The night started when seven girls bombarded our kitchen to cut, peel, wash, boil, simmer, and stir. Dishes of duck, eggplant, squash, and onions dispersed a spicy aroma as the stir-fried goodness compressed the bustle of hunger. A total of ten girls rubbing shoulders sat around a tiny table holding bowls and chopsticks with curiosity. [...]
Sarah flew off the bus and into my waiting arms. As an onlooker, you would have thought that we had known each other for years (instead of the few weeks that marked the length of our friendship). Personally, I feel as though I’ve known her all my life. And I’d been looking forward to this [...]
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There we were, the whole CT crew together in one city, in a gymnasium, watching 50 flight attendants in their uniforms, perform a dance for us. No lie. Barney, the head of the organization, had made connections with a flight attendant and her husband who allowed us to [...]
After more than a week away, I took a hot shower in my own home for as long as my heart desired, then I spread out my own warm blankets on my own bed, climbed in and slept a wonderful sleep. The next day I looked at the bed, shed a few proverbial tears, and [...]
Somehow it didn’t feel strange to me as we walked through the vegetable market in a foreign country (in a city I had never been to before) shopping for thanksgiving foods. It was my job to buy enough sweet potatoes to feed 30 people. Once the vendor was awake this was not a problem. We [...]
These past couple of weeks have been pretty eventful. Two weekends ago Mayday and I got to go with our friend Ekin to his hometown for a couple of days. It really was a pleasure to spend an extended period of time with him, to meet his family and see where he grew up. He’s [...]
Sitting on concrete bleachers at 8:30am, I exhale heavy to see my breath – it is cold, colder than I expected for wearing sandals (this was a tactical mistake). The track and field events begin, my friend will be running the 3km race later. I have not seen him yet. All of the students around [...]
I was at this amazing massage place for the first time with about 20 other workers. For an hour and half as I got my massage I thought about all the cool things that God had been doing with our time here. There have been so many big things that have been happening behind the [...]
I figured out something amazing this past week and a half. I would rather have fantastic food than sunshine. For Thanksgiving all of my team members in this city went down to visit some friends south of us. So we had our whole team together for a little over a week. We ended up having [...]
I woke up that morning, not even realizing it was Thanksgiving. I mean I looked outside the window and yes, I still saw hundreds of Asian people. I still ate an Asian breakfast instead of my Mom's cinnamon buns. We still rode a taxi to the apartment complex instead of me driving my Subaru to [...]