Teaching and Preaching

Saying a prayer during the Sunday service
before I go up to preach.

Sorry I haven’t updated you guys in a while. Things have been going well, but I’ve been relatively busy. Last Tuesday morning, I preached during chapel. It went really well, and everyone said that I did a good job. Yesterday I preached at the AICS church in the afternoon. For my first Sunday sermon, it went well. It was obviously rough around the edges—but hey, it was my first time! If you’re curious, I preached on Lot and his family running out of Sodom. A lot of people said that it was good, and a few told me it was what they needed to hear. That’s a good feeling. J

On Friday I had bamboo shoot for the first time. It seriously tastes like kettle corn. They cook it as a dish for dinner, and I think it tastes so sweet and delicious! I didn’t even know that people ate bamboo before I came here! Mmm. I like almost all of the food here, but I don’t think I’ll get used to the fact that they eat dinner leftovers for breakfast… so the meals are very similar. I miss pancakes and french toast and cheerios.

This is the congregation that I preached to.
It's mostly made up of AICS students.

My classes are going well. I’m still figuring out how best to teach here, but it’s really good experience and I’ll learn. I’m slowly getting to know the students, and I’ve helped a few with writing assignments outside of class. On Friday afternoon I went back to the junior school. Instead of talking to the whole school, I was brought in front of the older students. After they asked me a few questions, mostly about all of my favorites (favorite food, flower, Bible verse, etc.), I played Pictionary with them. They had never played it before, so it was fun to be able to teach them a new game. I split them up into two teams and I gave them Bible stories to draw. They really enjoyed it, and so did I.

Preaching!

Last night we had Singspiration again, and I just have to tell you that we sang Making Melodies. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a song that my dad usually sings during morning chapel at kid’s camp. The song starts with your thumbs out, swaying back and forth and ends with your tongue out, bottom up, head tilted, thumbs up, elbows out, and turning around… you get the picture. It’s so fun to do it with the seminary students and professors here. Could you imagine that going down at Princeton?! Hahaha. Yeah, me neither.

I'm answering questions at the elementary school.
The kids are really cute and very sweet.

PS Rainy season has come!!! It's been raining for the past couple of days nonstop. Well, it breaks every once in a while, but it's mostly been raining nonstop. I love it. But I've decided that what I love even more is when we're inside of a cloud. It's almost like fog, but you can tell that we're in a cloud. So awesome.

Cultural Explosion!

On Friday, John, Jenny, Rainpui and I went into the city to do a little shopping. First we went to the closest thing Aizawl has to a mall. I only bought a pair of earrings there. Almost all of the stores are for women's blouses and shoes. The blouses are very Chinese/Japanese looking and aren't exactly my taste. The shoes were very cute, but pretty much the same price as shoes in the US ($20-$50ish). Also, I didn't buy any because NO ONE had shoes my size hahaha (I'm 8.5). Oh well. :) After going to the "mall" we went to the market. I'll let the pictures of me shopping explain the rest of the day...

The fabric hanging up are skirts. Women wear a skirt called a
puan (pronounced pwon) almost every day. I bought a few
that I can wear to chapel and to church. They wrap around,
so I'm still learning the art of keeping them up lol.

John, Rainpui, and I huddle under umbrellas. It rain the whole time
we were shopping. Try handling an umbrella, a purse, a camera,
and a piece of pineapple at the same time!

Here are some shoes in the marketplace. Like I said, none fit haha.
No Cinderella story for me here. :/

There were so many things to look at and buy at the market!
The colors and textures were amazing. Even though I
totally stood out, I couldn't help taking a lot of pictures. :)

Peppers anyone?

Beans, mushrooms, spices,
you name it, they probably had it.

Weighing the potatoes the good
ol'-fashioned way.

On Saturday I relaxed. This is the living room part of the guest
house. It's simple, but I'm grateful for the TV and a place
to chill. (I'm wearing a casual puan in this picture.)

On Sunday, Jenny joined the five missionary students
in singing a song in a tribal dialect. (She's the one in
the yellow puan.)

On Saturday I had the opportunity to eat with a professor and his family (the one with the adorable little girl Mercy from my previous post). I really enjoyed talking to him about the church and about Mizoram. Besides learning about the church environment, we talked about a few other things that might interest you about Mizoram. First of all, in Mizoram, there is a bride price. I had read about it before I came, but I thought it would be nice to hear a Mizo person explain it to me. Before marriage, the grooms family pays at least 400 rupees (less than $8) as a bride price. The price has been the same for decades. Apparently sometimes families agree on more, or the brides family gets money from the grooms parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. and it ends up being way more than 400 rupees. He said that it wouldn't be taboo if the bride price wasn't paid, as long as both families agreed upon it, but that he's never heard of that happening before. At this point, it sounds like it's more custom than anything.

Something else of interest is that every 50 years, on the dot, a certain bamboo flowers in Mizoram. The flowers attract rats, which eat away a large portion of the crops, causing widespread famine. In 1959, since there wasn't a united government in Mizoram, a large and devastating famine occurred. Many people died, others left for neighboring countries/lands. The famine occurred again in 2009, but this time the government was more prepared. Unfortunately, it still wasn't enough. Small villages, particularly in the southern part of the state (away from Aizawl, the capitol), saw the effects of the rat infestation. Every 50 years... isn't that interesting?

My grandpa wanted to know more about TV here. There are about 60 stations, half of which (or maybe slightly over half) are in English. The rest are mostly in Mizo; a few are in Hindi, and one is in Urdu. They have BBC world news, ESPN, two stations which play US shows (The Mentalist, Desperate Housewives, America's Next Top Model, cooking shows (reality TV), Survivor, How I Met Your Mother, Full House etc. It's a pretty random assortment lol), Disney, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, VH1, and a few movie channels. It's usually enough to find something to watch. The only problem is that occasionally the provider's power goes out. That means no TV for anyone. haha. Also, somehow TV came up when I was talking to the professor over dinner. He said that Mizo people watch too much TV. It's definitely the center of the house here, but with limited options in terms of technological entertainment or any entertainment for that matter, I understand how that could be a problem.

PS Romcom stands for Romantic Comedy. :)

Pics to go with the past few posts

This is a picture I took during Singspiration on Sunday night.
It's not the best pic, but it shows you what the chapel looks like. :)

Jenny and I having tea in the afternoon.

I'm glad I can be silly with her lol.

This is what a typical dinner looks like. Potatoes, dal
(the gold stuff at the top), different cooked greens, some meat,
and cabbage. Oh and chili pepper, of course

Jenny and I were enjoying the shade and some of the
students wanted to take a picture with us.

This is Mercy, she's the daughter of one of the
professors here. Isn't she a doll?!

Jenny and a couple of other people took my camera to a
hill close by to take a picture of the campus. I couldn't go
with them because they took scooters (motorbikes) and my
supervisor won't let me go on them. :)

Teaching!!!

I'm sure you're all wondering how my first few days of teaching have gone... They've been great! I have one more class tomorrow, which will finish up an amazing week. One of my classes (the one I teach on Monday and Tuesday) has twenty-five Bachelor of Divinity and M.Div. students. The other class, which is Thursday and Friday, has only five Diploma of Missions students. The larger class is very lively and the students are funny, but I have a feeling the smaller class is going to be a lot smoother. This week we went over introductions and I gave them a test. I know, I'm so mean haha. But the test was for me, not for them. It was 100 grammar questions that would tell me what areas they struggle with the most, so that when I make a syllabus for the class it can be catered exactly to their weak spots. After grading their tests, I'm grateful that I took the time to do it. There were several questions that almost every student got wrong. I'm loving teaching, as I thought I would. Part of the reason of field education is to test/affirm your calling, and I'm definitely doing that here. I met with my supervisor yesterday and he asked me about wanting to teach overseas. He's read about my calling and life's journey because of my application. Because of that he said, "Okay, so after you get your Ph.D. you can come back here and teach." I said, "Okay!" :D I could definitely see myself coming back during a summer or sabbatical period. Who knows haha.

Besides teaching, I've been working on a chapel message, since I'll be speaking on Tuesday morning. The theme for the week is Christian commitment. I'm planning on speaking from Hebrews 6:13-20 about God's commitment to us as a reason to be committed to him and as a model for our own commitment. We'll see how it goes. :)

I've also been hanging out with Jenny a lot. I'm so so so grateful to have her here. She's incredibly sweet and funny, and we laugh a lot at/with each other, which is always a good thing. In case you forgot, Jenny is the Hindi teacher for the missionaries here. (I teach the missionaries English.) She lives with me in the guest house. We watch TV together, go to the store together, read together, go to chapel together, eat together... it's been great. I'm such a people person that I honestly don't know what I'd do without her! haha. Speaking of spending time with Jenny, we're about to watch a romcom and eat mangoes and drink coke. I'm loving life. ;)

I love and miss you all! <3

PS I tried to upload pictures but it just wasn't working. Hopefully next time I can get some more up for you!

Animals in Asia!

People, bus, bike... camel? Agra was full of camels.

Indian squirrels look like rats. I'd take a US squirrel any day. :)

Peacocks run wild in Delhi!

Lara and I spotted this bird in Delhi.

I think these were in Nepal, but we saw cows everywhere.

Monkeys in India...

And monkeys in Nepal!

Monkeys at the "Monkey Temple"...

And monkeys in the city!

And you can't forget the monkeys
eating mangoes. Yum!

I saw this bird in Dhaka. Isn't it interesting?

You know you picked the right place for field ed
when there are adorable wild cats everywhere!

Besides cats, Mizoram is full of crazy insects. This place
is definitely not for the easily scared haha. This is a giant grasshopper.

Weekend number one

This is the main AICS building where the offices
are and where the classes and chapel services are held

On Friday I was asked to visit the junior school here. There are probably around forty or fifty students from kindergarten through class 7. I didn’t know what to expect when I got there and assumed that I would just watch them in their respective classes. To my surprise, I walked into a room with about sixty people staring at me. Haha. Apparently they had prepared a little assembly and I was to be the speaker. No problem. I started by teaching them a few songs (“I Like Bananas,” “The Fruit of the Spirit,” and “Great Big God”). Then, I told them a little about myself. After that, I told them a story about when I was a kid and also the story of Jonah. I brought it all together by talking about the fruit of the spirit in those stories. At the end, we went over the songs again. They want me to come back whenever I can, which will be fun. The kids were very cute and their English is really good.

The road on the way to the city looks pretty
much like this the whole way; it's so green!

On Saturday I went into the city with John, Mom and Dad’s son. I picked up a cell phone and a few other things I had planned on getting when I arrived here. It was a fun trip, but I’m looking forward to going back into the city with Jenny or other girls, because John didn’t want to look at clothes or jewelry and I did lol.

Today we had church from 10:30-12:30 and at 3:30. At the 3:30 service I read the New Testament text and sang with the choir. They sing a mix of hymns and contemporary worship songs, most of which I know, but some are unfamiliar to me. After finding out that I can sing, they said they would like me to prepare a song for a Sunday morning service. I don’t know if I’ll sing a solo or prepare a song with Jenny, but either way it looks like I’ll be singing in church haha. The sermons are about 40 minutes to an hour, which is not too long for me, but it definitely would be for my Presbyterian friends lol.

Part of Aizawl -- I love how the cloud
covers the hills sometimes

The church here is charismatic, conservative, and evangelical. They dance sometimes, raise their hands, and sing with a worship band. Whenever someone asks what denomination I am, they say, “Oh, you’ll fit in well in Mizoram.” The school is very serious about training pastors and missionaries who are not only well-educated about theology and Scripture, but also who maintain serious devotional lives. They really care about the prayer lives and spiritual well-being of their students. Like many theological schools in the US, many schools here train pastors who are not prepared for ministry in terms of their personal spiritual lives. AICS (the school I’m at here) does not want to be like those schools. I really appreciate the importance they place on maintaining a devotional life in the midst of theological studies. A theologian and/or pastor cannot fulfill his roll without continuous prayer, but it’s easy to let studies get in the way.

Aizawl, the capitol city, isn't much to look at,
but it is definitely lively on the weekends!

Classes start tomorrow, and I will try to sit in on a few history classes while I’m here. I spoke with one history professor who’s teaching the history of Christianity in India and said that I would be more than welcome to sit in. I will be teaching two groups of students twice a week, so I have a class to teach every day except Wednesday. I will also be meeting with my supervisor once a week for theological reflection, which is a PTS requirement for field education. Pray that my first week of class goes smoothly! :D

Most of the houses and buildings are built like
this... right along the side of the hills

Most of the shops look like this, whether you
need a cell phone, a snack, or a stove top.

PS Every Sunday night is "Singspiration." Picture adults (professors, students training to be ministers and missionaries, the principal/president of the school, etc.) dancing and doing hand motions to praise songs for about an hour. It was the best worship I've had in years. There was so much joy and life! Unlike the US, these people have no inhibitions keeping them from giving God everything during their worship time. I think this is going to be my favorite part of every week. Praise God!

Eating and Meeting

I didn’t do much on Tuesday, besides walking around the campus with Jenny and unpacking my things. Wednesday, however, was more eventful. Since everyone was arriving that day, rooms had to be readied. I helped Jenny and another girl clean the rooms for the provisional pastors. These pastors have already graduated from AICS, but are receiving additional training in order to obtain their ordination.

We had tea with a handful of students and teachers in the afternoon in order to celebrate that one of the students (or maybe a teacher, I can’t remember) obtained first place (out of 500) in a state-wide writing competition. In Mizoram, people don’t really eat lunch. During lunchtime we have tea and a like snack, usually toast or something similar. I don’t mind eating a light lunch, especially because the breakfasts are very large. For breakfast, we eat flat tortilla-like bread or rice with potatoes and eggs. Sometimes they also serve side dishes like oatmeal or toast. I eat my meals with Mom and Dad, their son John, Jenny, and Rompui (I don’t know how to spell her name, but it kind of sounds like this haha). For dinner, we have rice, dal (lentils or chickpeas), greens (mustard leaves or other leaves), chicken, and another vegetable that I like, but that I don’t think has a name in English. Sometimes they have a dessert, which lately has been mango or papaya. I love mangoes, but I could take or leave the papayas.

This morning started their orientation activities. At AICS, there is chapel every morning at 7 am, which I will be attending. They sing hymns (everything is in English), have a mini-sermon, and cover any house-keeping items. This morning a few introductions were made (new faculty, new students, me, etc.) and there was an overview of the next couple of days. This afternoon I will be going to the principal’s tea with all of the students and to the orientation (where more thorough introductions will be made).

It’s a beautiful, sunny day today, but there is construction every day on campus that takes away from the sounds of nature. All I hear right now are motors instead of birds and insects. :/ It’s also not conducive to napping, especially because the construction is right next door. Oh well. On a different note, everyone keeps talking about the past Princeton students and how wonderful they were. I hope that I don’t let them down, but I’m just trying to be myself and do my best. So far it’s going well. I’m excited to start teaching next week. I haven’t started planning the lessons because I want to gauge where the students are in their English abilities. I think I’ll give them a test to see what grammar points I should cover while I’m here.

I haven’t gone off campus yet, but on Saturday we’ll be going into the city! I miss you all, but I’m learning a lot and becoming stronger and growing closer to God—so I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything!

Home Sweet Home

I'm finally in Mizoram and I love it here!

However, in order to get here, I had quite the adventure. On Sunday, I arrived at the airport in Dhaka in the afternoon. My flight to Aizawl had to go through Kolkata, since Aizawl isn’t an international airport. The silly thing about it all is that I had to completely backtrack and fly over Dhaka again. It also meant that I would be spending the night in the Kolkata airport.

The trouble started in the Dhaka airport. My e-ticket said that my checked-in bag could be 23 kgs in one place and 20 kgs in another. I took a risk by filling my bag to 22.8 kgs. Sure enough they wanted me to pay for the extra weight. I showed them the ticket and explained that I didn’t think I should have to pay. I finally gave in, but just as I started unlocking my bag to take stuff out, they said it was okay. One problem averted. The next happened when I was going through security. I had two 10 packs of AA batteries, which apparently can’t be in carry-on luggage here. They took them out and wanted to throw them away. A nice man told me that they would check-in my backpack with the batteries in it. They did. Another problem averted.

When I got to the Kolkata airport at about 4:30 pm, I went through immigration and customs, which went well. I had heard that there were private rooms available in the airport and that there was a ladies dorm available too. I went to the airport manager and inquired about the private rooms. They were all booked, unfortunately. So I ended up getting a spot in the dorm for $15. After eating dinner (which made me sick for two days), I went to the dorm. I walked into a room painted hospital light green with two small fans running and cardboard strewn across the floor. I almost cried. I took all my luggage downstairs and resolved to stay in the chairs in the shopping area. I didn’t want to sleep, because I had all of my luggage with me, but I ended up dozing for about an hour in a very purposefully placed position over my bags. This was the longest night of my life, but I did meet some interesting people, which passed the time. One man from Bhutan is working on staff at UC Berkeley and traveling with his sister for pleasure. A young Indian lady (a little older than me) is moving home from working two years in Singapore. She’s going to start management school in two weeks. The Kolkata airport never really emptied, so that helped me stay awake. In the morning at about 7 am, I headed from the international airport to the domestic airport to check in for my 10:10 flight to Aizawl. I had adjusted my luggage a little bit and had no problem with the weight or items this time.

The flight was only an hour and a half. I didn’t feel well, so I wasn’t really able to sleep on the plane. The young man next to me taught me how to say “Hi, how are you?” in Mizo and we chatted a little. When we were landing, I looked out of the plane and saw beautiful, lush rolling mountains (or hills) and waterfalls. Brenna (the girl who had this placement last year) told me that when she got of the plane, Mizoram reminded her of Jurassic Park. I really agree. I’ve never seen anything like this. Waterfalls, bridges over steep ravines, pouring rain and thunderstorms every day, tropical green trees and plants, more creepy crawlies in one place than I’ve ever seen haha. It’s great here (maybe excluding that last comment about bugs). But seriously, I love it.

“Dad” (the principal’s husband whose name escapes me, but who I will call “Dad”) and Rev. Zolawma met me at the airport. They said that I was blessed to arrive on time. Because of the frequent thunderstorms, flights right now are commonly delayed. I can’t image having to stay in the Kolkata airport another night. Praise God that my flight came right in between two storms! Another hour and I wouldn’t have made it. On the way to the seminary, we had to stop at a government office so that they could register me as a foreigner in Mizoram.

Once at the seminary, I took a shower, camping style with a bucket of warm water. Then I ate a little. My stomach was killing me all day because of what I had eaten at the airport, so I had absolutely no appetite. But the principal Hnuni, or Mom, was very helpful and made me soup and bread and a few other things that would help soothe my stomach. I took some medicine and went to sleep.

I forgot to mention Jenny. Jenny is Mizo, but from another city about 5 hours away. She is here to teach Hindi at the school. I can already tell that we are going to get along, which is good because she lives in the room next to mine. We have a little house to ourselves, with two rooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen area, and a living room area. She preached for the first time last night, but I wasn’t feeling well so I didn’t go. She told me that she was nervous, but I explained that I will be in her place in a couple of weeks, because I’ve never preached either! Even though we have separate rooms, I asked her if I could stay in her room with her last night (there are two beds), because I was so sick. She said of course, and I’m so grateful for this quick friendship and this companion that I will have while I’m here. Having been told that this placement can be isolating, and having heard from Jenny that she has been lonely, I think we will both be blessed by having each other to live with. Praise God!

I’m feeling much better this morning, although my stomach is still slightly upset. The students don’t come in until tomorrow, so for now I’m just resting and settling in. I apologize for not having any pictures. I wanted to take some while we were driving yesterday, but I felt nauseous (the grapevine-like curves around the mountains don’t help) haha. I don’t have as easy access to the internet (it’s in a computer lab on campus that’s open during the day), so my blog posts might be a little more split apart. Also, the internet connection here is extremely slow, so I can't promise any more pictures until I return home... :/ I’ll be buying a phone hopefully this week. So I will be able to call my parents, sister, and Marcus soon. I love and miss you all! Pray that I feel completely better soon and that I continue to adjust to Mizoram well.

English at Uttam's

Yum!

On Wednesday night, we decided to makes smores for dessert after dinner. We roasted marshmallows on the stove and substituted sweet biscuits for graham crackers (which they don't really have here). They were delicious!

A couple of the girls and I are playing Uno

On Thursday I went to Uttam's Place, which is an AG tutoring center for young girls. All of the girls live in the slums, and the volunteers there are young women from the Home of Hope orphanage. The goal of Uttam's Place is to be alongside each of these girls as they grow, preparing them for a university education. It's run by a Bengladeshi woman, but AG people from the States work there a few days out of each week. I spent the day working on English with a handful of girls. We went over days of the week, months, and daily activities. For lunch, I went to KFC (you read correctly). It was actually really good; everything's spicier here. :)

Today (Friday) is church day in Bangladesh. Friday and Saturday are the weekend here, since it's a Muslim country. We went to the largest AG church in Dhaka (there are several all around the city). After the service, I went out to eat at the American Club again. We rested in the afternoon, but I also went to a movie store ($1 boot-legged movies, anyone? heehee shhh) and to a bookstore where I picked up some English grammar books for Mizoram. This evening we went to the Engage graduation. The students leave tomorrow for the States. The program is one year, but students have the option of returning for a second year. Three of the students are leaving permanently and two are returning.

These are the afternoon girls.
Another group comes in the morning.

Tomorrow is my last full day in Bangladesh. I'm going out to lunch with a bunch of people and to a youth service in the afternoon. Not much is planned for the rest of my time here, but I certainly have things to do. I need to start thinking about sermon writing, lesson planning, and packing for Mizoram! I leave for India on Sunday.