One more year

After a lot of thinking, praying, talking to others and looking into other options, I decided that I will again make SIAS my temporary home for next year. Its funny how HE works in our hearts sometimes. I had no desire to return the first half of last year. But around Christmas time, he began to change my mind. It came down to one thing primarily: having time to grow in the knowledge and grace of the L. I have so much to learn and I feel like if I went back to living in America right now that it wouldn't be good for me. At the same time though, I am so excited about seeing my family and friends this summer :-) I can't wait!

Providence

One of the interesting things about traveling is meeting people along the way. I just got some of these pictures from one of the girls I was travelling with so I thought I'd share them with y'all. In the first picture is a guy we met from Wisconsin (oh yeah, I forgot you might not know him from the other people in my group...he's the one to my right). He was really cool. We actually met him in Guilin and then "randomly" met him again in Yangshuo on the top of a mountain. He ate dinner with us that night and then went bike riding with us the next day. He was a strong believer and said we were a big encouragement to him because he was really wanting some fellowship. The other picture is of a guy named...actually I forget his name. He's the Chinese guy in the picture. Actually he's not Chinese, he's Hong Kong born British. He only lived in Hong Kong until he was 6 and since then has been living in England. When we met him in Thailand he was in the 7th month of a year long trip around the world. He stayed with us for a few days at a National Park and although he was not a believer, I think he enjoyed having some people to travel with. He said it gets pretty lonely at times, so I can imagine he is always happy to meet some people he can travel with. You never know why you meet people randomly, and it seems insignificant at the time, but who knows when we might run into them again. My friend Katie met 2 people from her small college in Indiana on our trip! We ran into several teachers from SIAS we had not planned on meeting up with...it's a small world. I'm glad that HE's got it in the palm of his hand.

"My times are in Your hands"

I've been thinking a lot more about what to do next year. I don't feel like I want to enter into the stream of the typical American work world, and yet I would love to be closer to my family and friends. I could go to South Korea and teach (they pay much more money, which would help pay off student loans), but after talking about it with some people I feel like unless I can go with someone I know it could be really tough, since I would not be going with an organization like the one I came to China through. So my prayer is that if SK is where I am supposed to go that I would either miracuously have a friend want to go with me, or at least have someone introduce me to some solid people that they know there. Or that if I am supposed to go back to America someone would present me with an offer, or I would find an offer that meets my needs. Or that if I am supposed to come back to China, He would make that abundantly clear. I just want to have pure motives wherever it is that I go. I want to go wherever I can maximize my JOY in HIM.