Lions, Tigers, and Bears, Oh My!

Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! It’s been a while, but J wanted to let everyone know how her Christmas went. Obviously, since this was her first Christmas away from home, this Christmas was a little different than any before. J invited a group of people come over to her house and eat dinner together to celebrate, and she said it was so much fun! She cooked chicken and rice with cream of chicken soup for everyone, and her new neighbors brought side dishes to go along with her food. She said everyone had a great time eating together, reading the Christmas story, and opening presents from each other. And, since J’s packages from home haven’t arrived yet, her neighbors brought some Christmas presents for her to open as well. Since they’ve been here, she has become really close to them and they knew just what she would want! She said her neighbors know how much she loves Disney and Disney princesses, so they got her some really cute little Disney-themed gifts. She was really excited about that and their thoughtfulness!




Even though it was her first Christmas away from her parents and family, J said that she was able to have a really good time making new traditions and getting to better know some of the people she’s met so far. She was also able to Skype with her parents and family on Christmas Eve for a while, so that helped as well.




Aside from celebrating Christmas and making new traditions, J had the chance to visit a nearby zoo recently. She said it was extremely different from zoos back home! For instance, instead of the animals being in cages and separated from people visiting the zoo, J said that the animals are able to walk right up to visitors’ cars—even the lions and tigers. Obviously, people keep their windows closed and are not allowed to feed the lions, but because there aren’t as many safety standards, there aren’t fences separating the animals. J got the chance to take a picture with an orangutan and hug a lion! She said that it was one of the best experiences she’s had, but she said the best part of the trip to the zoo was when she got the chance to take a ride on an elephant. She said it was an awesome experience and completely different from any zoo experience back at home!




That’s all for this blog entry, but please continue to keep J and the people she comes in contact with at the English Center in your thoughts as she continues to get more acclimated to her city. She said she is becoming really comfortable and at home there and can hardly believe that she’s been there for as long as she has. She hopes everyone had a good Christmas and has a happy New Year!

Thanksgiving and Birthdays

Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving! I talked to J this week and she told me all about her Thanksgiving and her birthday. She was able to spend Thanksgiving with her supervisor and her supervisor’s family this year, and she said she had a really, really great time. She thought it was
going to be a tough holiday away from family, but J said she was surprised because she had a really good Thanksgiving this year. She’s really looking forward to Christmas a lot more now!

J said her birthday didn’t go as nicely as Thanksgiving did because she was sick again. Be keeping her in your thoughts the next few weeks as she continues to adjust to her new city since this was the fourth time she has been sick in the short time she has lived there. However, J did say that
once she was able to celebrate her birthday, she had fun going out to dinner and letting the rest of her team make her into a cake! She said that it’s a tradition to dump traditional cake ingredients (as in raw eggs and flower!) onto the person having the birthday. J said there will be pictures posted soon!

J’s English class end this week; the classes only run for about three weeks and this one is finishing up already! She’s really enjoyed teaching and getting to know some of the people who come to the English Center. She starts up a new class pretty soon. Also, her language classes are going well—she is a lot more encouraged about them than she was when they first started, and she said that she’s starting to learn how to converse in the new language she is learning. She said that it is much easier to learn when she gets to converse in it rather than simply learning vocabulary words.

Other than Thanksgiving and getting to go to a nearby movie theater and see the new Twilight
movie, J said that she had a pretty routine week. However, she did want to tell you all that she really, really enjoyed watching the Carolina/Clemson football game over Thanksgiving weekend and “Go Gamecocks!”

New Pets, New Languages, and New Neighbors

Hello everyone! J has now been in her new city for about a month now and she really seems to be getting settled in her house and work. In fact, this week she felt like it was time to buy her first pet. It’s called a “kus kus” and J named it Gus Gus—as in the chubby little mouse in the Disney Cinderella movie. He is nocturnal, so he sleeps a lot during the day, but she seemed to be pretty excited about her new pet.

Aside from getting a new pet, J also said that a couple weekends ago, group of people from her team went out to dinner in the mountains. She said the weather was pretty bad and the team almost got to see a tornado start in the clouds. J said that before the tornado could completely form, the wind blew some of the clouds away, but J did say that they could see debris flying around before the wind picked up.

Other than getting a new pet and almost seeing a tornado, J said that she had a pretty normal week. She finished her second week of teaching her class. On top of teaching her class this past week, she also was teaching her roommate’s class because her roommate has been out of town. This week, she will be back to teaching just one class. J said that her class consists of about twelve students, and they meet for class two times a week. During the class, the students learn vocabulary words and then try to each come up with sentences in English using those vocabulary words and other words they’ve learned. Then, they usually will play a game that requires using the new words that they have learned. J said that she usually ends the class with discussion, where the students can talk to each other about different things in English to practice what they’ve learned.

During the days she isn’t teaching her class, J is taking her own language lessons with a tutor.
She meets once a week with the tutor for about two to three hours, and she says that it’s been really challenging so far. This past weekend, she also went to a performance at a nearby art school that was put on by the kids in the school. The performance consisted of different things such as puppet skits and traditional music and dancing, all performed by the kids. J said the performances happen on a regular basis, so she plans to try to go and watch each time they perform—especially because she forgot to bring her camera with her to the first one! J said that she and her roommate have new neighbors that moved in recently next door, and they have a couple of young kids that she has been asked to babysit a couple of times. She was pretty excited about this because they like watching Disney movies, and she’s found someone to watch them with her!

One more thing: This week is J’s birthday, so everyone should make sure to tell her happy birthday! She said that her team went out to dinner to celebrate and also made her into a cake. Yes, made HER into a cake. Apparently, it’s a tradition—but there will be pictures soon!

Firsts

Hello everyone! This week included several firsts for J and she really wanted to share them with you. This past weekend, like I mentioned in the last post, J went with a friend to a ceremony called “Idu Adha.” Basically, Idu Adha is a ceremony remembering Abraham, but with an emphasis on Ishmael instead of Isaac. One family brings a goat or a cow that will be the sacrifice, and the ritual includes bleeding out the animal as much as possible. They do this because they believe that the more blood that is spilled, the more sins that are forgiven. J said that it was not fun to watch because they let the goat or cow stay alive (so that it was kicking around) as long as possible so that more blood will spill out. After, the people hang up the animal and skin it. The family that brought the goat or cow gets some of the meat from the animal, and the rest of the meat is given to the poor after the family gets their share.

J said that the ceremony was really interesting and she was able to have some good conversations both with her friend and with some other people at the ceremony. The biggest thing that came out of her going to the ceremony was that she was able to share a little bit with another person that was also at the ceremony. J asked that everyone keep the friend that invited her to the ceremony in their thoughts.

Aside from getting to attend the Idu Adha this past weekend, another first for J was that she started teaching her first English class on Tuesday. Up to this point, she has been just getting to know the people who visit the center on a regular basis while she gets acclimated and so that the people will be comfortable with her. She was really looking forward to starting to teach her own group of students.

Aside from teaching at the center, J is getting used to being in her house by herself for the first time since she’s been in her city. Her roommate is gone for a little while, so J is on her own until her roommate comes home. She didn’t seem too upset about it, but she does currently have the company of some workers who are currently fixing the roof of the house close by hers. So, everything isn’t as quiet as she thought it would be while her roommate is gone!

Thank you all again for taking the time to see what J is up to in her city; she seems to be settling in really well and is glad she can share what she’s doing with her friends. Keep her in your thoughts this coming week!

Getting Settled

Thank you all for keeping J in your thoughts! She really appreciates it, especially this past week, as she had some pretty interesting things happen. First of all, she caught a virus and has been sick again the past week, but she’s feeling better now and is able to still go to the English Center to meet with the people who come. She said it’s been very rainy this past week, so business is slow at the center. However, she said that is a blessing because it allows the group she works with to have more intimate and longer conversations with people who have come to the center this week. This has been an especially good thing because this week, J was able to share for the first time with someone who came to the center! She said that it was a really good conversation and she is really excited that she was able to have the opportunity to share with someone so soon.

Besides her time at the center, J has been able to spend time with other people who work at the center. The group had a Halloween party a few days ago and—of course—J went as Minnie Mouse. She said there will be pictures for everyone to see very soon! She also was invited to the wedding of some people that she has met in her city. The wedding will be over Christmas, and because her team does not do anything special for Christmas, she is looking forward to spending some time with this family and helping them celebrate their wedding. They are pretty lucky, inviting her to the wedding and getting a photographer at the same time!

One of the best experiences J said she has had this week was when her group went out to dinner in the valley a few days ago. The man who drove them all to the restaurant is from the city and through conversation, J found out that he is a brother and is very bold. Even though his family disagrees with his views, he told J and her group he was able to share with his mother recently and she accepted as well. It was a huge encouragement for J, not only to meet him, but also to hear about his boldness.

Lastly, J wanted to let you all know that she and her roommate have a friend that is very closed to talking about different ideas, but they have been getting closer to her and J thinks they will have more opportunities to talk with the friend and she will be more receptive in the future. This weekend, J is going with this friend to a sacrifice ceremony remembering Abraham called ‘Idu Adha.’ The friend invited J to go with her to this ceremony, so J is excited about the opportunity to spend time with her and have another opportunity to talk with her about things that the friend has been previously been closed to.

Thank you all for keeping J in your thoughts and taking the time to see how she is doing on here. Next week, J is going to let everyone know how the sacrificial ceremony went (and maybe share some pictures!) and tell everyone about something neat she is going to get to do for the first time in a few days.

Hello friends! Welcome to The Harvest Field blog! There will be (hopefully!) regular posts from now on about what J is doing in her new job so that you all can keep up with her and know
what is going on in her life! First things first, J arrived safely to her new city; she had absolutely NO issues or delays on any of her flights. This is a huge praise because she said that this trip was the very first time that she hasn’t had an issue flying with luggage, etc. She and her roommate are getting along great—they keep getting mistaken for sisters wherever they are! Her first night in her new city she got to sing karaoke with the team and just get to know everyone that she will be working with. However, she said that she doesn’t remember a lot of that night because she was so tired! Totally understandable…

Since arriving, she’s had some pretty interesting adventures. On the ‘good adventure’ side, she had her first motorcycle ride. She said it was a blast! On the ‘not so great adventure’ side,
she got sick for the first time since arriving…with food poisoning. Thankfully, she was only sick for a couple of days and is feeling much, much better. She also experienced her first bit of culture
shock her first week. In short, she and some of her team went to a market to buy some things and the market was very large, full of people, and there were many decisions that she was going to have to make to figure out what she needed to buy. She said that it was completely different than home as far as the amount of little decisions to make in such a huge place. While it was a hard
experience for her, J said that she was thankful to have gotten through it so that it won’t bother her as much in the future. On a lighter note, she also said that she was able to teach four people she’s met so far how to use “y’all”, and all four of these people are now using the saying regularly.

Aside from the adventures that she’s been having in her new city, J has also been getting used to her new job as a teacher at the English Center. Her first week, she has been getting to
know the people who come to the center to learn. She’s been able to have lots of conversations
with the people and tell them a little bit about herself before she starts actually teaching classes. She said that the experience has been good so far and that she is really surprised and happy that the people are really open and receptive to having conversations about lots of different things with her. One of the highlights of her week was that she got to have a great conversation
with some people at the center about evolution versus creation, and they were all really open and receptive to different ideas. She was really excited about that and also really excited that she got to use her major and talk science with the people at the center!

As J begins teaching more at the center, she will be keeping everyone up to date on here, so please keep checking this blog regularly to see what she is up to during her time in this city! She is really thankful that she gets to let everyone know how she is doing on here and that you all are thinking about her and taking the time to keep up with what she is doing.

What the Harvest means to me

I wrote this a few weeks ago and I thought what better way to start this blog off then what the title actually means and what the Harvest really means to me!

I was reevaluating the Harvest and realized that this has been my prayer for this nation and these people. I originally would have assumed that being so close to an active volcano that there would be not much of a harvest field for the people; however, it turns out that because they are on a volcano they have an even greater harvest. This is my prayer that these people being among, what is said to be, the hardest Harvesting lands for His work. I know that it will be tough but as I pray this over these people will you join me in lifting them up!! (Hope you enjoy the post!)

    As I think about the harvest it says, in the Word "Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few'" -Matt 9:37 if the harvest is plentiful why do we say at times that there is no harvest? It is either one of two options 1. the harvest is not yet ripe and so we should be laborers and water the field then knock the dust off our feet and move to the next field (per God's calling) or 2. The harvest is very plentiful but our eyes are not the eyes of the Holy one and are hearts are not in one accord with the Harvester and right in front of us is a harvest ready for laborers to go and do the job that they were called to do!

So that leaves me and where I lie; no matter what we are called to go and tell. Why do I sometimes think that the harvest isn't plentiful? Why do I sometimes think that He isn't already working the fields? Why am I so prideful in thinking that I know better than what Jesus has already said? As Christian we are not called to be idle and wait for the coming! We are to "Go and make disciples of all the nations" -Matt 28:19. 

It still gets me that He said that the harvest was so plentiful and I still hear and think sometimes that there are just some people or that certain places are too dark, too hard of ground(hearts), etc... But our Lord Jesus Christ said we are to make disciples of all nations and in Revelation 5:9 it says that Jesus "ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation." So, I think that it is safe to assume that there is harvest everywhere and we are to sow and water wherever we can and if the harvest is ripe baptize and see the Gospel spread!