it is finished
- Posted by under Life at Bethel , Travel , Work
- Wednesday April 30th, 2008
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I don’t think it’s officially set in yet that I’m all done with college. Of course, I still have to walk across the stage in a ridiculous cap and gown and get my diploma, but that’s all that’s left of college for me. WEIRD! 6 months ago (or even 3) I don’t think that I would have said I’m ready to graduate, but I think I’m getting there. Right now it’s a really weird mix of feelings for me. I’m going to be really sad to say good-bye to all my friends, knowing that we’ll be living in many different states and won’t see each other as often as we did during college. There’s just nothing like having all your friends within walking (or screaming) distance. 
But, as far as classes, etc go, I’m ready to be done with college. Practicum helped me a lot to be able to picture myself in the “real world” and get excited to have a real job, etc. It’s still a very scary thing, but having had that experience, I think it would be hard for me to go back to sitting in a classroom all day. The rest of my learning will have to take place on-site in the real world
I’ve spent the last week hanging out at Bethel off and on, being with my family, throwing a bridal shower for one of my engaged roommates, figuring out financial aid stuff (gross!) and catching up with friends. It’s been really fun to be back, but I think part of my mind is still in Oklahoma. It’s weird to think that I’ve only been gone for a little more than a week, it feels like so much longer. I’m anxiously awaiting the results of the interpreting test I took in Oklahoma, but it’ll still be a few weeks.
I guess that’s all for now. I’ll end with a few pictures from my last day in Oklahoma. One is of me and my mom in front of the house church. The other is of me with Moses and Sadie
Have I mentioned how much I love the weather here! My weekends are usually pretty crazy, but last weekend I decided to spend as much time outside as I could. So Saturday I took 5 kids to the pool, and I definitely felt like a mom…this guy came up to me and was like “You are doing very nice work with your children.” I was like aaaaaaaaa yeah these are not my own, do I look old enough to have a 10 year old!!! haha…then Sunday a bunch of us went to Rayfield Dam for a picnic, and it was so beautiful. The water is amazing!! Even though some say its not safe, I didnt have any effects the last time, so I say GO FOR IT!!!! Its a lot cleaner then the pool water!! You can actually see you body under water!
Only 23 more school days and then I have to say goodbye to my babies!!! I am not looking forward to the last day of school AT ALL!!!!!!
My practicum is officially finished. It’s such a weird feeling to know that it’s finished. 10 weeks ago I was scared out of my mind to know what would happen during practicum and now as I am thinking about all that happened in the past few months I’m simply amazed at everything that has happened and every way that God has been moving.
In the last week of my practicum I decided to take the Oklahoma Interpreting screening test. My agency has been encouraging me to take it. The pay of the job offer depends on the level I get on the test. So, I went in on Wednesday to take the written portion of the test. I figured if nothing else I could come back during the summer to take the performance part or take it in august right when I get back (If i take the job). So….I took the test and felt great about it. After, when I was discussing the results of it with the administrator she explained that there was a 3 month waiting list to take the second part. Then she proceeds to say, “but…what are you doing Friday?” I was slightly thrown off by the fact that she was serious but after a few calls to the agency and a bit of rearranging the schedules, I was able to take the performance part of the test on Friday! I felt ok about it (not as great as the other part) but I won’t get the results for a few weeks 
Anyway….Now i’m in Kansas on the way back with my mom. She flew into Oklahoma city last night and we’re making the drive back on Tuesday. It’s been great to have her here and I think she really enjoyed meeting all the people in my life down here. She got to see people at the church I go to and look at the apartment that I might live in (at the church). The idea of moving to Oklahoma City is still really scary, but a lot of things seem to be falling into place so I guess I”m just going to keep moving towards it and see what happens. I’m assuming that if it isn’t what I”m supposed to do…I know that my God is big enough and great enough that He will put up huge road blocks to keep me from going a wrong direction.
The good news is….I’m graduating in: 2 weeks!!!!!! No more classes, no more homework, no more ramen noodles
Only 27 more school days left, how crazy is that!!!! This year has gone so fast, and I feel like we have done soooo much. Every day one of my kids asks me how many more days until they are 2nd graders, and when I tell them that start whining, cause they want to stay behind, its adorable. I wish that I could fail them all so I could have them another year, I am so in love!!!! I forgot to post the pictures of our ice cream adventures, so here they are. Plus there are the most adorable class pics we took today that are priceless!!!!!!
And finally we come to today. I think that is caught up with all the big events in the past few weeks, we have done some other stuff, like watching movies, and napping, but I don’t think you would find that too exciting. Today was different though; today was another big event. Early this morning we headed to New Day Foster Home, which is an orphanage on the out skirts of Beijing. I had many expectations for this place, and most of them were very low. I pictured it being one of those sad, dirty, places, where the kids stole for money and the head mistress was more like a warden or Miss Ratchet for that matter. (See I have been watching too many movies). But, I was pleasantly wrong. New Day was close to the cleanest and nicest place I have been to in all of China. The walls were painted and the floors were laminate wood. The babies rooms didn’t have bugs in them and they even had a playground and petting zoo in the back yard (lambs, bunnies, and babies, it doesn’t get much cuter! eck eck sorry for that it was a little much?!). All the kids there had some sort of medial illness, such as heart problems, or cleft lips, but they were all healthy thanks to New Day. They had a large amount of volunteer nannies and were super organized, I was very happy for the kids there, because they were being taken care of very well. We played with the little kids for a few hours, and I took pictures. It was different than anything we had done, yet and it felt like we were actually becoming submerged in the culture, plus playing with babies is just really fun.
Well that’s it, we come home in about a week, and it’s pretty crazy that it’s almost that time. But, I think I’m ready. I miss home and my friends, but I know I will also miss these places. I will probably write a couple more times but until then,
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013611&l=cba91&id=62401250
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013722&l=4b062&id=62401250
Thanks for reading,
Reed
Last week, we went to the Summer Palace. It is a Palace where the emperor would go in the summer. (Genius) It was the most beautiful day we had in China, the skies where clear, and the weather was warm. The Summer Palace is built around a lake and was a beautiful place to have a picnic, so we did; we had a picnic with KFC. After eating we walked around the park and up to the buildings themselves, they were very pretty and like the Terracotta Warriors are better explained through pictures, so take a look.
Almost there. This past Saturday a few of the girls, Brandon and I worked the morning at a center for migrant children. We had to wake up early to make the long taxi ride to get there at 9:00 in the morning, but it was worth it. This center was a beacon for this really poor community of people. The center had English classes, and homework help and also just served as a hangout for the many kids in the neighborhood. We sanded two large rooms that were going to become an addition for the center, so that they could reach more people. It was really neat working in the community, but I wished I could have done more. That whole area was really dirty and the kids were already living in a hazardous environment. I wished I could have helped out more, but I had to go back and work on a book report. Sometimes I think that the area study class we are taking should be involved in more actual area study versus book study, but hey that’s just me.
We had a while back at home/the apartment we are staying in. Time to work on homework and journal, so what that means is that we went shopping some more. We have three markets we go to the Pearl market, the Silk market, and the market where they only speak Chinese (Chinese Market, clever I know). They speak broken English at the Pearl and Silk because that is where most tourists go. Hannah, Chelsea, and I went to the Silk market the other day (I think it was March 31st if that matters). We were there for most of the day, because that’s what happens when you go to these kinds of markets. I have written about these before but it never gets old to me. Walking down the aisles we get the same calls and grabs.
“Hey you, look at meâ€
“I give you good price, we are friendsâ€
“Need shoes, look Jordans!â€
Even though we were at the market for the whole day I didn’t buy anything except at belt that said POLU. It was so funny I had to get it. Instead I spent the day watching Hannah and Chelsea spend all their money (Kuai, in Chinese), and talking to the merchants. In most cases, the merchants are young girls about my age 20-23, and after talking to them I learned that they work from 5: 00 in the morning until about 1:00 at night, it is a rough job of bargaining and arguing with people all day long. I felt sympathy for them, so I talked to them in the little Chinese I knew and joked around as they pulled on my arms for me to buy their posters and trinkets. They seemed happy, but also weary. I think they enjoyed a funny conversation as much as I did because all they were use to was people yelling at them for charging too much money for things (which wasn’t true, things here are INCREDIBLY cheap, and when you argue over prices, is mostly over a few dollars). It was a good day, with good friends. We had lots of laughs, because some times the merchants English is so funny.
One of the girls, started running her fingers through my hair, as I was waiting for Hannah to buy shoes. When I turned around, she asked me if it was real! It was really funny, laughing I said yeah, and she said cool, in a poor English accent. That was a good one, but if you don’t find it funny, I guess you had to be there.
Another time, when Hannah was looking for Chelsea she was walking around calling her name and one of the merchants started calling for Chelsea too. It was really funny.
Still another time, Hannah was walking past the booth were they sell dead bugs, and she screamed, then the person selling them screamed too. Hahaha J.
Even though I didn’t buy anything it was just a good day, getting to know the people who are very rarely regarded as real people, and also getting to know some good friends better. Probably one of my favorite days on this trip.
Xi’an is a southern city, pronounced she-ahn, and offered a change of scenery since we have been in Beijing the entire time. I liked it better than Beijing, it was smaller and seemed friendlier. The neat thing about Xi’an is that the inner part of the city is has a giant wall surrounding it. The ancient was has been there since the city was formed. There is still city surrounding the wall, because of expansion, but the inside is where the town center and historical things are. Xi’an was modern but it was also very historical.
We traveled to Xi’an because it is the home of the Terracotta Warriors. After rigorously discussing this, we didn’t know if it was an ancient wonder of the world, or maybe a man-made wonder, but we knew it had to be some wonder on some list. The Terracotta Warriors are the thousands of clay warriors found in the 70’s in the tomb of the first emperor of China. A small farming family first discovered them when they were digging their well, and now they tombs cover three huge arena-sized buildings. They have been well preserved and it was really cool to see the huge amount of them. The Terracotta Warriors are hard to explain, but I took pictures so that should clear some stuff up.
We spent the rest of our day at Xi’an shopping at markets and riding bikes around the wall. I took a lot of pictures; you should check them out.
The train ride back home, was not as bad, since I was much more tired. The beds were fatter too, that helped. O’ and I was on the second level as well, no squatters
It has been a while since we went, but 2 weeks ago Tuesday we took an overnight train to Xi’an. This was the first time I have ever taken a train over about 3 hours. I take the south shore line home whenever we get holidays at school, but it did nothing to prepare me for the Xi’an train. We left at about nine at night and were scheduled to arrive at about 8:45 in the morning. We paid for the upgrade because our group got beds. Some people had to sit for the entire ride; I think that would have been awful. I can’t even handle the uncomfortable seats for three hours on the southshore, let alone 11.
Anyway, our car was divided into rooms of six beds, three stacked on top of each other on one side and three more on the other. It was cramped, yeah, but I was kind of excited to see what would happen. They shut the lights out at 10:30! It was kind of a shock, because we were all pumped up for the train ride, but we had to go to sleep almost as soon as we got on. The beds were really skinny, like roll over once and you’re gone. Plus, they were extremely hard. I’m pretty sure it was just an exercise mat on a wood board. My bed at home is nice, it’s not a water bed, but I would say it’s pretty soft. Now as a side note, I have found that all beds in China (the ones I slept on) are slightly softer than the wood floor (which is filled with hepatitis, so they say), and I mean slightly, so I wasn’t really expecting much. I guess I have somewhat gotten use to it, but the skinny part was what killed me. I was on the bottom bunk, where everybody congregated to visit, even if you didn’t know him or her. The bottom bunk was classified as “community space†for everybody above it (and their friends). Luckily they scattered like moths as the lights turned off, and I prepared myself for the worst nights sleep of my life.
There was supposedly no smoking on the train, but in China petty rules like that are often thrown to the wayside. (Petty rules like, traffic lanes, right of way, and signaling or often bypassed, pft! who needs em! :0) So people smoked and they smoked a lot.
(As another side note, most people in China smoke, it’s just a matter of life. I read in a Beijing magazine, that being in the city is like living with someone who smokes a pack a day. So if I have “the black lung†when I get back its not my fault I promise.
While we are parenthesi-zing, most people in China hack up huge spit wads in public, everywhere. Hearing that throaty-sucking-nasal-growling sound is commonplace everywhere: markets, restaurants, trains. It’s just the culture. Sometimes I don’t even turn my head anymore. It’s probably the “black lung†maybe that’s why I have been doing it. Hopefully I’ll forget that little souvenir when I get back home, but again it’s not my fault. I wonder, when they come to our country what they find strange, maybe sitting on a toilet that somebody else sat on. I think that they would find that weird.)
Wow, sorry so back to what I was talking about, people smoked on the train throughout the night, which only helped my sleeping situation. The beds were so skinny that my arm kept falling asleep whenever I would put it under my pillow, because my elbow to my hand would be dangling off the side. I probably woke up about six or seven times, because my dead hand, started tingling uncontrollably. The other 50 times I woke up was to wipe the sweat off my neck. It was hot! And it didn’t help that I had to sleep in my jeans, and shirt. It was nice to take my socks off, but when I took my shirt off I felt like there were bugs crawling all over me so I thought I would be better to put it back on J. I woke up, groggily, to loud Chinese music (that was a first) at around 7:00. That was rough. We had finally made it to Xi’an. I do recommend the train ride, it was and experience if nothing else, I just recommend that you are less than five feet, skinny, have a preference of sleeping on the floor, and easily chilled, then you will have great time!
Sorry it has been so long, its not that I have been, busy it might just be that I have kept myself from doing productive things. I really have been engaged in the whole semester abroad project, I promise. I have just been lazy when it comes to writing things down.
First things first, we watched our first movie in a Chinese theater the other day. Could you guess what it was? Maybe it was the latest Jackie Chan movie, or a look at the history of Beijing’s Hutong neighborhoods (I wrote a research paper on that). One of the options was a martial arts movie about warlords, and another was a movie directed by Steven Chow (Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer) called CJ7 (looked interesting), but nope, we saw National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. Ha, you would have never guessed it but we watched an American made movie, about the mysteries of America’s past, full of American jokes in China. What made me laugh more that the cheese-fest of a movie (Not my type, sorry for all the cheese-fest fans) was the fact that the movie theater was packed. I don’t know if they really understood what was going on, but they loved it. They laughed at the wrong parts and didn’t laugh at the right parts, but they looked like they were having a good time. We went to subway after the movie; it wasn’t the same.
Ever curious what kinds of crazy things happen at Bethel? Well, tonight at 9:45 in Goodman Gym, a professor will get his head shaved. Who? You guessed it; it’s me!
The college was raising money to support Union University, a CCCU school devastated a few months ago by a tornado. Thankfully no one was killed in the incident, but they have a lot of damage, and Bethel wanted to do all it could. Thus, we held an auction to raise money for Union. One of the auction items was the opportunity to shave a professor’s head!
Come on out tonight and see the fun. Or tune in to chapel on Monday for a clip. Or watch for pictures here on the blog; I’m sure I’ll post them at some point.
Exciting times! Our mission trip to Honduras was a complete success. Praise the Lord!
We flew in to San Pedro Sula, met the missionaries we would be working with, rented a van, and drove for about two and a half hours to Siguartepeque. Now, if you’ve never experienced driving in Honduras, you’ve never experienced driving! Cabs and buses stopping for no reason right in the middle of the road; people walking right on the shoulder of highways; buses and semis passing long lines of cars while going around blind curves. It’s a sight to see!
We stayed and worked at a seminary in Siguartepeque. The seminary supports theological and ministry education for local Hondurans, who then go back out into Honduras to shepherd churches and other ministries. The seminary is supported through Central American Missions (CAM) International.
The first full day we were there, we went to a local church and visited a waterfall. It was beautiful!
The next four days we spent working on various construction projects on the seminary campus, including sidewalk construction, drywall installation, trenching digging, and fence removal. Whew!
We also went into a local school and shared the gospel through a puppet show. The kids were very excited.
It was a wonderful time. I think the thing I learned most concerned God’s global Body. Sometimes it’s easy for the church in America to feel that we’re somehow the center of Christ’s Body. That’s totally wrong. We are only a small part of a huge community of believers that are serving, loving, and giving what they have to see God’s kingdom advanced. It’s an honor to be part of that.
this just in…
Things are happening so fast I’m not sure I can keep up. Within the last week I have received a job offer from my agency and a possible offer for housing if I want to make the move down here in the fall. I’m really not sure about very many things right now, but I am sure that God knows what He’s doing and that I’m going to do my best to follow in the direction He leads.
“Be Still my soul thy God will undertake to guide the future as He has the past.”
This weekend my grandparents came down to visit (all the way from Indiana!) and we spent the weekend with my cousin’s family in an extremely small town outside the city. It was really great to see them and to spend time outside the city. We spent the weekend making pie crusts, catching grasshoppers, swinging “spider-style”, watching basketball and playing “mouse”. If you don’t know what mouse is, it’s ok….it’s just a game my extended family plays that my grandma used to play when she was little. I was reminded once again how blessed I am by my extended family and I’m so excited to see them all again this summer. I’ll do my best to post pictures from this weekend as soon as I can.
Three weeks left in my practicum and I’m starting to sense a whole lot of decisions that need to be made in the next few weeks and months. What’s going to happen after I leave here? Am I willing to move back? What will happen after graduation? How will the relationships I’ve made here hold up when I’m gone for the summer? How will I make friends when/if I move back? Am I really ready to move across the country completely on my own? In facing all of these daunting questions it’s a little hard not to get overwhelmed, but tonight as I’ve been thinking about everything and trying to sort things out two things came to mind. First a verse from Isaiah and the second is lyrics to a song.
“Listen to me…you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:3-4.
“Oh God of mine who holds all nations, Oh God of mine who saves the day, Oh God of mine your grace sufficient and tender mercies new by morn. Oh God of mine forever faithful, Oh God of mine forever stay, Oh God of mine forever after these eyes upon your face will gaze.”
Something about the combination of these two put my heart at ease. The same God of mine who lead me here to Oklahoma to all the wonderful adventures that have happened to me here will never stop leading me. My God has plans and if God’s plans are for me to move back here, I’m sure God will work everything out and carry me just like He has done through every other adventure of my life.
May all glory go to the beautiful God of mine.
