In 72 days its happening! In 72 days I will be on a plane home! I cannot believe that going home is less than 3 months away. You could say I’m homesick but I wouldn’t call it that.
I don’t sit up in bed at night longing for home, no, not at all! Overall I love it here. The people I work with are awesome, the food is great, though it has its moments, and God is doing some amazing things here that I get to be a part of. So no, I’m not homesick, I just simply cannot wait to see my friends and family! Who wouldn’t miss their friends after not seeing them for close to a year? Even without friends and family the past month was filled with lots of good things including CT’s winter session, National New Year, and an amazing trip to the capitol city.
Winter session is a time for us to grow as people. All of our friends go home for break so we take some of this time to focus inwardly as a team and as individuals. We take classes, do team building, and learn how we can do what we do better. I think the highlight of this time for me was the Dynamic Speaking section. We all learned how to be better communicators and then got to practice speaking in front of each other. I personally love public speaking, so for me this time was a blast. For some it was a stretching experience. We also took some classes on how we can be more strategic in what we do in our work here.
For part of the New Year we got to go home with our friend and celebrate this crazy holiday with him. We took a train 14 hours south to get to his house, where we met his family and rather large extended family. During the New Year people set off an absurd amount of fireworks and its a common sight to see people with minor battle wounds after setting off so many . This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I probably got to set off more fireworks personally in those few days than I have in my entire life! Even though we had a blast I think one of the cool things about going home with our friend is that we really got to model what it looks like to live a life for Dad. Our friend kept introducing us to his family and saying we were Christians. At one point he said to his family “yeah they’re Christians, the don’t lie, cheat, steal, or waste food.” I also had the privilege of praying for him as he walked through some family issues.
My trip to the capitol was amazing to say the least. It was a jam packed few days. I got to spend some time with Sonny, meet up with some awesome world changers, and of course I got to see some of the sights! One of my main goals of this trip was to meet up and connect with my home Pastor Josh, and catch up. During our talk I really wanted to get some wisdom and insight to what I felt God was asking me to do in the future. I had been hearing some things from God but I always ask for wisdom from my leaders. I didn’t want to make my decisions foolishly. This brings me to some exciting news!. After much praying and talking to my leaders I feel like coming back to Asia with CT long term is where I’m suppose to be! I just began the application process for the long term internship with CT. I am really excited but also a little nervous about the adventure ahead of me. Nonetheless I look forward to what’s in store in my future with God. For those of you that have joined me financially for this year I want to say thank you again for being a part of my team and making this incredible experience and adventure with God possible.