So my sister reminded me a couple of weeks ago that I haven't posted anything in quite a while. I didn't realize how long it's actually been until I tried to find my blog and had to look it up on Facebook because I forgot the address. Oh well. I have never been good at keeping journals anyways.
So not too much has happened in the last month and a half. Pretty much I've been going to classes, procrastinating, and eventually doing homework. A few weeks ago we had a Dorm Wars photo scavenger hunt. That was a lot of fun. I kissed a frog, actually the frog kissed me. I was going to pretend to kiss the frog, but when the flash went off the frog jumped into my lips. It was a crazy night
Last week we had our International Festival (a fancy name for a missions conference) here at school. It was a good week. We had a lot of sessions to chose from.
The week started off on Monday with the international student chapel. Sheila Eldred interviewed the international students about their cultures and how they viewed certain issues like public displays of affection (pda). It was interesting to hear different cultures take on this. I learned that in most of the eastern countries PDA is not accepted, not even at the wedding. It was good to learn more about our fellow students.
Tuesday I attended the Friends of Israel session. Bruce Scott was informative, but at the same time not boring. We got to sing a Messianic Jewish song, that was a lot of fun. Most of the things we went over in the session I already knew from previous exposure to Friends of Israel, but I still enjoyed it very much.
Wednesday we got a double dose of missions, first in Global Mandate and then in chapel. In Global Mandate, Ryan Corbett introduced us to the field of Central Asia and the great need there. For chapel I attended the session "Getting along with the nationals" taught by Paul Jenks of AMG. This too was an excellent session about how missionaries can work with the nationals to reach a country for Jesus. We learned the importance of putting aside our ethnocentrism and treating our national partners with respect.
Thursday we had to attend three sessions and a special chapel. The first session I went to was entitled "Handling Culture Shock and more." Ken Zuk spoke briefly on culture shock, but the majority of the session was on the hard parts of missions. I think its good that we as students here the truth about the missions field; it's not always going to be easy. He went over how he felt when he first arrived and the difficulties that he faced in Russia. I could empathizes with him because I had some similar disappointments on my short term trip to Papua New Guinea. I think all missions students, and even non-mission students should attend more sessions like these.
The second session I attended was "While Ishmael Mocks." This was a information packed session on Israel and why the world hates her. We very quickly went over the history of the land from Jesus time until present. I think this was a good session, but it probably should have been broken up into two parts. The third session was "what's happening with Hollywood." That too was a good session on Apologetics, Scientology and Khabala.
In Chapel a father -daughter team from Russia lead worship and showed some videos. It was a pretty powerful chapel.
I've got to get back to homework. I'll post again sometime.
