Wednesday
Today for sport we just all got together in the classroom and danced around to music from Deborah’s iPod instead of watching a Pilates video. We even had a bit of an impromptu square-dance. I have to say, prancing around looking silly informally is much preferable to having a video tell you how to prance around looking very silly formally. Much more fun.
We had our first small group meeting this afternoon! That was a blast - Alex is my leader (I swear one of these days I’ll put up information about the other people here!) and Nika, Esther, Ruth, and Ketsia make up the rest of my group. We sat in the other girl’s room drinking tea and eating snacks while we talked about how we’ve been doing this past week and how the teaching, other students, and general atmosphere have effected us. We talked about love languages and what languages each of us feel we use - it’s funny, just a couple of weeks around each other and we were already able to fairly accurately guess what each other’s love languages were.
We had our first small group meeting this afternoon! That was a blast - Alex is my leader (I swear one of these days I’ll put up information about the other people here!) and Nika, Esther, Ruth, and Ketsia make up the rest of my group. We sat in the other girl’s room drinking tea and eating snacks while we talked about how we’ve been doing this past week and how the teaching, other students, and general atmosphere have effected us. We talked about love languages and what languages each of us feel we use - it’s funny, just a couple of weeks around each other and we were already able to fairly accurately guess what each other’s love languages were.
Thursday
Today we each got a copy of the book Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne to read whenever we find time; every Thursday morning we have an hour or so set aside just for reading.
I’ve been devouring this book; the author’s got a pretty inspiring life story (do you know of many men who have worked with Mother Theresa in Calcutta, petitioned for peace both in America and Iraq, and helped start communities in inner city of Philly in which the homeless live side-by-side with lawyers and doctors?)
Some of the students went to a kebab shop for dinner. A guy waiting in line asked Kayla about why she’s here and how she likes England, then he left the shop for a bit. After a while he came back to pick up his order and as he was on his way out the door he paused, turned around and asked Kayla “May I kiss you?” and he leans in! Kayla leans waaay back and squeals “No thank you!” so he turns to Hailey and tries to kiss her too - luckily he left after that. Englishmen. Crazies.
We watched a Nooma video this evening - Lump. I thought of the home group while we were watching it; I remember seeing it with the whole gang. I miss you guys!
I’ve been devouring this book; the author’s got a pretty inspiring life story (do you know of many men who have worked with Mother Theresa in Calcutta, petitioned for peace both in America and Iraq, and helped start communities in inner city of Philly in which the homeless live side-by-side with lawyers and doctors?)
Some of the students went to a kebab shop for dinner. A guy waiting in line asked Kayla about why she’s here and how she likes England, then he left the shop for a bit. After a while he came back to pick up his order and as he was on his way out the door he paused, turned around and asked Kayla “May I kiss you?” and he leans in! Kayla leans waaay back and squeals “No thank you!” so he turns to Hailey and tries to kiss her too - luckily he left after that. Englishmen. Crazies.
We watched a Nooma video this evening - Lump. I thought of the home group while we were watching it; I remember seeing it with the whole gang. I miss you guys!
Friday
We had a student-led worship session this morning. Shea on drums, Kayla vocals, Gary on base, Vetle on guitar and Esther on keyboard. They played energetic songs - that was a fun way to get my energy up early in the morning. We also had prayer. We did it Korean style - everyone standing and praying aloud at the same time.
After quiet time we had some time talking over the lessons with our small group. We were able to make that a really constructive time; everyone was able to vocalize what they’d learned and sort it out in their minds. After the closing prayer Esther started laughing and when we asked her what was so funny she said she’d just randomly thought of parallels between Mr. Darcy and God, which we all thought rather funny. She explained it even more, and it was even goofier. If you were wondering why I’ve started a facebook group called “We’re Married To Mr. Darcy and Live With Him In a Manor”, yeah, that’s why. Inside joke.
During work duties we saw a cart of goodies being wheeled into Room 1 for a staff meeting, and we joked with Imon (one of the staff) about how some of those chocolates would do us good. What was really sweet was that, once the meeting was over, Imon brought us chocolates and cupcakes to eat while we worked. That he would be that considerate really struck me - it was just another way that the goodness of this community has impacted me. That favor was just one of dozens of little things the staff and other students have been doing for each other. There isn’t any meanness here - more than two weeks in constant contact with everyone, and not once have I seen anyone try to hurt anyone else.
Tonight was our first outreach. Ruth, Joel, Turid, Deborah and I drove to Brighton and met one of the workers at an outreach called Antifreeze. We split into two groups and walked all through Brighton giving out sandwiches, coffee, candy bars, and practical things like socks to the homeless. Meeting these people and learning about their passions (Mary writes poetry, John is trying to learn about computer software, Simon loves playing his guitar) really brought home the fact that God doesn’t want us to just give our spare clothing and food away to the needy, he wants us to build relationships with them and show them real love.
Photos - Friday, January 30
After quiet time we had some time talking over the lessons with our small group. We were able to make that a really constructive time; everyone was able to vocalize what they’d learned and sort it out in their minds. After the closing prayer Esther started laughing and when we asked her what was so funny she said she’d just randomly thought of parallels between Mr. Darcy and God, which we all thought rather funny. She explained it even more, and it was even goofier. If you were wondering why I’ve started a facebook group called “We’re Married To Mr. Darcy and Live With Him In a Manor”, yeah, that’s why. Inside joke.
During work duties we saw a cart of goodies being wheeled into Room 1 for a staff meeting, and we joked with Imon (one of the staff) about how some of those chocolates would do us good. What was really sweet was that, once the meeting was over, Imon brought us chocolates and cupcakes to eat while we worked. That he would be that considerate really struck me - it was just another way that the goodness of this community has impacted me. That favor was just one of dozens of little things the staff and other students have been doing for each other. There isn’t any meanness here - more than two weeks in constant contact with everyone, and not once have I seen anyone try to hurt anyone else.
Tonight was our first outreach. Ruth, Joel, Turid, Deborah and I drove to Brighton and met one of the workers at an outreach called Antifreeze. We split into two groups and walked all through Brighton giving out sandwiches, coffee, candy bars, and practical things like socks to the homeless. Meeting these people and learning about their passions (Mary writes poetry, John is trying to learn about computer software, Simon loves playing his guitar) really brought home the fact that God doesn’t want us to just give our spare clothing and food away to the needy, he wants us to build relationships with them and show them real love.
Photos - Friday, January 30
Saturday
Shopping trip day - we wandered through charity shops (YMCA’s version of Goodwill) pound shops (oddly enough, just like dollar stores), the mall, and music stores. I ended up shopping in H&M with Joel, GertJan, Jonathan, and Shea for quite a while. With Joel in the group I didn’t feel like the only one who liked looking through clothes! (Kidding, Joel)
We had a girl’s night sort of thing - after watching a couple episodes of friends all 14 girls hung out upstairs talking and snacking (naturally). We began plotting and scheming, thinking up pranks to pull on the guys…
Photos - Saturday, January 31
We had a girl’s night sort of thing - after watching a couple episodes of friends all 14 girls hung out upstairs talking and snacking (naturally). We began plotting and scheming, thinking up pranks to pull on the guys…
Photos - Saturday, January 31
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