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(This was written on Sunday, 3/17/13) “Culture shock,” or “culture stress,” can be described as “the anxiety that results from losing all the familiar signs and symbols that help us understand a situation” (definition from CLA Methodology, MTC). And that’s a bit of what I’ve been feeling this week. It’s when you’ve been trying to […]

A few weeks ago, on the way home from church I met a lady named Sally and talked to her for a bit. She said that I should come back the next day and we could chat. So after doing my laundry I headed out. On the way I talked to several people. The first […]

I’m learning French. Many of you may wonder why I still need to learn French when I’m almost fluent (well, the more time I spend here, the less I think I know). One answer is that the French here is different than the French that I know. Let me give you a few examples: Soir: […]

Same: Lots of people drive here. Different: Most drive mopeds. There is no “driver’s ed” and no age limit for driving a moped. On the other hand, if you want to drive a car you have to go through driver’s ed (I’ve heard it lasts a whole year!) and have to be a certain age […]

Last Wednesday in my Jula language class we worked on learning numbers. Now I could count up to the 1000s if I thought about it really hard and had a really long time. You would think that if you knew the numbers you’d be able to count money easily. But no, it doesn’t seem to […]

On Sunday the high was supposed to be 40 here. But that was Celsius, and in Fahrenheit that means 104. It was hot. So what would you do on such a hot afternoon? I made chocolate chip cookies. Sunday night was the determined night for me to make an American meal for my family here. […]

Same: I swept for quite a while on Sunday. Different: I swept the yard instead of the house! And the goal was to sweep up all the fallen leaves and flowers, but to leave the rocks. There isn’t grass here, so it’s all “dirt” with rocks. The “dirt” is closer to brown sand, though. In […]

Same: At church this last Sunday we had a child dedication. It was very similar to what we’d have at Oakwood, with a Bible verse, vows taken by the parents, and a prayer. Different: There was only one child being dedicated and she wasn’t walked around the church. (I know it’s not very different, but […]

Before I left the US I shared the following statistic many times: In 2004, only 5% of the roads in My Country were paved. That’s the latest I knew and I didn’t know what to expect when I got here. From what I’ve seen around town, it looks like that percentage has gone way up […]

Yesterday I was reading in John 13. I came across John 13:7 and thought that it summed things up here quite well. It says, “Jesus replied, ‘You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’” Sometimes I feel like everyone I meet here could tell me that multiple times a […]