Are You From Georgia?

Having been in the city for over a week now, I am becoming more familiar with the area and meeting neighbors. I have already had the opportunity to talk with a few individuals from West Africa and hoping to meet some more.

My accent has become a door opener to having conversations and making friends. It’s funny actually because I never really thought it was that bad. But I have been asked by more than one person if I am from Georgia.  One time I said “That’s funny I am from Georgia how did you guess that?”  They then kindly explained that I kinda sound like some of the woman of the show with the little girls doing beauty contest. That’s right folks some Canadians apparently think I sound like someone off of Toddlers and Tiaras.  Maybe Honey Boo Boo lol



It has rained a lot since I have been here but Monday we had beautiful weather and a group of us made our way to town to explore the city.  I rode on the Sea Bus over to Lonsdale Quay Market to have lunch. There I had some really good Sea Food Crowder and fresh baked bread. The market is pretty cool and has lots of international food choices.  

After Lunch we walked the sea wall a bit before heading to Stanley Park.  Stanley Park is a beautiful park that has large trees and vegetation. On some of the trails you can quickly forget you are in a city.  I did not have the time to bike through the park this trip but I will be headed back to bike it before I leave.    

Cherry Blossoms

Stanley Park Trail to Beaver Lake

Welcome to Vancouver

Since my last updated, I have left campus, been home, and am now in Vancouver. I have received my Visa!!! I was very excited to receive it! Goodbyes were said to new friends as we scatter to the Nations. This is my next leg of the journey and I will be here in Vancouver for a few months. 

While home I was going non-stop, I unpacked to pack again, had meals with lots of people, visited family and friends and I sat for my NCE National Counselor Exam (I PASSED)! 

Goodbyes are never easy but I was able to have some sweet ones. I had a bitter sweet send off from my parents and hope to see them come to visit in Abidjan within the next year or so. I love that my last Sunday in the States was Easter Sunday and enjoyed spending it with my Church Family.

 

At the airport in Atlanta I found favor with the man checking me in. You see packing for years oversea is not an easy task. Oh Noooo you see I packed and unpacked, then packed and unpacked again. Finally I got it down to 3bags and a carry on. Each bag could be 50pounds I used all 50 pounds, actually one of them was over.  However this man showed me grace and saved me $300!!! So that was an amazing start to the second leg of the journey.

After clearing customs in Vancouver, I was greeted by the smiling faces of those who will be my teachers for the next few months. They promptly took my bags and handed me a folder that had every I needed to find my apartment. This was my first assignment. I took a minute to catch my breath and then headed off to catch a train to another train, then walk to a bus, then be dropped off close to my new home, and then walk another block.  An hour later and a half later I was in my new apartment greeted by my roommate who arrived the day before.  The area where I am living is nice. I have a grocery store, drug store, farmers market, Starbucks and Mc Donald’s all with in short walking distance from my home.

The next day, I and the two other ladies here for training went out to explore the city. We hopped on a train to downtown Vancouver and walked the Sea Wall and visited Stanley Park. We had awesome sunny weather, this place is Beautiful! I love that almost everywhere I look there is water. 

Orientation started today. We had a good first day of classes and enjoyed getting to learn more about our teachers. We will be taken the week to get acquainted with the city and learn what goals the Urban Life team has for us! Exciting!

I survived Being Snowed In!

Last week on campus we got the most snow that I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I woke up on Wednesday morning to a good bit of snow on the ground and it was still coming down pretty good.   I was thankful for the day off and made the most of it. I played outside half the day with the children on the campus, pushing sleds, making snowmen and women, and partook in a few really good snowball fights. The other half of the day was dedicated to catching up on reading and studying.

 

 

By Saturday all the snow had melted and we had a beautiful day to head into Washington DC. We had a great trip and were able to observe a few Africans who were visiting and working in the DC area. We met a Nigerian family that was showing the maternal grandmother the sights of DC.   We meet quite a few Ethiopians working in the city.

 This week is going into my 8 th week on campus, time has flown by. I am looking forward to this week as the Sub-Saharan team will get to spend some good quality time with multiple people who have previously or are currently working in Sub-Saharan Africa. We will end Friday with the last of our shot days. I think I only have 3 more shots to go!!  

Our group has been learning how to cook a few meals from scratch.  We have learned how to make soups, pizza and brownies from scratch.  This week one of our tasks is to go without electricity for the day.   This will be for all of us a very practical learning task since we will often be living with frequent power outages and brown outs. In fact I just Skyped with a supervisor  yesterday who had to travel to a different location because the power at their home had been out for hours.

Celebrations and Sight-Seeing

Well I’m half way through with part one of training! It has been a great first month and I am making some great lifelong friendships. About a week ago I got hit by a nasty “bug” which made me slow down for a good three days. The Lord has blessed me with amazing house and team mates that showed me love and took good care of me when I was oh so sick.  By the grace of God I was able to bounce back right in time for Valentine’s Day and my Birthday.

On Valentine’s Day I was greeted in the morning with cards and candy by the two cutest kids headed to East Africa that you have ever seen.  My Valentine was a precious 5month old whom I watched while her parents went for a night out. The campus singles got together to serve our married w/children coworkers by watching all the children for the night so they could get away for a few hours.  

I had such a good Birthday! I received tons of cards and gifts in the mail from family and friends back home. It was a full day of celebration, my small group here on Campus made me breakfast, my Sub- Saharan crew through me a party and made my favorite cake Strawberry Short Cake, then me and a few friends went off campus to eat and play over at Dave & Busters.  So it is safe to say I had a great day and felt much love.

On Saturday my friend and I made a trip into Washington DC to go sight-seeing and scope out the area for an assignment coming up in a few weeks. We arrived in the city early in the morning and walked for the next 7hours! It snowed throughout the day while we were there. It was super cold!!! So we stayed bundled, drinking tons of coffee and hot chocolate to stay warm. We saw the Capital, the Museum of Natural History, the Holocaust Museum, the Washington Monument, multiple Memorials, the Lincoln Memorial, the Canal Lockhouse and The White House.   It was a good trip in and I look forward to coming back in a few weeks. Just hope it’s a little warmer!

 

Training Has Now Begun

Can I just say I am very thankful for the opportunity to crate and very thankful that crating is now behind me. Crating for overseas is not an easy task and it involved more work then I originally realized. I cannot imagine crating for six people like a few of my coworkers did in preparation for living overseas. I packed as much as I could fit, closed it up and said good bye. I hope to get to reopen it in a year at my new home.

 

I spent my last Sunday with my Beulah Family. I racked up on all the hugs I could get. My Church family had a sweet time of prayer for me during the morning worship service. The Deacons wives’s and the rest of my Church family prayed for me.  I felt much love from the body of Christ.

The Lord was very gracious to me and provided beautiful clear and sunny travel conditions for me as I drove to training. My second day at training I woke up to a blanket of snow on the ground.  I was very excited to see that much snow but I have no idea how to dress for it!??!  It has snowed almost everyday this week so I better figure it out quick ;)

I have had an awesome first week here at training. I have enjoyed meeting all the other individuals and families who are also here for training.  While at training I am living in a home with two families and two other singles, all of us are headed to Sub- Saharan Africa.  Two of my new friends are a couple headed to the same city as me! I was so excited to meet them :)

Our schedule is jam packed with classes and assignments to help us prepare for our new job roles. The last few days have been 12-15 hour days non –stop, busy days but good days. Pray for me as I learn how to balance time needed for me and the Lord along with socialization, work assignments, and mandatory fitness. Mandatory fitness you might ask?  Yep 3x’s a week, some type of workout or recreational play is a must for 30min or more.   Looks like I get to freshen up on my soccer skills.

Five Days in the Dome

This NYE I attended the Chick-fil-a Bowl, Clemson vs LSU. Yep, I was there in purple and gold cheering on the LSU Tigers who apparently didn’t bring their “A” game. Clemson won, we watched some fireworks, went home and did some last minute packing for Passion.

 

New Year’s Day I was back in the Dome for the first day of the Passion 2013 Conference (Jan 1-4). Passion is a Christian conference for young adults and is held at the Georgia Dome. This year 60,000 young adults attended Passion.  Students from 2,022 different universities and 54 different countries were represented at Passion. It’s pretty awesome to see and hear all 60,000 praising our Lord and Savior as one.  A small glimpse of what is to come.

 

60,000 Worshiping Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

 I was there with 10 of my crew from Beulah. We had fun staying downtown in Atlanta and riding Marta to and from the conference every day. This was the first time a few of them had ridden Marta, which is crazy since we live right outside Atlanta. Watching them learn and experience it with a few thousand other people honestly was pretty funny.  

 

Headed to Passion 2013

It's just a little Crowded on Marta

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

We were encouraged throughout the week from Ephesians 3:14-21, that our God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. We headed home with the challenge to love and share the gospel with all we encounter. There are billions who are in spiritual slavery in world today and 27 million who are in physical slavery due to human trafficking. As believers we need to share our Faith and fight for freedom, we cannot be silent.

We are in it to END it

Candel Light Vigil, Raising a Shout to End Modern Day Slavery

 I expect that next New Year’s will be a little different! I look forward to meeting the new friends, learning from new experiences and tackling all the new challenges the Lord has in store for me in 2013.

!!! Merry Christmas !!!

While preparing for Christmas this year I have been busy traveling and saying some goodbyes. I went down to Florida to visit and say my goodbyes to grandmas, aunts and uncles and a few friends. I am blessed to have an amazing family who while they are sad to see me go are very supportive of the reason why I go.  I love you all and I’m blessed to have you in my life.

While in Orlando, I got to go to Epcot to hang out with Aunt Elizabeth, Gabrielle and the Mouse.  I had a blast! While there we rode some rides and prayed for the Nations while walking from country to country.  We had lunch in Mexico, dinner in France and our hearts broke for the lost in China seeing the statue of Buddha full of offerings left by those visiting the park.

Me and Gabrielle with Our Ears

I made it back home to Georgia in time for Christmas!!  I enjoyed spending Sunday with my church family and celebrating the birth of our Lord and rejoiced in the anticipation of His second coming. The young adults gave me some very thoughtful gifts to take with me to Africa and made me a cake. A huge praise is that the young married couple I have been praying about taking over the group have committed to taking over after the New Year! I’m excited for both them and the group!

My Cake From Young Adults

 

Christmas this year could have been big, wild and full of social chaos but that was not what I wanted. I wanted a nice, quiet Christmas focused on the greatest Christmas present ever given, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  So we celebrated Christmas as a family, the four of us, Dad, Mom, my brother Bryan and me.  

 

If you didn’t know my father is an amazing cook but my mother is also a good cook who does not get to practice her culinary skills that often because my father is the top chef in our home. On Christmas Eve day, mom taught me how to make some of our favorite cookies from scratch, so that I can make them next year in Africa. For fun, I reverted to a childhood favorite activity and made a ginger bread house. I thought it turned out pretty good.

 

My Gingerbread House

We always strive to make it to a candle light service on Christmas Eve. This year we went to one of the churches our family helped charter. It was nice to see old friends and familiar faces.  Since there are not little ones in our home, Christmas morning gets a late start! We sleep in and then have brunch in our PJ’s before gifts are opened.

 

It’s been a great Christmas and I pray Christmas is much more than a baby being born in a manger long ago for you. My prayer is that Christmas will be a reminder and celebration of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ who came to die for you and for me.

                               Merry Christmas!!