I am going to
give you a brief overview of the past few weeks. As you may (or may not, I am
sorry to say this is due to my lack of updates…I promise I will try harder)
know, my students at Destiny Institute have all been working very hard for the
past three months preparing for what is called the Student Convention, it is a
very large competition in Jakarta and schools from all over Indonesia come to
participate. There are competitions for; art, academics, platform, sports, and
many others. It is a very intense competition, and the students are up and
going from 7 am until 9:30 pm every day.
I went there
with 13 students, 9 girls that I was in charge of, and 4 boys that my friend
Mr. Kenan was in charge of, we traveled 13 hours by bus and had an absolutely
amazing albeit crazy busy week. The competition is run by people who come up
from Australia as the curriculum that these schools all use is an Australian
program, and so I was able to meet and talk to people who spoke the same
language as me, and for me it was a very fun and interesting time. I am also
happy to report that every single one of our students won 1st and 2nd
place ribbons, and some added 3rd place ribbons as well. We were/are
very proud of them. Some of the work that they did for their projects, whether
it be presenting a famous speech, a cross-stitch, or an oil painting was absolutely
fantastic and it was fun to see them rewarded for their hard work.
When we got
home, it will be no surprise that I spent a few days to rest, but we then went
right into the end of the term evaluations for the kids, and by the time that
was over my professors from college had come. Rev and Dr. Diane Davis from Twin
Falls decided last year to come to Indonesia and teach about the 4 R method of
learning, Apolagetics, and the One-Room School. They own and operate Aletheia
Christian College in Twin Falls, and it is there that I went school before
coming here. They have been here for the past few weeks and it has been a
really good time for all of us. They brought a young woman named Karli with
them and I have really enjoyed my time getting to know my new friend.
Because of this,
however, I have been so busy that I have barely had time to see facebook, let
alone talk to you all about what I am doing. Having them here has been an
inspiration to me, and has also been a relief in that sometimes it is nice
simply to be able to talk to someone who understands your cultural references.
I have been able to take some council, and really been able to share some of my
heart, which has been very good for me.
Honestly I wish
I could really share more with you all, but you really do have to be careful
what you put on the internet. I understand that perhaps then a newsletter would
be better than a blog, yet at the same time, it is still the internet, and so I
would like to tell you that my plan to explain more of my time with you when I
get home. Here is the other reason my blogs have not always been consistent, I
am writing a book. We all knew that would happen, but it makes it hard to
decide which stories you guys should read on my blog, which ones should go in
my book, which ones I just tell my parents and you can hear from them, and so
on and so on.
Well, this blog
is already quite long, I will try to get on again and go deeper into the past
few weeks in the next week or two as I think I will have some time, and I will
tell you about my time in Jakarta, and also my time with Randy and Diane here.
I will also tell you that tomorrow morning we are all headed to the beach and
will be spending Easter there. I love you all and hope to hear from you soon.
(if you don’t know you can comment at the bottom of the blog and I can see and
respond, I would love to know that you all read it, cause sometimes I have my
doubts J )
Talk to you soon.
