Week 6: Cross Cultural Communication

This week was amazing. I wish you could have been here to enjoy it with me. Before I go off of this week though I just want to say: this could be a long post.

Sunday night found me upset in the parking lot. I was crying and I could barely think. I simply wanted to leave and not come back. I was leading "Discovery" in the morning and I had everything ready, but I was getting so stressed about other things- like my 15 page research paper that I could not find any new information on and the fact that I did not feel 100% safe around one of the guys here. And so on, and it was all just really overwhelming and frightening.
Looking at my life today, I find I am afraid of a lot. And it is really saddening. How am I to tell others of my great God when I am often too afraid to open my mouth? Out of fear of being wrong, or starting a fight, or not being understood. How am I to tell others about the redemption of Jesus Christ when I am too scared to allow Him to redeem me? What are they going to do- look at me and say sarcastically "yeah, that has worked out well for her". And you know what, it would be true. I have not let God fully redeem me. But not just the things that mean I will change: I am scared of the dark and reading aloud (because I get agitated and start to slur and lisp my words) and sitting and having a meaningful conversation. I am scared of meeting new people and being honest with those I do not know super well. I am scared of being accepted for me (yeah, not rejected) and being loved for me. I am scared of not knowing myself and what I am thinking and feeling, but at the same time I am comfortable with that. I am scared of loving only to lose. (I hate losing.) The list would take too long to complete...and it is depressing. (;
I live in a place of constant fear. In any situation, if I let myself, I can find a reason to be afraid. But that is not who God has called me to be. I shared about Memuyl and Thai and Singo and Mae and Pon and all the others whose names I have no idea how to spell or never heard how to say correctly. I shared about how I felt brokenhearted each time we left a location. But one thing I realized was I was the loser each and every single time. The people I met will never know how they effected me. They will not know the lessons I learned, nor will they know the true,genuine love I felt for them. And that is okay. It is not relevant to where I am going with this. The point I am trying to make is this: I faced my fear. Without realizing it at the time, but I did. (I cannot really say I have been working on the scared of the dark one, but my roommates do not seem to mind.)
God has more in store for me than I can imagine. And I have a GREAT imagination. For those of you who have ever read or heard something I have written, you know firsthand I am speaking the truth. So if I imagine something awesome for my life, how much more spectacular is God imagining something? But I have to stop being afraid. I have to be willing to try.
So back to this week. Monday morning I am leading Discovery. Discovery is based off of Psalm 104 (I think that is right). So I read through the psalm a few different times before I saw something that really stuck out to me. In verses 5-9, the author of the psalm is talking about the flood. I began to look at the folklore (Folklore is simply a unwritten story.) of the flood. I looked at the different cultures/societies that have a story of the flood, which are a lot. Then I began to look at the flood itself. Water was destructive. The flood (water) destroyed the Earth. People, animals, just life- destroyed. It made me wonder, was Noah ever afraid of water after the flood? I know I would be. Each time the skies opened up I would look for the rainbow- even before the rain ended. As I am thinking about this, I wonder how has God, in a sense, redeemed the ocean (water)? I looked up information on the water. The water provided over half of the oxygen we breathe. It is life-giving. It went from being destructive to life-giving... it has truly been redeemed. As I looked at this on Monday morning, I could not help but ask where is it God is saying this was once destructive in your life, but I am going to redeem it into something life-giving? For me there are many places. What about for you?
Then our speaker arrives and the first thing out of his mouth is "Just try. Stop being afraid and try." This was exactly what I needed to hear. And I will probably need to hear it again before the month is up. (Yes, I am aware there are only two days left.) This was so profound to me because of what my friend and I had discussed the night before and because of the fact I had been wanting to try but I was too afraid of failing. 
The next morning John, our speaker, shows up and says I have a word of encouragement. What he said definitely did not make me feel encouraged! He said this: You will fail. I first felt defeated and really confused, but as I began to grasp what he was saying I realized how encouraging it actually was. I will fail. I will fail when I try. But that is a part of learning and growing. As a child, how many times do we stop and think before we fail? How many times do we fail? How many times do we let that failure stop us from trying something else?
I let it stop me from trying everything, but now I refuse to let it hold me back. I want to be a child. Ready to learn at all times. Whether it be from my friends or family or from someone who is trying to teach me how to do things their way in their culture. I want to learn. Like a child. A child who is not judging others, but simply willing to learn.
That is what this week was all about. Being like a child. Being willing to learn the way Jesus did. What an example we have in Jesus!

Tuesday, June 25

Obviously this post is not going to be about what the teaching as it has yet to finish... but it does involve the school, so hopefully it is not too boring.

Monday and Tuesday mornings are devotion and prayer mornings, respectively. This week is no exception. I led devotion yesterday and a classmate, Lo, led prayer (intercession) this morning. Lo and I both have a heart for human trafficking- as do many other people around the YWAM Madison base. Lo had us pray for the issue of human trafficking, but it did not just stop at prayer.

I walk into the classroom and sit down hoping I do not get too jumpy. Lo had already told me what was going to happen as a courtesy to me.
There is a cup of something in front of us. "Drink it, then put your head on the table and close your eyes." The drink was warm, so I drank fast and then put my head down and closed my eyes.
My head is yanked up and a blindfold is placed on me. I can feel my heart thudding, and I want to fight, but I know I cannot. "Often times traffickers will drug women."
"Get up, walk," I hear them barking orders. Then there is silence. I have not moved, did they forget about me? Then I hear them come back in to the room, someone grabs me and pushes me toward the door. One of the staff members has her hand on my shoulder. She is using me to lead her. I walk into a door. (I seriously did this.) I push the door open, still blindfolded and walk into one of the "hustlers". She leads us out the front door to a waiting van. We wait for only a second and then we begin to drive. It is raining outside, I can hear it. We drive for a couple of minutes before we are shuffled out of the car.
It is dark, and humid, and a little musty. "You may take off your blindfolds now." We pull off our blindfolds and listen as Lo reads out Psalm 10:7-18. As I reread the psalm I realize how applicable it is... we partner up and begin to pray. My classmate and I pray for the traffickers, women involved and children. We thank God that He sees all.
We are re-blindfolded and shuffled back to the van. (And they almost leave me.) We begin to drive again. "Many times, traffickers have government officials on their side whom they have bribed to allow them across the border."
We are pulled out of the car and led down to the basement of the building we started in. It is dark, we are not allowed to talk, and I do not like being led to some undefined place. A woman's wail fills the air, I hit a random filing cabinet. Where am I?
We begin to pray again. This time with different partners and for whatever God is putting on our hearts about this issue. I go back to the issue of the men. It is not a head issue. They can know it is wrong, but that does not matter to them. It is a heart issue. So we pray. We pray for a complete 180 degree turn. That these men would in turn become these girls' advocates.

Just thought I would share my morning and journey with you.

Week 4 AND 5: Creative Writing and Active Listening

Oops, sorry. I do not know how the whole week went by without an update. Well, I do. I was busy. haha

Week 4
Creative Writing
Definitely a good week. Out teacher was actually one of our staff members, which was nice. I tried REALLY hard to pay attention at all times, but some of the students in the class had never really done creative writing which meant she had to go over the basics. Good review though. On Friday night, we had an "Authors Night". We spoke the pieces we had written. Another student and I wrote two, we were also the ones who introduced and closed the time. I had fun, expect they made us dress up- and you all know that I develop a rash if I stay dressed up for too long. haha! I cannot believe how many people believe me each time I say that. It makes me laugh. (: Anyway, I ended up with an "A", so that was nice.

Week 5
Active Listening
Who would have thought active listening meant you had to talk?! Definitely a good week although not my favorite. Is it bad if I would just rather not talk at all? I feel like it is.. mainly because I know God has more for me than being mute in places where I do not feel comfortable. Anyway, I now have some really good tools in the realm of listening. And hopefully, I will stop being so scared and go up to talk to people... who knows, that is a rather large step.

Also, as I have mentioned before, I have been accepted on as YWAM Madison staff. I was given an update: I will be staying out at the Training Center with the DTS and my friends who are coming back on as DTS staff. This is good news as the rent, food, and utilities will be all rolled into one, rather low price. Although, I do not have enough monthly support to not fundraise. So I need to do that these next couple of months. If only there was someone to keep me accountable... but not in the "You need to kill yourself fundraising and doing the school" kind of way.

All for now.

Week 3: Research Week

This week was amazing! I learned so much from the speaker and life around the Global Missions Center (GMC).
Our speaker, Heather, gave us a model to look at this week. We looked at gender-cide in North Korea. Gender-cide is the killing of humans based on their gender. Often we will find these killings taking place during childhood against little girls. Heather had us look at how the different religions the country has followed has helped shape the view that men are more important than women. Why?
Many times, I thought now we are getting to the heart of the issue! But we were not there yet. We had only just begun.
God is a researcher. Therefore, in my DNA, I am one too. I may not research in the traditional sense, but I learned valuable tools from Heather that will help me research for my research paper and, hopefully, in years to come.
It is necessary to ask the correct questions.

SCF- Week 2

I fell ill yesterday, our last day of public speaking week. At least it was after we gave our speeches.
This week was on Public Speaking. The school leader, Amy, taught this week. Good week.

Feeling hungry, so I am going to eat before my body says no.


Sunday- update

Feeling a lot better today.
Public speaking is a serving gift. You look at your audience and you see what they need and then you give them what they need.
Public speaking is spiritual warfare. Last week we learned that when we speak we create. There will be times when we will be speaking in front of crowds and we will be creating a living and holy atmosphere.
Your audience is always number one. Or for those of you who like that phrase "For an audience of One". Either way, the audience is first and foremost. A speaking engagement is not about you, the speaker, it is about them, the audience.

"When we have the tools, you never know what kind of doors will open up."
-Amy, SCF leader and Public Speaking teacher