This is going to be an incredible experience haha. We started things off with dinner and a sleepover, and we are a very awkward group, but I believe that we are opening up as time goes on, and it's really awesome. I can already feel bonds forming. Traveling as honestly... very tiring. It took us the entire day to get to Ichthus (up at 6:50 a.m., arrived at almost 1:00 a.m.), but there were some beautiful sights along the way. I got to see what it looks like to see above the clouds which is a beautiful sight. But I was also able to see mountains poking through the clouds as the sun was setting, and even the various clusters of light in the spotted darkness, which looked nice as well. God makes lots of beautiful things. :)
Food here has been good so far, and I look forward to our various meals. But it is definitely going to be an time/energy consuming experience. More-so than my previous experience, which is pretty much only Little Lights or Habitat for Humanity. The kids have an incredibly grueling schedule (think old-school Korean school), and I believe they expect similar effort out of us, which isn't wrong, just hard haha. We have an early morning routine followed by 3 hours of teaching in the community then later on teaching at the Ichthus school, and then teaching supplementary classes or attending Bible studies and similar things. But even though I can tell it's going to be incredibly challenging, I'm excited about it. I want to be tested and forced to rely wholly upon God. The week after beach week, I was a slob. Like the biggest slob ever. Reading here and there but basically doing nothing but eating and gaining weight, and playing with my family. Which was relaxing, but a very sharp distinction the lifestyle that I will have here, but I think that I'm already adjusting well.
The community assignment was different than I expected, as I will be teaching middle aged woman with little to no schooling, whereas I thought I would be helping college students finesse their conversational skills. Haha, clearly God has different plans for me. At Ichthus, I will be teaching first year middle school students, which will be interesting, but fun. For my extra class, I will be using music to help teach English to students which will be lots of fun, mainly disney songs. I can't deny that the music class excites me the most haha. I really hope that I can build solid bonds with students here as well as with my group members, which means I need to stop being so isolated, but I guess it's a good sacrifice. I need to learn to stop being so alone anyways. Tonight we get to eat Korean food, which is truly a joy of joys. They have been giving us enough food at meals, but only enough to tide me to the next meal, never full. (maybe i'm just a pig lol.)
But anyways, please pray for me guys. I'm not that original or good with on the spot things, which is something that we will be doing here a lot. I also am pretty tired already, and as far as I can tell they don't serve coffee at breakfast or anything, which means no caffeine... lol. But ya so far I'm still in a good mood, let's hope it continues. :) take care guys! and if you know someone who needs a place to sublet in july in cville please let me know. peace.
