Los Primeras Dias en Ecuador

Tuesday, we had a second orientation at ACLAS in the morning, just going over some last minute details and details of our trips.  The guy who talked about our trips only spoke in Spanish....he knows English, but the rule at ACLAS is that we are not really supposed to speak English.  That way we can practice our Spanish and really start to learn it.  However, since I don´t speak much, there were several times I didn´t  understand what he was saying, but for the most part, I got the gist of it.  After orientation we went to the Equtor.  On the way we ate lunches that our host parent´s had packed for us.  In mine I had these chips that were pretty much like potato chips, but were made from plantains.  They were delicious!  We had a tour guide lead us around and talk about various things.  There were a couple different kinds of sundials that were pretty neat to see.  When it is noon, the sun is straight up in the sky and creates no shadow when on the Equator.  There was also a challenge to ballance an egg on a nail head.  I successfully balanced the egg and got a neat little certificate.  In one of the little huts we toured through there, there was a pin with a bunch of guinea pigs running around--babies and bigger ones.  We asked the tour guide if they were for eating and she said yes, so then we asked "even the babies?"  She responded with "Sure....guinea nuggets." 
After we got back from the equator we went back to our host houses.  My host parents invited me to watch a movie with them.  Now, something about Ecaudor is that the main hang out spot in a lot of houses is the parents bedroom.  This was the case with my family.  So, we all went into their room and selected a movie called the Sentinel.  My host dad handed me the remote and said "language?"  And I replied with "Español of course!"  We also had the Spanish subtitles on, so being able to see and hear as well as have the picture to follow, I actually understood most of the movie. 
Wednesday was my first day in the schools.  I am in a private school first called Tomas Moro.  It is a good distance away from my house, so I take the school bus in the morning (the stop is right across the road from my house) and then mine or James´s (another guy in the George Fox program) host parent will pick us up at noon.  It´s been interesting so far.  For the most part the teachers move classrooms, not the students.  I´ve been mostly involved in the English classes, but I´ve also been involved in a Science class (which was also taught in English) and a Spanish class (where the kids were working on learning their Spanish).  I´ve observed many things that are different than in the US.  The teachers at this school wear more casual clothes than most teachers in the US and the relationship between them and their teachers is less formal.  In the states the teachers are most always Miss or Mr. something or Professor or Dr. something.  Here, it´s often a first name basis.  The kids are so cute and I love interacting with them.  I´ll be in this school for 5 days (so I have 3 more left) then I´ll be at another private school called LeTort which is fairly close to Tomas Moro. 
Wednesday night a bunch of us went to a cultural dance performace type thing called Jacchigua.  It was really interesting, but we were all so tired, it was hard to stay awake despite how interesting it was. 

The food here is very good.  So far, most lunches at my host house consist of a soup (usually a vegetable soup of sorts, but not like the veggie soups you might think of in the US, they´re a little different), then a meat such as chicken, pork, or fish along with some sort of veggie platter and also with rice.  Some days we will have dessert as well, such as gellatin or something.  Oh, and at my house, at lunch we have a freshly squeezed juice.  So far, I´ve had orange juice, papaya mixed with orange juice, kiwi juice, and mango juice all freshly squeezed.  They are so good, I don´t know how I´m going to go back to the processed and bottled juices in the states. 

Estoy en Ecuador!

As many of you know, through the George Fox Master´s for teaching program we are required to teach in a diverse population.  For mine, I chose the option to go to Ecuador for three weeks to teach in a Spanish classroom.  I left the states just yesterday at the bright early hour of 6:20am.  That meant that I had to be at the airport by around 4am, which in turn meant leaving my house around 2am.  I did not sleep as I thought it rather pointless to sleep for like 2 hours, I figured I´d just sleep on the plane.  ((I´m going to say now that the keyboard here is different slightly than the American one, so if there´s a typo or some wierd symbol, that´s why)).  I go to Quito, Ecuador at about 9:30pm.  They are two hours ahead of Oregon so that means it was about 7:30 Oregon time.  I was met there by my host family and went home with them.  My family is a husband and wife and one older daughter who still lives at home.  I have my own room which even has it´s own bathroom!!  I didn´t expect that so it was a nice surprise.  Quito is a beautiful city and I look forward to seeing more of it while here.  Today for lunch the housekeeper placed down a large bowl of soup on my plate.  It was very very good and I was thinking "wow, for people saying how much they feed you around here, this is a pretty normal amount of food".  Well, turns out that was just the appetizer.....haha, there was a plate of a veggie salad and pork and rice still to come.  I was so full, I'm glad I was gone for dinner so I didn´t have to eat more food.  Tonight we went to the old historical part of Quito and went on a short walking tour.  Unfortunately, I don´t have a way to post pics until I get back home, but they will come eventually.  So far it´s been a good experience, and I just found out I passed my ORELA that I took back in April (for those who don´t know that´s a huge test that teachers have to take and pass in Oregon to be able to teach).  Hopefully there´ll be many more posts to come.

Phew!

I finally finished everything with my grad school application. Yay!  I feel like a huge weight has been lifted.  For the past two weeks I've been scrambling to finish and perfect my resume, the essay, and the application and to get all the materials together to send off.  And now after all that stressing, it's now officially out of my hands.  It's such a relief on one hand, but on the other hand it's nervewracking.  All I can do now is wait in anticipation and hope that I get accepted.

After the stress of recent and irritations and such, I decided to just get off campus and take a me day.  I went to my second home aka Barnes and Noble and was there for about 5 1/2 hours.  It was bliss. I studied, and read C.S. Lewis, listened to music...During the time I was there, there was these two people sitting at the two tables next to me who started conversing about beliefs and God and the Bible.  So I paused my ipod, but kept my headphones in so I could discreetly listen.  The man said that he was an anti-theist, not an atheist, an anti-theist.  He had some really interesting arguments, several of which I'd never heard before.  He cited specific scripture verses several times too, and I looked them up as he talked about them and some of them he was just taking completely out of context, but others had me thinking "what Bible did he read?"  It was really interesting.  There were several times I wanted to interject, but I was not sure enough of my knowledge to do that.  I hate that.  I want to be confident enough in my faith to be able to talk to people openly about it.  However, even if I would have been confident in this situation, the man seemed very set in his ways and not open to suggestion or in changing his viewpoints.  As he brought up new arguments and sub-points for each argument, I opened a word document and began typing out his conversation (unbeknownst to him of course).  Now I can take his arguments and study them and turn to the Bible so that next time I can perhaps feel more confident speaking about my faith.

I've been so busy lately that my priorities have gotten a little skewed.  I've pushed God to the sidelines and said "I'll get to Him when I have time."  I've really been working on changing this lately.  I'm beginning to feel distance from God and it's my fault and I don't like it.  I've started up daily time with God again, but half the time I don't know where to start.  I know that may sound silly, but that's how I feel.

We serve an awesome God!

I was recently going through old sermon notes and I found a quote my pastor made saying "God can grow roses out of life's manure." I really like how this quote is put. No matter how stinky and yucky life gets, God can make something as beautiful as a rose come from it. God can work even through our sin to fulfill his will. Wow, what an AWESOME God we serve!

Note to self: God loves me for me

So, I have decided I am going to try to keep up with my blog. Writing provides a release for feelings, thoughts and struggles that I’ve been holding inside. So here goes for my first post in like forever! Haha.

Lately I’ve really been struggling with constantly putting myself down. Nothing I do is good enough for me, everyone else is better than me. I find myself constantly comparing myself to those around me and in my mind I am always falling short. I am full of insecurities about who I am. For example, I love playing the piano, it's my way to relax and melt away my stress. But lately, I hear others playing and all I can think about is how much better they are then me and that causes me to analyze and criticize my own playing which does not make it very relaxing. I came across this quote the other day and the words ring true to me right now, but at the same time, they haven’t quite stuck yet. "Don't rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can't love and respect yourself - no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are - completely; the good and the bad - and make changes as you see fit - not because you think someone else wants you to be different."

That last part of the quote is precisely my problem recently. I don’t accept who I am. I feel like I don’t measure up and that if I truly let go and be myself around people that they won’t accept me for me. I want so badly to be accepted and loved that a lot of the time I try to change who I am. It’s okay to change things about yourself, but not if the only reason is because you think someone else will like you better for it. Somehow I need to ingrain this into my head. I know I’m probably not the only one that that struggles with this, but sometimes it sure feels like it. I look around at all these beautiful girls who appear confident and appear to have it all together and then I see me and practically see the opposite. I just feel awkward all the time and I think what is wrong with me? 

I feel horrible for feeling this way, I feel like it’s a slap in the face of God because He made me who I am and God does not make mistakes. Psalm 139:14 "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well." I need to be looking ultimately to God for this love and acceptance I desire because only He can give that unconditional love and no matter how I act or how much I mess up, He still loves and accepts me for me. And this is comforting to know that even if everyone hated me (which isn’t true, but if it was) God would still be there with open arms waiting for me to run in. This is just something that God is continually working with me on.

It's been a year...

Last year at this time I was preparing to go to Australia and anxiously awaiting the day of departure. Now I am back at Simpson. It's been an interesting adjusting period. Everyone asks about Australia and it's a challenge to know what to tell them. How long of an answer do they want? I want to tell them all my stories, but at the same time I don't want to bore them and for most of the stories they would be meaningless to those who weren't there when they were actually happening. The more time goes on the more I realize that while I was in Australia, though I was having the time of my life, I was also constantly thinking of people back home missing them, but now that I'm back home I constantly think about the people who I was with in Australia and wishing I could go back with those people and about how many more things I could have done while in Australia. Why is it so hard to just live in the present where I'm at and enjoy the here and now rather than always dwelling on the past and wishing I could go back to it?

Though only in Australia for four short months, it definitely did take some adjusting coming back to the states. Even just little things, but things like remembering which side of the car to get in and not freaking out when it looks like no one's driving....lol. Things like having to go to class three times a week instead of once a week, not being able to just catch a bus/train or ferry to go on random cool adventures with friends or by myself, not being able to simply go to the beach to do homework whenever I feel like it and things like not going out and doing stuff with friends almost every day and night.

I recently joined a program with a group at Simpson where we read through the Bible in 90 days. We read about 12 pages a day and then once a week we all meet for discussion and there's a video we watch with a speaker. This along with resources to help us makes it so it's not simply reading through the Bible but helping us engage in it as well. I have only just started but I am super excited to see where God takes me on this journey. Some people might ask why you would want to read the whole Bible and my answer is that I want to know the Bible in it's entirety, to be more familiar with it and I hope it will draw me closer to my Savior Jesus Christ. Also, when people in my life ask me a question about Jesus or the Bible I want to be able to better answer the question and better direct them on where to look in Scriptures. While in Australia, I had a couple instances where someone on the street in passing heard our American accents and started talking with us. We mentioned that we went to Westley University which led to talking about how we are Christians. One instance in particular, a woman began telling us her story and asking lots of questions and I found myself unsure of how to best answer. Thankfully my friend with me answered with specific verse in the Bible and other knowledge about Jesus that comes from a closer relationship with Him and from knowing His word. This instance really encouraged me to strive to learn more and more so I can better answer questions that are thrown at me.

I hope to continue to update this blog as the semester continues, but we'll see how busy I get.

New Zealand

Once again, I apologize for the delay of this post and it is kinda long overdue, but I still want to post it.

Sunday June 14th all of us ASCers met outside of Wesley ready to set off on a new adventure, but sad to leave the life we'd made the last four months in Australia. It was hard saying goodbye, especially since I knew that the odds of seeing them again are pretty slim.

We arrived in Aukland, New Zealand after an uneventful 3ish hour flight. There was rolling green hills everywhere!! It was so BEAUTIFUL! All the green and hills made me realize how much I had missed home. After collecting all our bags and getting through customs (thankfully there weren't too many snags at customs, just a few minor ones) we were off to the YHA we were staying at for the night.

Monday, June 15th we headed to a town called Whakatani (pronouned Fahkahtahnee) which was a few hour bus ride away. There we stayed at a Maori (the native people of New Zealand) village. The Maori have a sacred house (like our church) that they call a Marae. This is the building we slept in, they had mattresses laid out in rows on the floor, boys on one side, girls on the other (for the most part anyway). Interacting with this Maori family was a lot of fun, I learned alot about their culture and it was very interesting.

Tuesday we began the journey back to Aukland, but stopped in Rotorua for the night. We stopped at another Maori village where in one of their churches they have a famous window with an etching of Jesus that's pretty neat. Jesus is etched into the window, but when you look at it you see him against the view outside the window and if you look at the right angle it looks like he's walking on water. We also went to a Maori cultural show where we got to experience a traditional hangi meal, and some traditional Maori ceremonies. The thermal resort we stayed at in Rotorua had a natural hot springs hot tub that was a lot of fun, though it smelled like rotten eggs because of the sulfur.

Wednesday we completed our journey back to Aukland. On the drive back we stopped in Hobbiton, the town where some of Lord of the Rings was filmed. However, to get technical, the movie was filmed on a farm just outside of Hobbiton, and you have to pay lots of money to go out to that farm, but the town is now called Hobbiton. We also stopped at a place called Te Puia where we saw a geyser and lots of other natural thermal areas. We stayed the night in the same hostel in Aukland we stayed in the first night.

Thursaday we went to a place called Laidlaw Mountain where we were going to hike up and look at some ruins of a city, however, I had been having issues with my foot (shoes with bad support and it had been hurting pretty bad) so Kimberly (the ASC director) had me stay behind in the bus. I had a nice long chat with the bus driver though, I got to hear all kinds of stories about trips he'd been on, groups he'd had in the bus, etc.

Friday was our free day, we could do anything we wanted to. I started out shopping a bit with some of the group, but we got split up so I went off by myself to explore Aukland more. I had a map and found several parks around and began to head towards one. I walked to several different ones before I found one that was what I wanted.....peaceful, off the beaten track, and with good places to sit. I found a nice tree, climbed up in it and jornaled and just sat and relaxed for quite a while.

Saturday we again packed up all our stuff and returned to Aukland airport. These goodbyes were even harder than Australia because we had to say goodbye to Kimberly, Melanie, and Matt and we said our goodbyes to each other there too in case we didn't get a chance in the confusion at LAX. I pretty much bawled my eyes out.....yep that sums it up. The flight back was super long, even though it was only 12 hours (which was 2 hours shorter than our flight to Australia) it felt like an eternity. I didn't sleep at all and I was boxed in by sleeping elderly people. I watched 5 1/2 movies. This was the day I got to live twice. We left the Aukland airport at around 3pm on Saturday, June 20th, were on a plane for 12hours, then arrived in LAX at around 7am Saturday, June 20th. Weird. A bunch of us went to Chantel's house from the airport for something to do during our layovers. Her mom made us breakfast, it was amazing, though we all fell asleep all over her living room floor. I however, didn't go back to the airport. My aunt and uncle, who live nearby, picked me up.

I spent a few days with my aunt and uncle and got to see my cousins and their new baby and got to hang out with my other cousin. Then on Tuesday, June 23rd, they drove me to the Long Beach airport and I flew home. And that ends the most amazing 4 month journey ever!