Apparently it's been two months since I've last updated my 'weekly' blog. Oops.
Part of the reason is life gets somewhat monotonous here when there aren't schools running. There are things happening though! June saw the end of the second Spring TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) here, which I was not a part of at all being gone for three of the four weeks between going home and the staff training in Long Island. Good group of students though. Having seen them at the beginning and then again at the end I can see growth in them. As well our ESL program ended and our two students headed back to Brazil. Now we're spending a lot of time preparing for the Fall when we have three schools (DTS, ESL, and TESOL) running simultaneously. The September TESOL has been full for a while now and even has a waiting list. The other two schools are looking to have 4-5 students each. There's this guy (who you may know) named Daniel Giardina who is apparently coming to DTS! Yaaaay! And Georgina from the April TESOL is coming back to do a DTS. I'm excited for this school.
Monday's I've been volunteering at the Hope's Resource Center. (I just spelled it 'centre' and then had to fix it) It's effectively a homeless shelter, sort of. In the winter they would have sleeping arrangements for 2 weeks at a time at a church before moving churches for another two weeks and so on. There were quite a lot of churches involved. Nearly six months worth and I don't think they ever had to go to one church twice. It's more than a homeless shelter though. It provides showers and laundry facilities. A small amount of storage space. It also has three case workers who help those in the shelter get back on their feet. When there was sleeping arrangements, over 30 people a night were staying. By the time the overnight portion ended at the end of April all but 5 had somewhere to go. So it's pretty quiet now. People still come in looking for help and we'll help them as best we can. It's a good place and there is a lot of peace there. Unfortunately I'll have to stop going once DTS starts in a month. Four more weeks.
Two weeks ago we had 25 students here from China. They stayed with hosts families overnight and then came here for ESL during the day. They had a blast and loved staying with their families. They got to tour some of the States. I believe San Fransisco, Boston, Philly among them. They said as they were leaving that the week here was their favorite part. Pretty cool to have the missions field come to us. They came from affluent families which is why they could afford to come here. Affluent enough that some of them have a brother or sister (legally you can only have one child and it's very expensive to purchase a second child). One of them bought a $300 pair of headphones. I wouldn't even know what to do if I had $300 extra to spend in such a way. It's a foreign concept to me.
Anywho, the week went well and that lead into last week. We partner with an organization called Child Evangelism Fellowship which focuses on ministering to children. In our area they put on three Vacation Bible Schools. They give us 30 minutes each day to talk about world missions. Last week was my week to go speak. We have a missionary from China staying with us so he came along as well as one of the base director's daughters. We talked mostly about what it's like to live in another country. Katie grew up in India and she talked about the differences between India and here. I told a few stories from Kenya (including the infamous bus ride to Nyango) and explained the challenges of surviving in a continent torn apart by war where food and water are hard earned. On the final day Bill talked about China and taught the kids some Chinese words. What shocked me was the depth and scope of questions the children came up with. They had so many questions, especially when talking about water. "How much is a well." "Is it hard to drill a well there." "Is there a Hollywood/Bollywood equivalent in Africa?" "What sports do they play?" "Could a Hippopotamus outrun me?" "Would a Lion or a Hippo win in a fight?" It was a good week and was no where near as challenging as I expected. I think we succeeded in giving them a good glimpse of the rest of the world and what it means to be a missionary. It isn't easy to live in another country by any means.
In April our sewage backed up making for quite a smelly situation. While we quickly dealt with the issue there was a little bit of damage to our carpet. The insurance company decided to replace the entire bottom floor. Sherwin-Williams also donated 30 gallons of paint. So we're in the process of painting right now and then later on this week we'll put in the carpet. It's looking pretty good so far.
Next week we'll be involved with YWAM Harrisburg's Circuit Rider school in Lancaster, PA. I think we're going to have a booth there. The final week of the CEF VBS is also next week as well as finishing up the bottom floor. And my parents are coming down to see Noah at the Sight and Sound theater in Lancaster so I'll get to see them as well.
Then come September 4th DTS begins. I'm both excited and terrified to be on staff but we'll have fun. It's a good group of students.
So that's what's been going on lately here at the base.
We're trying to get someone to donate us an in-ground pool. Not having a lot of success yet.
Hakuna Matata,
Christopher
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