Week 2

So, I did not keep a journal this week as well.  However so many awesome things happened that it is still fresh in my mind!  So I suppose this will serve as my journal for the first two weeks and maybe more to come.  Anyways the first five days were spent in my orientation city and my last two days in my city of assignment.  I shall detail my adventures both these periods.

For the first five days, I've learned a lot from my deaf mentor.  I learned how to craft stories in sign language.  This is a long process spanning a few days (one hour each day) and involves a lot of pictures and coloring.  This was my favorite part of the last week in my orientation city.  I also met a deaf person and learned a few south asian signs!  Pretty cool.  I was commissioned before I left for my city of assignment by my mentor and a journey girl and a few other friends who know sign language.  I arrived in my city of assignment on Friday.

I finally met my supervisors when I landed in my city of assignment.  They were ecstatic to see me!  I didn't really do much this first day except settle in my supervisors' apartment.  The next day I got to meet some other workers at a farewell party of theirs.  I also got my first bills of my city's currency.  Yay, I'm rich!  I also visited a place where only Americans can visit.  An American club of sorts.  There I got to swim and eat American food finally!  A good day overall.

This next day, today, was the most interesting of all.  Today I got a SIM card for my phone to use here, resulting in me getting a south asian number of 11 digits.  Hmm, interesting.  And I found an apartment for me to live in, on the SECOND full day I've been here!  Father moves fast!  This was a cool and funny story that displays His grace and power.

We visited one sector, but I didn't feel pulled to this sector by Father at all.  So we went to another sector, and it was this one!  I felt Him telling me it was this area I was supposed to live in.  The first apartment I felt strong about, and yet it wasn't the right one.  So we went further along down the road to another apartment.  This one was cheaper and saved me a significant amount of money to use to furnish this apartment.  However, I was hesitant to accept this apartment because I wouldn't sign it until tomorrow and the landlord wanted a deposit to hold it and not show it to anyone.  If it wasn't the right one, I would have wasted money.  However I felt Father telling me to say yes to the apartment, so I said yes.  Soon after the fact, a man came into the apartment looking for his brother.  And it turned out that his brother is deaf!  And so is the brother's wife!  Meaning two deaf people live in the apartment I will move into!  Father is so good to me.  It's really amazing how fast His plan for me here is moving.

Please lift me up while I am here to reach out to those two deaf people and the four that are close to accepting JC as well.  Thank you all for keeping me in your thoughts and petitions.  Bless you all.

First Week

So, this first week I will not have much to say.  And for that, I apologize.  I did not keep a journal of my first week.  However, I will start keeping a journal of my weeks to come.  I'm planning on publishing one post a week.  We'll see how that goes!  Now on to my first week.

For security reasons, I will NEVER be able to tell you all where I am.  So don't ask.  Anyways, I landed in my training city and met my Hands On coordinator.  No fear, I am not alone.  I landed with 8 others.  I landed there at midnight, and my first night there was interesting.  The Hands On coordinator met us, then left us on our own with instructions on how to get to our hotel via taxi.  Very anxious time for me as I was left alone with two others who were as novice as I was in our new city.  We arrived at our hotel safely though.  There, we took a tour of the hotel and got a good night's rest.

Now, I won't bore you with the details, but the whole week we just trained for health, security and how to have an effective impact on the people we are responsible for in our city of assignment after this training session.  The training session is over now.  Each night we went exploring in our city.

The overabundance of idols and gods overwhelmed me.  I entered multiple temples over the course of the week.  It is a very dark place and many lost need the light.  So petition our Father for the lost to reach and know the light.  Alright, now that the business is over, on to the humor.  I've experienced culture shock and will describe each one.

Steering wheels are on the other side of the car.  Auto rickshaws. Rickshaws.  Electrical outlets have to be turned on.  Drive on the left side of the road.  Eastern style bathroom.  Spicy food.  Light switch goes up for off and down for on.  Elevator doors have to be opened manually and closed manually.  Shoes off when entering houses.  Crowded metro.  No lanes in roads.  Never touch anything with left hand.  Everything's finger food with right hand (even soupy, liquid stuff), A LOT of beggars.

I'm sure there's more, but again, I did not journal my first week so I've forgotten a lot.  So my request to you all is to petition the Father for a safe trip to my city of assignment.  I will be leaving the 26th.  Until then, this week I will be learning how to reach out to the Deaf more effectively.  Cheers to you all and may JC and the Father rain down blessings upon you all!