palestine that moves on the whim of the IDF) where we waited for an hour until they finally decided to let us through, under the on-the-spot guise of being agricultural students who wanted to look at the town's "ancient farming techniques." We got an escort of five soldiers to the tiny village and during our presentation from CPT, a few people scolded the soldiers for bringing fear and guns into the peaceful village. The only real threat there was that the tea the children brought us was boiling hot. Through CPT we learned that there were many injustices occurring in the village: demolition orders on every single house, settlers chasing the kids on their way to school, people being separated from their farming land... it was very heartbreaking.
Afterwards we got back on our way to Hebron, passing the same place where we had been stopped that morning to discover the checkpoint no longer there.
Hebron was kind of a ghost town: empty streets, checkpoints every couple of blocks. We learned that there was a lot of tension in this city; partly due to the fact that the settlers living there were the most fanatic in all of Palestine...they were also American Jews from New York. I think the picture that remains in all of our minds when we think of Hebron is this one street in the market: Hanging overhead was mesh wire that sort of separated the Israeli settlers from the Palestinians below. Apparently it was put up to protect against things that were thrown down by settlers, but dirty water, acid and urine were also thrown down and got through the mesh, and so most of the shops beneath remain boarded up for safety and sanitation reasons.
We also saw the mosque where Jacob and Rebecca were said to be buried.

Sunday we had a free day so L and K went to church with their host mom at the Church of Nativity, in the Greek Orthodox part. We understood nothing but appreciated the fact that they used all their senses to feel God's presence: singing, listening, eating bread, smelling incense, standing up and sitting down constantly, etc. Afterwards we met up with J and C and headed to Jerusalem for the day. We did the Via Dolorosa, which is the route that Jesus walked on his way to the cross. It was really interesting and one of first religious encounters during our time here. We ended at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where we got the chance to witness a short ceremony and spent a few seconds inside of what they believe is the site of Christ's tomb. Then we ate lunch at an "Armenian Pizza-Steak Restaurant" which had really gross food: we missed our host family's delicious meals. C and L also bought a guitar which we are all quite excited about. Before we left we went to the top of a building and took some amazing pictures. C and J also went to a church there that evening.

On Monday after work and class we had our first casual discussion group with the rest of the PSE and it was really awesome to hear how people are processing things and what they're thinking about. We are really blessed to be surrounded by a diverse, smart (kids from Yale, Harvard and Princeton) and justice-seeking group of people.

On Tuesday L had the unique chance to go to the graduation of school in the village she works at. It was a great opportunity to show support for the village youth that her volunteer placement works with on a daily basis. The ceremony itself was a crazy experience with many speakers, few people actually paying attention to what those speakers were saying (though no one seemed offended by this), and a break halfway through the ceremony for a snack (Coke and cake). L has had a lot of opportunities this week to continue developing relationships with the Muslim men that run the youth center and with a group of teenage girls that visit the center almost daily.

Today K and L went to their first non-violent protest (the same protest in Masara that C and J went to last week). We were a bit nervous at first, but we also felt called to stand by the Palestinians and show them our love through our support of their desire for their rights. (Don't worry parents, it was very safe!) A group of Israelis against home demolitions played drums, there were chants, and a couple guys talked about wanting to have rights for Palestinians. It was a cool experience.

On another note, we realized as we began writing this 3rd blog that we have forgotten to mention a very special friend that our team has made during our time here, a fellow that we affectionately call "Majnoon Diik," which means "Crazy Rooster" in Arabic. This rooster, that belongs to the neighbors of K and L's host family, quite literally crows 15-20 times each day. We've decided that Diik is either blind or narcoleptic (or both...?) since he either cannot see when dawn is actually breaking or he falls asleep every half hour or so, waking up over and over again thinking that he needs to crow the morning into existence.

This week in Arabic class we've been attempting to learn the Arabic script. For 3/4 members of the team, it has been extremely difficult considering both how different it is from English and the speed at which we are expected to know it (however, C is turning out to be somewhat of a showoff). Our teacher, Miss Aida, seems to have a special place in her heart for J because of his ability to giggle at inappropriate times and make the whole class laugh with him. She even made him sit up front with her and be her special helper one day this week.

Last night we had our weekly cultural night: this week it was a game of futbol between the PSE participants and the HLT staff. We lost but played hard and had fun. Afterwards there was a delicious BBQ and it was really relaxing to just hang out and talk.

We continue to discuss, think and pray both about how we are processing things now, and what we will do when we get home. Pray for clarity and wisdom and sensitivity for this complex and emotional issue. Also pray for C and K as they seek purpose in the maintenance work they are doing at HoH, for J as he finds ways to serve the people at his volunteer placement in spite of they're very limited resources, and for L as she learns how to make herself available for Christ to love the Muslim community she is working with.

Much love in Him,

Team Bethlehem

Hayır...Gel...Çok Güzel!

2009-07-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

We have been meaning to write for awhile, and technical difficulties have prolonged the process- so we’re going to try this entry again!

These past couple of weeks have been full of bonding cultural experiences, laughter, camels, and really cute kids. We have had the opportunity to meet and work with a lot of different people and look forward to sharing a bit of our recent adventures. We have continued to live quite the tourist life here as we have been blessed to see so many of the wonderful things that Antalya has to offer. We have also been really happy to start building relationships with some of the local people, as well as friends that are also from America, and even a friend from Mexico. As our work here begins, we find a lot of truth behind what we heard about Turkish culture. Being on time is rare, the last minute is never too late to change plans, and flexibility is key. The camp isn’t quite up and running yet, so we have been available to fill quite a few different roles, which has been really fun.

Last week we worked at Paul’s Place Cultural Center, which doubles as a cafe and serves as the local International Church. From 10-1 everyday we led a group of about 8 kids under the age of six in crafts, games, and songs. The first day taught us that a very loose schedule is fine- necessary even- as we had to change the plan to fit the level of communication we could achieve and short attention spans. Early on Monday we learned some survival words: no=hayır, come here=gel, and very good!=çok güzel! These, along with a very few other phrases we were able to memorize were put into repetition with endless hand motions which seemed to get the job done. The number of kids we had everyday fluctuated, and luckily we had the help of our friend Halil, who served as translator and peace-keeper, and a couple of older siblings who helped a lot and laughed only a little when we said things that were wrong or accidentally inappropriate (as with a lot of languages, there are a few English words that don’t quite mean the same things in Turkish...)

Overall, I think we would count the week a success as we had a lot of fun, the kids made lots of fun crafts, and they really opened up to us by the end of the week. It was so fun to watch them sing along to Ring Around the Rosy (even though they had no idea what they were saying) and to play countless rounds of Kedi, Kedi, Köpek (Cat, Cat, Dog...our new, easily translated version of Duck Duck Goose) with them.

This week we got to work with Pam, who works at the church with a focus on university students. We went with her to the Akdeniz Üniversite campus on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to pass out flyers to help promote an English conversation club that is offered through Paul’s Place during the summer. Because of a shooting about a year ago, it is a closed campus with lots of security. Pam wanted to ask some of the faculty to post the flyers (because you aren’t allowed to just put them up on a bulletin board) so we got to see some of the campus as we walked around looking for the right people. No on is allowed to pass out flyers on the campus, and even as we stood off of campus, on the opposite side of the street- we were approached and told that we had to have permission from the government to pass out anything. This permission ended up costing 130 TL for only 3 days. It was definitely eye-opening to see, whereas if we wanted to do the same thing at UW we wouldn’t face any opposition whatsoever. A lot of the University students are still in a position of making decisions with their families- so if it somehow got out that the English lessons were based out of a place that holds a church (even though they aren’t even held at the center) and the family gets angry, the university could get blamed, so no one wants to put their name behind the decision to allow the lessons to be advertised on campus. Through a lot of random circumstances, though, we have reached quite a few people that are really interested in coming to the classes, and we are excited to get to be teaching at the first few next week. Pam has introduced us to a lot of girls our age, and it has been really fun to get to know them a bit better. Landi has a gift of quickly connecting with the girls we have met, and has been a blessing to the rest of us as her desire to build relationships with these women is inspiring to the rest of us.

Today we got to work at a rehab center for developmentally disabled children, and it was so much fun. We went armed with a few art projects and were blessed with lots of excitement and laughter. It was a challenge as only one staff member spoke any English, so we were left once again to hand motions and any other non-verbal communication skills we have picked up in the last couple of weeks. It was neat to see how creative the staff there are with the different projects they do with the kids and we look forward to going back next week to work with them again.

On the tourist side of things, we have been busy visiting even more beautiful sights. We found our favorite beach- Konyaaltı- with clear water, surrounded by cliffs on one side, and mountains on the other. We went on a boat ride out of the old harbor and were pleasantly surprised with a little bit of rain- we felt right at home! On Sunday we went to Düden Falls where we saw some beautiful waterfalls and got to ride some camels- which is pretty much the highlight of the trip :) We also went to Aqualand- a mini Wild Waves and had a blast running around like the little kids we really are.

This weekend we look forward to going to Kemer- the town in the mountains where the kids camp is located. We will be helping with some of the work to get it up and running, which will probably happen the week after next. Also, we are taking our first overnight trip- we are going to Olympos to see the burning rocks and stay in a treehouse.

We have had a few bouts of minor illness- stomach bugs and headaches, but nothing major. Your continued prayers would be appreciated- I think we are each starting to experience little moments of missing home (people, places and foods..). Also, as our plans continue to be up in the air and we have more free time than we planned, we would love prayer for guidance with how we should be spending our time. We want to know that our time here is not wasted, and it is a struggle knowing how much to invest in certain places and relationships when we don’t know how much longer we will be here before moving to the camp.

The task of putting into words all that we have already experienced here is quite daunting. There aren’t many words that could allow me to eloquently express the sights that we have seen, the sounds we have heard, the food we’ve tasted or the feelings we’ve developed for these people. We hope, though, that between what we have recorded here, the photos we’ve taken, and the stories we will share when we get home you will be able to better grasp the fullness of this trip- because it just wouldn’t be fair to keep it to ourselves.

Love,

Your Turkish Delights

p.s Check out more pictures on our team site: http://web.me.com/brittanynation/Turkey_Trip_2009/Welcome.html

Mekele Update from Ethiopia Team

2009-07-02T11:02:00.000-07:00

For all of you who were wondering, we are still alive in mekele, but unlike all of you who are on vacation we are actually roughing it, like real missionaries. :) We don't shower (about every 4 days), our toliets don't flush (manually only), we have power every other day (or so), we dont have clean drinking water (we fliter it), we poop in a hole, and we wash our clothes in buckets, which we also use for showers sometimes.

Other than that the kids are awesome. We are at the youth center from 9-12 in the morning and come back around 2:30 and stay until around 5:30. There is a team here from North Carolina and while they have been here we have been in charge of running activites to keep the kids company. We attempted to run the mekele olympics tuesday, but it involved a lot of shouting and chaos. It was a lot of fun, but not something we plan to do again. We have taught the kids 4 square which they love, sharks and minnows, double dutch, and american football. The only problem with organized sports is that the kids dont care too much about winning, all they want to do is get out the forenjis (foreigners). So they talk in tigray and conspire against us. Table tennis is very big here and kids will play all day long, they are pretty intense.

Justin caught Jason's flu bug today but is feeling better. He loves table tennis and the kids like to refer to him as shrek.
Jason is having a rough time with his living situation. He is sharing a house with 2 Canadians..pray for him.
Alyssa has only gotten sick once, stubbed her toe while running to see donkeys, and likes playing ultimate frisbee.
Amber gets pretty into 4 square and likes to threaten the children when they try and get her out, she is the only one who hasnt gotten sick, and is constantly outcasted by justin. Pray for team dynamics.

People here love Michael Jackson and are quite upset by his death. They constantly ask about how much we love him and if we are sad he is gone. We say that we do not like him and we are actually quite glad he is gone.

But really our time here has been amazing, and God is expanding our minds to the Ethiopian culture. About 95 percent of people here are Orthdox and we have been learning lots about what this means to them and how we can apply it to our own understanding of God. People are very content and extremely friendly here with everything they have even though they are living in extreme poverty. The children love any second of attention we give them and we pray that we have enough energy to pour our love into them for the rest of our time here.

Prayers for water and rain on Ethiopia, health and sickness, and continued team dynamics. So far things are going awesome and God has been working wonders in all of our lives. Hope all is well with you.

Just remember as you heading to the beach in your bikinnis or swimming in your pool we are here in mekele hanging out with dead dogs and burned cats.

Lots of love,

Alyssa, Amber, Justin, Jason

***Editor Nolan's note - the above entry is filled with enriched sarcasm. It is up to you to decide what is real and what is not. End of note ***

*** Actually, you guys should know that everything we said is true... to some degree - Team Ethiopia ***

Week 2 in Beograd

2009-07-01T12:17:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

We can't believe it's already week 2 here in Belgrade. Our days here have been so busy that time has flown by!

Since we last wrote, we have been really getting into our English classes here. Casey and Emily are enjoying learning some Serbian from their students, too. They taught us how to count, how to ask for hot coffee, and how to say "I don't speak Serbian" (Ja ne govorim Srpski). The last one has proven to be really helpful. The kids are learning important American phrases like "tailgating", "brainstorming", and "peel out". We are now facebook friends with them (they are 13 years old and have facebook).

Carolyn and Cassie have a few more students than they did last week, and have had great conversations, debates, and discussions about cross cultural issues between Serbians and Americans. They are working hard to keep the students engaged and not bored with grammar lessons. Many of the students are taking the class so they can apply and interview for English-speaking jobs. This week, their class will discuss the stray dog problems in Belgrade, the division between church and government, Serbia joining the EU, and long-distance relationships. Quite the range of topics.

After teaching in the morning, our team usually ends up meeting with students or friends we have made here, including EUS staff members and student leaders. However, a good chunk of our days are taken up with riding the buses and getting from one place to the other. We are constantly amazed by how big this city is!

Last weekend, we had a really great time meeting with students and having some much-needed team time. On Friday, we had a party with EUS students in Belgrade. We ate cevapi, which is REALLY good Serbian barbeque. You eat it with yogurt, ketchup or onions, along with bread and olives. We were disappointed with the turnout, but most students are finishing up exams so hopefully they will be able to attend our next party. We loved the cevapi though, and proceeded to eat it for the next 3 meals. Here is Bojan (I probably totally butchered the spelling) showing us how to eat cvevapi.

On Saturday night, we had a chance to get together with some of the Serbian women's softball players. We had dinner with them and a few sports journalists, Bulgarian softball players, and some other big shots in the Serbian softball world. It was SO fun! We're really enjoying getting to know these women, especially since they aren't believers and don't really know why we are here in Serbia. We're just loving them as much as we can and trying to build friendships with them.

We also had some great team time this weekend. With how packed our days are, we really haven't had too much time to get together and pray and do a bible study together as a team, especially since we're split up at two different flats.

Yesterday we got the chance to visit the Parliament building here in Belgrade. We visited with a member of Parliament who works specifically with American issues. He talked about his desire to see Serbian one day be a part of the EU, and talked about how he thinks that may happen within the next 5-6 years. He also shared his opinions about President Obama - he's not optimistic that Obama will be successful, but he says he'll have to wait and see. He was also very curious about our perceptions of Serbia. He's really passionate about creating a stronger relationship between Americans and Serbians, and he sees PR and marketing as a way to do that.

Last night we also discovered a hidden treasure here in Belgrade: blueberry beer! Here we are enjoying our fruity beers at our new favorite bar in Belgrade, the Black Turtle, with some friends we made from the International church we went to last Sunday.

Today was also our second day working with the Gypsy children at their preschool. We learned how to ask them their names ("kako se zoveš") and that was helpful. We wish we knew how to give them directions and teach them songs, but we brought along Nada, Casey and Cassie's host mom, and she was able to tell them the important things. The kids are so hopeful and encouraging. It was interesting to hear from Nada what Serbians think of the Gypsy people - many Serbs think they are dirty, shady people that can't be trusted. It's hard to think about those negative impressions when you see 15 kids running and jumping over each other playing Duck Duck Goose. We're excited to hopefully meet some University students in Belgrade and bring them with - not only to translate for us, but to also begin to break down those stereotypes.

This weekend, to celebrate the Fourth, we'll be going to the Embassy for a party with other Americans and their families here in Belgrade. After that, we'll be going to the US vs. Finland basketball game as part of the World Universiade Sporting event that's being held here in Belgrade this week and next. Tickets are 100 dinar (about $1.50) and Quincy Pondexter is on the US team! The rest of the weekend we'll be in Novi Sad, meeting with Vanja and other students there.

You can continue to pray for our team in many different ways. We pray that our relationships with people we are starting to get to know will continue to grow, and that we could share our faith with them. We'd also like pray for continued growth in our relationships with God as a team and individual.

Cao for now!

Love,

Team Serbia (Emily, Cassie, Casey, and Carolyn)

A Taste of India

2009-07-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, we went to a church that was translated into three languages. At the service, which was four hours long, they had twenty-five baptisms of men and women who were previously Hindi. They had a full immersion and the pool was actually in the middle of the church. I was tearing up. It was amazing to see how into the service people were even though two thirds of the service was unintelligible.

Every morning we ride the school bus and pick up all the kids and teachers on the way there. The bus is jammed packed with all sorts of commotion. Brian and I use all the little tricks we know to mess around with the kids. We usually sit in the back with Uday and Suresh. We tap them on the opposite shoulders and point to their shirts then flick their noses. It has become quite an epidemic at the school. I had a kid come up to me today who I did not know and point to something on my shirt. I looked of course and whammy flicked in the nose. Recently when we get on the bus more kids will start sitting back there to be with us.

We have been going to the park this week after school and throwing a Frisbee and a tennis ball. It is simple enough, but people have been watching us in wonder and some have even had the courage to join us. It has been fun playing with the people of the neighborhood. The Frisbee has been difficult for them to master, but they can throw the tennis ball like a pro cricket bowler.

Although we have been guaranteed that we will get sick, I have been eating a ton of Indian food and it has been incredible. Plus you only use your right hand so you do not have to worry about utensils slowing you down. Maximized eating capability. Brian and I have been trying to get some really spicy foods, but so far the girls have been holding us back. Even with all the new foods we have been trying we have been to McDonald’s and KFC. Granted I ordered the Maha Raja Burger and potato wedges, but it was still Mickey Dee’s.

Ahhh Ace!

~Dexter and Team India

the island life (issue I)

2009-06-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

Greetings from our life on the Philippines island!! (technically the Philippines is not an island, it's an archipelago but island life just sounds so much cooler!)

Our journey here was a piece of pineapple!! ah ha ha, get my joke?? We got to hang in Hawaii for a bit and everything. Loads of movies to watch...Hawaiian Air ROCKS!! (they have COCONUT handsoap in the bathrooms. I was sold) Mikey especially enjoyed the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic which he watched while eating chocolate brownie Ben and Jerry's icecream....no joke here.

Rainier (youth adult director that is planning our time here) picked us up in the church van and took us to our host families house. It is SOOOO humid here, but a very nice change from Seattle. Mikey and Johnny are bunk bedding it up across the hall from Brit and I. The boys woke up at 7 AM but us ladies slept until about 10 AM. ah ha ha.

Ate loads of tropical fruit this morning and we all took a morning swim. We are all pretty much lazying around for a couple more hours and than we are off to Station One. Station One is equivalent to The Inn so that is going to be lovely indeed.

I have already seen two cockroaches!! They are so beautiful.... While we are on the topic of non-human things, our host families have two dogs and their names are James Bond and Shorts. How flipping awesome is that? Oh and for you Harry Potter fans....a cat named Crookshanks!!!

Everyone here is oh so friendly and welcoming. Immediately after eating some Filipino dinner we went shopping! Not really, but we are about a 5 minute walk from about 20 malls. Seriously. (We live in the central business distrcit so life is very hussel bussel) One of the malls is so gigantic, its called Greenbelt but there are FIVE of them. So you have to figure out if you want to go to Greenbelt 1, Greenbelt 4, etc. I cannot even describe how many shops and restaurants they have. It is absolute madness. But of course Brit and I are thrilled to buy shoes for $3. Everything is so cheap here. Also found out you can get an hour massage for $4.

I am going to stop my rambling now (this is Ashlynn by the way) and possibly go find some coffee! (they have STARBUCKS!! and Seattle's Best) Tomorrow we have orientation for Habitat and actually start building Thursday; yippee skippee. So in conclusion we are going to come back super buff and tan!

Mahal namin kayo (We love you),

Team Philippines

Fun Filipino Fact: you do not call it the bathroom, you call it the CR. CR stands for comfort room.

Words of wisdom: "I basically carry a miniature library with me whenever I travel." -John Fay

Team Philippines

2009-06-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

Team Philippines has arrived safetly in Manila and is at their host family's house. Longer update to follow tomorrow.

Ireland, Day 10

2009-06-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

This week we have been living in a "flat" (aka apartment) in the very small town of Convoy. It has been interesting because we were expecting to be living and working with other Irish teens through the PCI outreach teams, but we don't start those for a couple weeks, so this week has provided a lot of time for team bonding- something we were told we would not get a lot of time for.

We just got done with our first Holiday Bible Camp (Vacation Bible School) in the county of Donegal at the Presbyterian church of Raphoe. It was extremely fun and we all had a great time playing with kids. At the camp we helped with the worship, told bible stories, and helped with activities like coloring and word searches. On Monday we went around with Kyle, the youth leader for the area and promoted the Bible Camp at the local school, which really helped. We were told to expect the usual 25-30 children, but we ended up with around 60+ kidsl; a record setting attendance! The Holiday Bible Club filled our evenings, and a couple of the mornings were spent at local schools, playing baseball, football (aka soccer), and rugby with the students, since it was their last week of school and the teachers needed a little bit of help keeping them occupied.

The weather has been gorgeous, and we were able to take a trip to the beach on Friday- we are working on dispelling the myth that the Ireland team always comes back whiter and fatter. We are getting some sun, though we are definitely packing on the pounds. Irish hospitality is a wonderful thing! We have been hosted by a different family every day this week for tea (aka dinner), and we have not been let down. We are beginning to get quite used to the homemade desserts after every meal, followed by tea and biscuits.

We've taken a couple of trips into the city of Derry, once for a concert, and again today for sightseeing/ shopping. Lindsay took the advice of a former deputee and went shopping for "the Primark look", Thoma fought the urge to shop with all of her might (and the help of the boys), Tyler sang his heart out while playing Guitar Hero, and Chase rode a mini-train around the private gardens of an estate.

We've all started to think with Irish accents, and sometimes it slips out, especially when we are with the children. More holiday bible clubs are on the schedule for next week, as well as outreach to youth in Convoy.

Much love,
The Seattle Team (aka Team Ireland)

Update from Bethlehem's "C" Money

2009-06-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

Greetings min Beit Lahem!

Here are some pics you can look at for the time being:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/live_in_love/

We went to Nablus and Ramallah last weekend. While in Nablus, we met with the Nablus Association, which is an organization working to support Palestinians on an economic level. They have several projects currently under way including a scholarship program that provides housing for Palestinian students. It was one of many presentations that we attended on this trip, all of which were great, but to be honest they have all kind of blended together. Maybe one of the others can tell you more. On a more tourist-y level, we visited the olive oil soap factory and a turkish bath house. For men. They let us walk through and see some guy being lathered up (he had shorts on). It was interesting to say the least. We were also given the amazing opportunity to eat some of the city's famous Knaarfa. I am not certain as to what Knaarfa is exactly, but I know that it had melted cheese in it, and it tasted like Cap'n Crunch. Delicious. Another stop in Nablus was Jacob's Well where Jesus had his interaction with the Samaritan woman. We were able to see the actual well that they say is where Jesus met the woman, and, if we wanted to, we could purchase some of the water. J bought some. My overall reaction to Nablus was that it was big and dirty.

On our way out of Nablus, we stopped by a refugee camp. I dont remember the name, but I think it was the smallest one in all of the West Bank at about 2,000 displaced human beings. We were given a quick tour and allowed to see a few graves of people who died in the second Intifada. Altogether, it was a sad experience. I wish that every person in the world would visit a camp like the one we saw. I think if people were to see the conditions that these refugees are forced to live in, the conditions their children are forced to live in, it would have a much more profound effect on them, and it may even motivate them to actually do something to help.

Also outside of Nablus, we were able to stop by Mt. Gerizim, the home of half of the living Samaritan community. We were given a talk by the priest about the history of the Samaritan community and the how their community operates. It was definitely interesting. I will let someone else who is a bit more careful with their words tell about it, though.

Ramallah was also big and dirty, but I had a lot more fun there. We arrived in the evening and ate dinner at our hotels. We had to split up because the original hotel made a mistake and didnt have enough room for everyone. Luckily the four of us ended up in the other hotel, which turned out to be a lot nicer, and had a better breakfast. Dinner was great. It was buffet style, actually, which I found amusing. I wonder if that is how they always do it, or if they did that specifically for us Americans? After dinner we went downtown. The first thing we saw was a break-dancing traffic cop. Never thought we would see such a thing here. The whole group split up and went either to ice cream or to a restaurant. L,K, and I (C) ended up at a restaurant with some other kids from the program where there were a bunch of guys watching the U.S.-Egypt soccer game.Eventually, J ended up where we were because the men's club that our tour guide was going to take him and some other guys to was full. It may have just been me, but I felt like everyone was looking at us with a little maliciously. I wondered if they knew that we didnt care about the game. While we were sitting there, our guide told us to start speaking french or spanish so that people didnt think we were American. He was joking of course. The people in Ramallah were extremely nice. In fact, everyone has been. I have yet to meet someone that hasn't been over-the-top nice. It's incredible.

The next day, we met with several organizations. The first meeting was with a Palestinian lawyer who has been working on fighting human-rights abuses in Israeli prisons. Her presentation was depressing. They all were. Its heart breaking to hear the things that happen to these people on a daily basis. It was encouraging, however, to hear that this lawyer has been fighting against the injustices that Palestinians endure while in Israeli prisons. Her organization is called Adameer.(adammer.info I think) Check it out. After that, we went to a presentation by Stop The Wall. Amazing. The presentation laid out the big-picture plan for the separation wall that the Israelis are building. It is incredible and a bit scary to hear how they are getting away with what they are doing. I will not take the time to explain everything because I will not do it justice. However, if anyone is intersted in seeing the presentation, go to this link http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/ppp/Eco-ppt-EN-06-09.ppt. After hearing these presentations, the PSE leaders felt like we needed to take the edge off so we went to the Taybeh brewery. Taybeh is the only micro-brewery in the entire Middle East and it is Palestinian owned and operated. The tour was quick (the brewery is about half the size of larson hall, if not smaller) and informative. They allowed us to try a sample of their product, which the four of us declined. Not. It was quite tasty! Unfortunately, they do not sell it in the U.S. yet because of the whole occupation thing. If they were to try and sell it in the U.S. it could take up to three months (or some ridiculous amount of time) to make it through customs, which, since they dont use any preservatives, would be a problem because the beer has a shelf life of about six months to a year (depending on who you ask). Therefore, if they were to try and ship it to the U.S. it would probably expire rather quickly once it reached its destination, and no one would want to drink it. It's quite a tragic story.

We started our volunteer positions on Tuesday. I am working at House of Hope. So is K. H.o.H. is pretty much a school/boarding school disabled people (mainly kids). I was kind of nervous to work there because I was worried I wouldnt have the patience. Nonetheless, I was prepared for it. When we got there, we found out that the kids were on summer break, and therefore not at H.o.H. K and I were there to help them with random maintenance tasks that they didnt have time to complete during the year. For the last two days, I have been removing paint from a hand-rail with a flame thrower. So awesome. K is currently covered with the oil-based paint that she has been using to paint the same hand railing after C blow-torches it. At first, I was kind of struggling with the idea of just doing maintenance. I had this idea that I was coming here to do something profound, but I have come to realize that maybe this is exactly where I am supposed to be because it will show me that changing the world doesnt always happen in big dramatic ways. I hope that I can come to grips with that.

JS's volunteer placement is great. He is working with an American named Jason who has been here for five years and has raised a family here. Jason is a strong Evangelical believer from Arkansas and is supported by a church back home. He and some other American volunteers run a house church in English here and I plan to go to some of them. There is also a church group here from Michigan. It is encouraging that the senior pastor's daughter is here. JS asked her what her church thought about the issue and she said that her church's stance was to stay out of politics, they view it as helping Palestinian Christians. Whatever they call it, we hope they bring the experience home and let people know what is happening here. It's not a political issue, it's about justice, helping the oppressed, and loving people, we hope churches will see this and some will stand up. JS is helping build a climbing wall in a park next to an abandoned Israeli military base. The organization Jason works for tries to develop leaders among the Palestinian youth through camps, lectures, and leadership among younger Palestinians in the hopes of developing a strong generation of leaders (especially since many community leaders/fathers are arrested as Israelis are trying to weaken the resistance against the occupation).

L is loving her volunteer placement as well. She is working about 15-20 minutes from Bethlehem in the village of Alwalajah, with an organization called the Ansar Center, which is actually partially funded by World Vision. The Ansar Center provides much needed recreational and educational activities, leads demonstrations against the construction of the wall (which is planned to completely surround the village with only one exit/entry point), advocates for families who have had their houses demolished by the Israeli government, and supports the primary school (grades 1-9) in the village. L spent the last week touring the village, particularly the old school buildings and the one currently under construction), and talking with village residents. Her task for the Ansar Center is to write descriptions in English of all the Center's activities that will be posted on the Center's website, which is being constructed by some of the other volunteers. Overall, L is falling in love with the people of Alwalajah and thoroughly enjoying her exploration of their way of life, though she has been a bit overwhelmed and outraged by the weight of the injustices committed against the community.

Overall, everything has been amazing! The food, the people, the weather (once the sun goes down a little bit), the sight-seeing, and the host families have all been so amazing. We hope that every other Deputee is having the same experience that we are. (Except you Kenya. Slackers. :) ) We are excited that we still have so much time here, but we all miss our families and friends dearly. We hope everyone is well and that you enjoy reading our blog. Too da loo!

Team Bethlehem.

...and a few pictures of Team Serbia!

2009-06-25T04:42:00.000-07:00

Before boarding the plane in Seattle!

Outside Kalemegdon Fortress in Beograd

View from Kalemegdon, where the Rivers Sava and Danube meet

Goofing off with some famous Serbians!

Dober dan from Beograd!

2009-06-25T00:32:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! We're sorry it has taken us so long to give you all a long update of what we've been doing here in Belgrade. We have been so busy with meetings, touring the city, and learning more about what our two months here will look like.

The first days were a struggle with being so busy, jet lagged and uncertain about what our purpose here is. Our team took some time to pray and discuss our struggles, and we've since seen God working through us, giving us comfort and peace of mind.

Yesterday, we began teaching our English classes at a language school. Casey and Emily are teaching 6 students aged 12-15, and Cassie and Carolyn are teaching 2 girls that are 14 and 17. The students are so eager to learn English and really enjoy all things American. We let them pick English names, so they chose Peter, Taylor (Swift), Miley (Cyrus) and Duane. We will teach them in the mornings from 10-12:15 every day for the next month or so.

We also got connected with a humanitarian organization called Bread of Life, that works with local Gypsy communities. We took a trip out to the village, and played games with about 15 kids, ages 2-8 while their mothers had a group meeting. We sang "baby shark", played Duck Duck Goose, hokey pokey, and had a blast. The kids were so enthusiastic and excited to meet us, and they wouldn't let us go at the end. We can't wait to work with them again, because they really gave us the encouragement, laughter and joy that we have been missing here.

The weather is finally turning around - the first few days were really rainy and gray. We must have brought the weather here to Belgrade from Seattle. This weekend we will go to Lake Ada, which is really close to the city. We'll go there for the softball championship for the Serbian women's team. We might play softball later today and try to build relationships with the women on the team.

For now, you can be praying for energy, as our days are very long and exhausting. We could also use prayer for health, as many of us have struggled with allergies, migraines, and annoying bug bites. We miss you all very much, and will hopefully update again soon!

Love,

Emily, Carolyn, Cassie and Casey

Update from Mekele

2009-06-24T11:02:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Ethiopia!

We have finally arrived. Currently we are staying at SIM Headquarters in the capital Addis Ababa. We met a few others joining us in Mekele, Leah who is from London, and Nikki who is from Tennessee. The staff here are very warm and kind. There are also numerous other missionaries staying here from all over the world, some are temporary like us and some are more long term. So far we have gone through orientation which involved immigration, medical, treasury, etc. Nothing too exciting yet. Medical took forever because (ironically) most of us knew only half our vaccination dates which you would think we would all know by now. Let me just say we got a lecture.

Yesterday we were able to tour a bit of Addis. The streets are very hazy and smell mostly of gasoline, and are crowded with people. After we went to the grocery stored we headed on to a “spritzer“ or juice bar where we tasted a delicious concoction of avocado, mango, and banana (highly recommended). Today we went out for lunch and ordered pizza, except today was Wednesday so we got the “fasting pizza” (Wednesday and Friday are fasting days in Ethiopia). Thus far our fast growing vocabulary consists of three words salah (hello), ciao (bye), and amesygnala (thank you). At least we think that is how they are pronounced. Anyway that is all for now, don’t forget to pray for us.

Jason, Amber, Justin, & Alyssa

¿QUÉ LO QUE?

2009-06-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

HOLA DESDE BARAHONA!!!

Hello to all. Sorry it´s taken so long to update! We have been here for a week already and can hardly believe it! But we are adjusting to the Dominican lifestyle, and are all moved into our host families. Alicia enjoyed the Dominican tradition of sitting outside her family´s shop on the street on her first day, talking (in Spanish) for four hours! Try that at home. All of our host families ONLY speak Spanish (which Lauren of course loves), and feed us more than we can stomach (apple juice in cereal, pineapple in milk WITH cereal, plantains of all shapes and forms, and hamburgers for breakfast). We have all survived our first concho rides and surprisingly love them, are being eaten alive by mosquitoes, taking bucket showers, and realize that nalgenes, while previously indestructible, can now be destroyed by the 100% deet we put on our skin twice daily. We´ve enjoyed seeing Mariners t'shirts in our houses (Elisa) and the handprints of all our friends on the mission house wall. We´ve loved being welcomed into our host families and getting to know everyone that they know. All in all, adjusting well and learning to love being sticky all the time!

Tomorrow we´ll finally start working in the bateyes, teaching English. So far we´ve been doing a lot of prep work, so we´re ready to get moving and see what God can show us through these children. We´ve been in the clinic twice, organizing supplies, updating ¨files¨, scarce as they are, and hanging out with the nurses. We´re hoping to get some vaccines to administer in the bateyes later this summer.. but since school´s out, we´ll have to do a bit of wandering from house to house.

We met up with 6 other interns here, and they have all been wonderful. We get along great and love hearing eachothers crazy host family stories from the night before! The staff is amazing, love to help us with our Spanish, and understanding the situation here in the DR. We´re excited to keep working with them and getting to know them and their stories. We all went to the beach the other day (hard life in the Caribbean, I know) and had a blast... this place is beautiful!!

Please pray for our stomachs as we continue to adjust to the food and the HEAT, for strength and courage to reach out and show God´s love to these people, as well as learn from them because they have MUCH to teach us.

Besitos,
Las Dominicanas
Lauren, Alicia, and Elisa!

Ethiopia Team has Safely Arrived

2009-06-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

I just got word that the Ethiopia team has arrived safely and are leaving for Mekele tomorrow. Hopefully they will have time to send us a more detailed update soon. :)

SIKE!!!

2009-06-22T11:28:00.001-07:00

I lied before...here is an update from the Serbia Team:

We made it!! Our group stayed awake for about 30+ hours so we slept well last night. We're staying in two different flats with host moms, Jelena and Nada (which means hope in English) in the older part of Belgrade. Today we went to an English speaking church and tomorrow we will play softball with girls our age to start building relationships, we are so excited. We just had our first real Serbian meal, which was a type of croissant with meat and cheese and we drink yogurt! That's all for now, take care!