Sigh. Summer is almost over. I have 13 days left to be exact. I have a lot to catch you all up on!
First, The Middle East.
I can now call "The Middle East" Jordan. Yeah, I went to Jordan. It feels great to say that. As you know, I was there during the month of May. It was AMAZING. In a nutshell, these are the things that we did: worked with UNICEF to plan an event for Iraqi (Kurdish) refugees, taught English at an orphanage, taught English at the company we worked with, hung out at the University of Jordan and brought students to our English learning group, started a conversation club dedicated to watching American movies and discussing them, took food poor believers to a suburb of Amman called Zarqa, took food to Iraqi refugee women that are secret believers, and lastly loved on the fieldworkers there by spending time with them and praying with them. We did a ton of different things. All of them were great learning experiences. The girls and guys had separate apartments that we lived in, and we took taxi's everywhere we went. We ate out for most of our meals and through all of that we were immersed in the culture and with the people.
There are two main questions that you are going to ask, and yes, I can read your mind ;)
1) What was the weather like? (If you aren't thinking this, then I guarantee someone else is). It was HOT!! And yeah, we were fully covered except for our heads so it was extra warm. But you know what, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I'm glad that we respected their culture and dressed conservatively.
2) Did anyone accept Christ? The answer is no. For one, its illegal to be a Christian. And secondly, most people are afraid to even talk about Christ. One thing we learned to do was to be patient and to pray. We prayed that God would lead our conversations with people instead of forcing conversations about Him. Sometimes I would get to share a small thing about my faith, and other times I would just rememeber to pray for that person and that a believer would come alongside them and share their faith.
We got to see some pretty amazing sites while we were in Jordan. I'm just going to name them and you can look them up if you want to know more! We went to the Jordan River and saw where Jesus was baptized, Mount Nebo, Wadi Rum (think Lawrence of Arabia), The Dead Sea, The Sea of Galilee, Petra (one of the NEW Seven Wonders of the World), and a saw some Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jordan Archaeological Museum.
There is so much more for me to share with you, but I just cannot fit it into this space. If you want to know more, you can give me your email address, and you can also look at my pictures on facebook.
Summer-----As soon as I got back from Jordan, my parents surprised me at LAX! They brought me home to Oregon and then I got to work :) I have worked as the summer intern in the Childrens Department at my church. Some of you may remember that I did this last summer as well. It is a paying job so I've been able to save up for school! I've also babysat and housesat to supplement that. Now I'm headed off to CBU for the fall. I'm taking 16 units this semester and crossing my fingers that I can find an on campus job like I was able to last summer. I am going to be living in an apartment on campus with two other girls so I'm very excited to be even more of an adult this year! I will try to keep you all updated on my school year as I go along.
Thank you all for your prayers and support as I went to Jordan this summer, and I know that many of you have continued to pray for me while I've been at school and at home. I consider you to be my family and I am so grateful for your love and prayers!
