I paid off the rest of my SM account on Thursday! It feels good to have that done. Almost everything is ready, I have my plane ticket, my money is in, my visa is in the works. I'm excited.
Thank you so much for donating to allow me to go. I wouldn't be able to go without you! :)
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Me? An Sm? I don't think so...
I never planned on being a student missionary. I just never saw myself going off alone for a year. Sure I would have gone with friends if they had asked, but that just never happened. That was why it was such a surprise to me when I found myself in Jeanne's (the WWU SM Coordinator) office early last school year.
At the beginning of this year I was introduced to a couple girls that would change my life. There were three of them, Chelsea, Rychelle, and Amy and they were all planning on going to Palau as SM's together. I got pretty close to them... and they ended up saying that it would be cool if I went to Palau with them! Going off as an SM with two friends, and one girlfriend :), sounded great! I had been invited, and so the paperwork started.
It got down to the wire, it was the last quarter of the school year and I had finally been accepted to go to Palau. By this time Amy had dropped out of the running, and Rychelle had decided she wanted to be a math teacher on Yapp. Chelsea and I were excited and ready to go, until one day we were called into Jeanne's office. She asked us if we were dating, which we were, and told us that dating couples couldn't really go on a call together. It would be too stressful, and the culture of Palau doesn't really work with our concept of dating, even conservatively. This was a hard blow to me and to Chelsea since that meant that one of us would have to switch calls. Palau had been her idea and her dream so I decided to switch.
I put my name in for a lot of different calls, boys dean, ESL calls, everything. Through bad timing and multiple delays it took a long time for me to here anything about the calls, but one by one they were filling up. I was worried that I was too late, until one night almost ten months after I originally visited Jeanne, I got an email saying I was accepted to teach English at Rigel Elementary School in Zaragoza Spain.
I danced and cheered that I was finally accepted and then started the information battle. Almost as soon as she emailed me to say I was accepted, Ana Lugo, my contact in Spain, went on her summer vacation. I don't blame her for taking vacation, but it was frustrating to not hear anything about the call. I am receiving information now however and all is well.
The cool thing about this story to me is how God took me step by step and led me here. He pushed at my comfort zones and slowly moved me further away from my original ideas. Over the course of the school year He used an amazing girl and a lot of disappointments to get me to here; Where I feel is exactly where he wants me to be.
I'm so excited to go and see what is in store for me in Spain. I'll be sure to let you all know what's going on. :)
At the beginning of this year I was introduced to a couple girls that would change my life. There were three of them, Chelsea, Rychelle, and Amy and they were all planning on going to Palau as SM's together. I got pretty close to them... and they ended up saying that it would be cool if I went to Palau with them! Going off as an SM with two friends, and one girlfriend :), sounded great! I had been invited, and so the paperwork started.
It got down to the wire, it was the last quarter of the school year and I had finally been accepted to go to Palau. By this time Amy had dropped out of the running, and Rychelle had decided she wanted to be a math teacher on Yapp. Chelsea and I were excited and ready to go, until one day we were called into Jeanne's office. She asked us if we were dating, which we were, and told us that dating couples couldn't really go on a call together. It would be too stressful, and the culture of Palau doesn't really work with our concept of dating, even conservatively. This was a hard blow to me and to Chelsea since that meant that one of us would have to switch calls. Palau had been her idea and her dream so I decided to switch.
I put my name in for a lot of different calls, boys dean, ESL calls, everything. Through bad timing and multiple delays it took a long time for me to here anything about the calls, but one by one they were filling up. I was worried that I was too late, until one night almost ten months after I originally visited Jeanne, I got an email saying I was accepted to teach English at Rigel Elementary School in Zaragoza Spain.
I danced and cheered that I was finally accepted and then started the information battle. Almost as soon as she emailed me to say I was accepted, Ana Lugo, my contact in Spain, went on her summer vacation. I don't blame her for taking vacation, but it was frustrating to not hear anything about the call. I am receiving information now however and all is well.
The cool thing about this story to me is how God took me step by step and led me here. He pushed at my comfort zones and slowly moved me further away from my original ideas. Over the course of the school year He used an amazing girl and a lot of disappointments to get me to here; Where I feel is exactly where he wants me to be.
I'm so excited to go and see what is in store for me in Spain. I'll be sure to let you all know what's going on. :)
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Waiting...
I'm sitting at home, on my bed. It's hot and the dog is whining. I have to wake up at six a.m. tomorrow and stack heavy boards all day. I'm done with this summer. I just want it to be September 16 so that I am done with work and can start focusing on getting ready to fly out. I am tired of waiting.
I finally got some information about my call today. Ana Lugo my contact in Spain emailed me with a list of school vacations and other useful information. I found out that I'll be staying with a family that lives close to the school. I found out that she will be there to pick me up when I arrive in Madrid! However the most interesting thing I found out is that I will not be the sole English teacher as I had thought. It seems that I will be a teachers assistant. From what Ana said I think that I will be helping the English teacher most of the time, but also be available to fill in for any other teacher that needs a day off. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Although I was looking forward to my own classroom and trying to figure out how to teach all on my own, it's probably for the best that I have someone who knows what they are doing to help me. After all I don't want to mess up and ruin these kids or something. :)
I doubt I'll update this blog much at all until my leave date nears but I wanted to get it set up ahead of time.
I'll see you then!
I finally got some information about my call today. Ana Lugo my contact in Spain emailed me with a list of school vacations and other useful information. I found out that I'll be staying with a family that lives close to the school. I found out that she will be there to pick me up when I arrive in Madrid! However the most interesting thing I found out is that I will not be the sole English teacher as I had thought. It seems that I will be a teachers assistant. From what Ana said I think that I will be helping the English teacher most of the time, but also be available to fill in for any other teacher that needs a day off. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Although I was looking forward to my own classroom and trying to figure out how to teach all on my own, it's probably for the best that I have someone who knows what they are doing to help me. After all I don't want to mess up and ruin these kids or something. :)
I doubt I'll update this blog much at all until my leave date nears but I wanted to get it set up ahead of time.
I'll see you then!
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