randa's life

My Sincere Apologies

2008-06-05T02:12:00.003+02:00

Dear friends and family,

I am so sorry for neglecting this blog site. I started a new blog when Derrick and I got married, because at the time that seemed easier than changing this one. I tried to get the word out about our new site but I just completely forgot to try to post it on this blog.

Well, here it is, our new blog about life as a married couple and life in Japan: www.thelogwooddiaries.blogspot.com

I hope that you have not forgotten about me and that if you check this blog again, this will help us get back in touch.

in Him,

Miranda

catching up!

2006-12-08T05:41:00.000+01:00

Well, once again its been a very long time since I've posted anything. I hope you understand that this is not due to my own choice to remain hidden from my friends and family. I have officially decided that this has been my busiet semester. I will not bore you with all of the activities, classes, programs, etc. that I have been involved with. Basically, I have had a whole lot on my mind lately and a whole lot of things to get done.

Beta Banquet:
This picture is from my club's banquet. It was a Western style....hence our lovely attire. We actually arrived as cows and changed later. I
made the dress from a cow pattern shower curtain I found at a thrift store (een tweedehands winkel). I had a lot of fun making it and was so excited to be able to sew an actual dress from a pattern. Yes, I did this even though I was pressed for time...it was just something I had to do. Look at flicker to see a better picture of the dress and more.

Omega Banquet: The next picture is from Matthew and Adam's club banquet: OMEGA. We were all three at the same banquet and we had a lot of fun. For those of you who dont know my brothers, Adam's on the right and Matthew is on the left. Adam's a sophomore here at OC, graphic design major. Matthew's graduated from OC, working for an intercity ministry down-town OKC and at a porsche parts-shop.

For thanksgiving, God gave me a wonderrful adventure...perhaps because He knew I would need to be able to have some good, relaxing time before the stressful weeks that were to follow. I spent all of thanksgiving break with Derrick's family in Columbia, Missouri. He has one younger brother and two younger sisters. His mother, Jennifer is a hairdresser and Tom is Derrick's stepdad. It was really fun to be able to get to know them and have fun with them. I just wish I didn't have to spend so much time working on my paper's so I could have gotten to know them better, but at least I got a good draft written.
Anyway, we had a great time getting to know each other. Now, while we were there, derrick's car decided to break down. We had to wait till monday to hear the prognosis...it blew a piston and it needed a new engine. It would have probably taken a few days to get it figured out. We decided that since we needed to be back at school asap (we had already missed monday), we would try to figure something else out. After doing a lot of calling around, we bought a scooter/moped (a yamaha razz) from Derrick's cousin, packed our bags, and rode the scooter/moped home.
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ok, so I lied. we didnt really get all our bags on the scooter/moped..we had to leave a few things at the house.
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Ok, I lied again. We DID buy the scooter/moped, but we also borrowed a truck from Derrick's uncle to transport it back to Oklahoma in, where we plan to use the moped whenever we can to save a ton of gass and spare the truck from being driven too much. so, we drove back monday night and arrived at OC at 4 am on Tuesday morning. Needless to say, I slept in that day.

Everything else:
Ok, the rest of my week has been a mess. I would love to tell, I think it helps me think through things when I write them down, but I really need to finish this homework and then go to bed.

I pray that God blesses all of you!
Please pray for a little boy from Kenya named Chodo. He lives in a community affected by the aids virus and his parents are not able to provide for him and all of his siblings.

Crazy Week!

2006-11-03T03:30:00.000+01:00

Remember that night at IHOP? Working on a project for most of the night. That is what a lot of this week has felt like. No I have not stayed up that late each night this week. On the contrary, I've actually tried to go to bed at decent times each night. But thats mainly because I have had so much to do during the day that I am so tired by the end of the day and I really have no other choice. I really value my sleep, because I enjoy it and I like being healthy.
SO because this week Ive had a few projects that I needed to work on, I spent a lot of time at the library. Some of that time was with my roommate and some with my boyfriend. Things with Derrick are going really well. Since I'm extremely busy with school and everything else I'm involved in and Derrick also has school and work, we dont get to spend as much time together as we would like. But the time we do get to spend together is wonderful!
Mom and Jesse have been in the country.....mainly to be able to have some time with her parents in Lawton. We had an early thanksgiving dinner in Lawton on Saturday so the family could get together while mom was here. That was really nice to be able to spend time with family and take a break from all the school work I had. Derrick came along too and got to spend time with my family. We had a great time.
Then on Halloween mom and Jesse were in Oklahoma City and we went Trick or Treating with Jesse. That was a ton of fun...watching Jesse do something we (my other brothers and I) never got to do as children. I always wondered what Trick or Treating would be like. But I would not trade my experience in Belgium for anything else, so I dont mind not having the trick or treating experience as a child. I've got a ton of other wonderful experiences to make up for it.
Anyway, now I'm just rambling on, so I'll stop.
God bless!

What you can get done at IHOP

2006-10-30T09:14:00.000+01:00

SO, tonight I am writing a paper at IHOP (a 24 hour restaurant with free internet) for my senior seminar class, as my roommate writes her paper for a philosophy class. Here are some conclusions I have drawn from this evening so far:
1. I should have started sooner...just because I'm just writing a draft (nl:klad) does not mean I have lost my perfectionist tendencies....It doesnt matter how good it actually needs to be, I still try to make it as good as I can.
2. Three muscle relaxers in one day is not a good idea...especially if you're used to taking one a month and need to write a paper on philosophy.
3. Unintelligent philosophers make people go crazy because none of what they say makes sense. (My parents taught me not to use the word 'stupid' so I tried to avoid that word in this sentence)
4. Taking three muscle relaxers might actually help to write a philosophy paper because it makes you sound like the philosophers in your book. It also helps you to understand these philosophers.
5. Sometimes I feel like the next Curt Niccum...depending on who I am around and the comments they make. (Curt Niccum is basically the smartest person on our campus, mainly in the areas of Bible and language)
6. Doing homework with my roommate makes me draw more conclusions on her homework than mine....especially when she's reading about human robots gone crazy. I think she might be turning into one. Is that possible?

2006-10-17T18:47:00.000+02:00

As promised, here is a picture of Derrick and me. This was taken at World Mission Workshop (WMW) in Lubbock, Texas this past weekend. For those of you who do not know, WMW is a type of seminar for anyone interested in mission work in the whole world. Missionaries come and speak to those interested to let them know about their experiences and to show them what kind of mission opportunities are out there. It’s a great time for missionaries to kind of have a reunion...that’s usually how I see it! I like to go to see all the missionary people I know and to meet new ones and to hear what’s going on in the world. Well, I know that I said I would talk about my future this time....it’s going to have to wait. We had a poet laureate, Robert Pinsky, visit our campus last week for a lectureship and I was involved in most of that, so I feel that I need to report on that because it was such a wonderful experience. First of all, a poet laureate basically means that he's considered the king of poets in the States. Robert Pinksy seems to be a non-practicing secular Jewish person. So it was very interesting to have him speak on our campus. I thought it was a wonderful experience. He wrote a book about the story of David which many of us have been reading in our classes, so he gave a lecture on that book. I was able to speak with him a little before the lecture because I was in charge of the registration table at the VIP reception. It was a small enough reception to where I felt comfortable to mingle as well. He asked me about my future plans and I explained to him my aspirations to be a missionary in Belgium, because said Europe needs God. AT this point, I did not know his religious affiliation and he caught me off guard by asking "from a secular point of view, why does Europe need God?" That started our Pinsky-Brazle 'debate', lol. It was fun. After the lecture, during the question-answer section, I stood up and asked him "Earlier you asked me a question from a secular point of view, now let me do the same....From a secular point of view, how do you see David's spiritual life and his relationship with God?" I think it caught him off guard, lol, but he answered well and we’ve enjoyed our discussion. The next day I also got to bring a 2-3 minute presentation about what I had learned from the book and the lecture. If you are interested in reading this, I will type it up and attach it to my next post.
I think that's all for now. God bless you all!

Randa's got a boyfriend!

2006-10-08T04:32:00.000+02:00

Yes, its true, I do have a boyfriend. His name is Derrick Logwood and he's from Missouri. Since I know you all probly want to hear the story, I will tell you how it happened. Well, it all started our freshman year, three years ago. We kind of knew each other, but not really. We started hanging out at the end of our first year, but that's mainly because I was getting to know his friend Nathan better and started dating him after a while. Derrick was still immature back then. Actually, so was Nathan and so was I. But I never saw myself dating Derrick. He was fun...but too immature for me.
Second year we were both in Greek 1 together. We got to know each other better as friends because we were in that class a lot and thus we saw each other a lot. But I always only saw him as a friend because he was still pretty immature. He was a fun friend though. I enjoyed hanging out with him, but still could not imagine dating him.
Third year we continued to be in Greek class together, and he continued to slowly mature. We became better friends and started hanging out more. I had the occasional thought of "hmmm, i wonder if i could ever date him", and then usually dismissed the thought. We were just friends. But he was growing up.
Then, over the summer I went to Rwanda and he went to South Africa on a mission trip. I didnt think much of it until school started up again and we started talking again. We didnt really keep in touch at all over the summer. Anyway, this semester we started hanging out a little more, going to the same devo and talking more. He's not in my Greek class anymore, but I could tell from our time together that he had grown up so much more this past summer than I had imagined possible. For most of September I was still holding on to that funny immature immage of Derrick that I had of him from previous years, but every time we talked I learned more about how mature he has become.
Now, we didnt really ever hang out alone. We never went out on an actual date alone. Last week was probably the first time we had ever spent real time alone. We went to starbucks to study....then on a whim decided studies were done and it was movie time. We had a pretty good idea we liked each other then, but we didnt want to jump into a relationship to quickly, so the movie was 'just as friends' and we didnt even bring it up that it was anything different. All week we hung out more than we ever have and then thursday night it happened....we actually verbally expressed what we pretty much knew was going through each other's minds. Then, we decided that since we both feel this way about each other, we would continue our relationship as a 'dating relationship'.
Wow, I dont think Iver ever written this much about just one person on my blog. I hope you all understand how important this relationship is to me and I ask you to pray for me and Derrick as we embark on a completely new, exciting and challenging part of our lives and that God remains at the center.

Let our Lord be praised for He is GREAT!

OH, and thanks for those last comments. I'm really glad to hear you all are interested to know my plans. I will dedicate my next post to telling you about my thoughts for the future (and perhaps a picture of Derrick).

2006-10-01T23:12:00.000+02:00

Once again I have taken forever to update this blog. I will try to have more discipline to start updating it more often. Sorry to those of you who check out my blog in the hopes that I have written something!
Anyway, school! School is going great! Its keeping me really busy and I have a lot to think about, but I'm relaly enjoying my classes! I am taking Greek (i'm in my third year now), Technical Writing, Linguistics, Senior Seminar (English) and Church Growth/Church planting.
Greek is going quite well. I dont have enough time to really get to know it as much as I would like to at the moment, but I know that time will come. Technical Writing and Senior Seminar have kind of been overlapping for a while. They were both talking about looking for jobs and/or grad schools and setting up a resume and doing interviews and sending letters and all that stuff...so amazingly enough I have already gotten way ahead of a lot of people in my class in trying to figure out what i want to do after I graduate. Keep in mind that I probably will not graduate until December 2007.

If you are actually interested in my future plans and would like to know more about what my thoughts are or think you have some good advice for me, let me know!

I am still grading Greek for Curt Niccum. Its always a joy to be working in the Bible building! I get to see how the Bible profs really are! I'm not working in the security office anymore. I got a job with the english department as the senior student coordinator for our new Literacy Program that we are starting. We look for volunteers who would like to help our maintenace workers on campus and people at certain sites in Oklahoma City to learn better English. Its such an exciting project!! Lots of people are asking for applications and I'm excited to see it happen!

Praise the Lord for He is good! He loves you all! Remember that!

Finally back int he blogging game

2006-09-07T14:51:00.000+02:00

Ok, so, I want to apologize to everyone who's been checking out my blog every once in a while to see if there's something new. I'm so sorry I just kinda stopped posting after Rwanda.
When I arrived back in the States after Rwanda, my parents were also here for the month of July. So our family got to spend a lot of good time together as we played the 'missionary on furlough game'. We often had two meals a day scheduled for us to meet with someone from church or some friends that mom and dad know. That can get really busy, but I think its fun to be able to get to know people like this, or to spend time with the people we know well.
We took a week out of their time here to go up to Montana to spend time with some fmaily on dad's side. OUr aunt has a cabin up in the mountains, so that's where we stayed. It's so beautiful up there. We had a wonderful time! And we had a nice family road trip getting there and back.

After mom, dad and Jesse went back home, I stayed on campus for about a week for a Third Culture Kid Camp. This was the first one ever and we had a great time. I was so happy to meet every TCK that showed up and I think we had a wonderful group!
We also have a wonderful group of TCK's on our campus this year! We've alreayd had our first get together and I think there were about 20-25 kids.

After that, the Rwandan students arrived here and I was able to spend the whole time of their orientation before the freshman orientation week with them. That was great. But once the other freshmen started rolling in, I let them get acquainted with other people and I usd that time to try to get organized in my appartment.
Now school has started and I am, as always, very busy. In addition to classes and homework I have many things on my mind. But thats ok, cuz I'd rather be busy than bored.

pure Excitement!

2006-06-23T09:56:00.000+02:00

Let me just start witht his statement: I absolutely love Rwanda!! And now let me restate it: I absolutely love Rwandans! I have gotten the questions "what do you like most about our country?" so often and I never get tired of answering it because I love the reactions I get when I tell people that what I love most is the people themselves and why. The people here are very loving, hospitable and happy. I love talking to Rwandans, hearing their stories, visions and learning about rwandan culture and every day life. Most people here describe life with their spirituality and relationship with God being a big part. I especially love how easy it is to get into a spiritual conversation with people here. Those are almost non-existent in Europe...and yes I admit, thats my fault....I should start them. Rwanda is helping me to have more courage to start those kinds of conversations.
This past week, at our Guest house there have been many visitors who are all so awesome to talk to. Yes it has been great to have a few sports teams to watch the worldcup games with (one football team has been here three times now), but my favorite people to communicate with has definitely been the 'pastor folk'. There is a group pf pastors and young people who work in the church who have been here for a seminar type thing. I have yet to meet one that speaks a language other than kinyarwandan! That's the exciting part!! I have actually managed to have lenghty conversations with a bunch of pastoral people in Kinyarwandan!! We usually start talking when I arrive at the guesthouse and go to the tv room to watcht the game and we talk until about 30 minutes after the game...which means Ive been getting to bed realy late, but its totally worth it!! these conversations are such treasure. Of course, you will realize that I am far from fluent in this language and our conversations consist of much repitition, tecahing new vocab words (usually concrete words, but occasionaly an abtract word that takes for ever for me to understand, lol) and pointing, saying in both kinyarwandan and english, me repeating in Kinyarwandan and them repeating in english and each of us writing it down. ITS great!! I love it!!

Another super exciting thing thats been going on is that we have finally been able to meet the 10 rwandan students who will go to OC with us this coming semester!!! I dont know how much you know, but we have been in the process of selecting these students for a while. They were chosen out of 800 000 secondary school students who took their national exam. The giovernment initially chose the 25-ish with the top score on the exam and then some of our OC representatives conducted interviews to choose 10. They have now finally been officially selected by the ministry here and we have the whole next week planned to spend time with them to get to know them and prepare them for going to america and being at OC. Please pray for these students in their preperation to leave their home. This comes with a lot of responsibility for them because they are signing a contract saying that they will come back to rwanda to help the development of the country! not only their family, but their whole country depends on them!!

Like I said....my time has been a time of pure excitement!! God has blessed me with much...which means I am responsible for much. Please pray that I will be responsible with what God has given me and continues to give me!

starting to feel a love-hate relationship with my airplane ticket

2006-06-18T11:12:00.000+02:00

Two more weeks. Not enough. And yet, I cant say I'm sad to go back to Oklahoma because I am really excited to see my family again! Mom and dad and jesse will be in OK, as well as matthew and adam, so our family will be together! This happens maybe twice a year...Xmas and summer. SOOO, as much as I hate knowing that my time in Rwanda is winding down and as much as I say that I wish to say, I also have this realization that I will be happy whereever I am.
ANyway...Rwanda has been just as amazing as always. I dont want to spend too much time now, so I'll continue to save the funeral story for another day so I have time to get all the details down.
This past week we've once again enjoyed teaching english conversation and having really amazing spiritual conversation with our students! one of our classes kept asking us questions and we talked a lot about heaven and what happens when we die and what rwandan traditional culture believes about death and ghosts and spirits and how those traditional beliefs compare to and/or combine with Christian beliefs.
Some of our students, Nelson, Vedaste and Aimable, took us on a walk up to the top of one of the hills from where we could see most of the city and even as far out as they're planning to develop the city. Nelson pointed out everything he could of! Even all the different plants we walked by and all the different buildings and disctricts we could see. The hill is called Rebero, and at the top they are in the process of building a very nice looking resort. We stopped up there to have some drinks and good conversation with the boys.
yesterday there was an open house for the international school that the Jenkins are starting. It was the first time I had ever seen the very beginning of a school, so it was really exciting! So now I'm gonna use this oppurtunity to advertise: if there is anyone who might be interested in teaching at an international school in rwanda, let me know! They are still looking for teachers, mainly for secondary school, but they will take anything they can get...qualified of course.
well, I have so much to tell and too little time to write it all, so i'm gonna go now and hopefully find more time later to write more.
God bless you all! Imana iguhe umugisha!

More on the wedding

2006-06-14T13:12:00.000+02:00

The wedding: (sorry, its pretty long....but culturally interesting!!)
First we went to a catholic church and stood outside waiting for another wedding to get done. When it seemed to us that the other wedding party was finished and gone we went in with the other guests for this wedding and sat at the back as the wedding party was walking in. They all came in at the same time: bride and groom arm in arm. We knew it was going to be a long wedding when we saw that there were chairs for the bride and groom to sit in. It was also very interesting that there were barely any guests. Dave said it was normal for a wedding to start off like that and by the end the room would be full...which is exactly what happened. Throughout the whole service it seemed as if the most of the time the priest was was preparing for communion by reading from the Bible and and saying prayers. There was also a choir singing songs in Kinyarwandan. Half of te time people in te audience would stand up and then sit down again and they would keep doing this all the way through whether the priest was talking or the choir was singing. I dont think there was any rhyme or reason to it and that people just randomly stood and sat when they felt like it. After this whole religious ceremony we had a two hour period that there wouldnt be anything for us to do because e wedding party would be preparing for the reception with pictures and stuff. So we decided to have an adventure and go where Dave had never gone before. He's been wanting to find the top of MT. Kigali to see the city from up there, so we followed a dirt road in the direction we thought we would need to go. HA! That was awesome! We passed people who lived along those dirt roads and they all smiled at us and were excited to see a bunch of Bazungu (=plural of Muzungu= foreigner or white person). When we got pretty close to the top, the kids who were running after our vehicle were shakig their heads and waving their fingers telling us 'no' so we wouldnt go any further...so we assumed there was a military outpost up at the top and we probly should turn around. SO we turned around and went back down....part way down we took a different road down and came down on the other side of the hill (its not really a mountain). That was a ton of fun.
then we got to the reception, which is the coolest part of the day! When we arrived they led us to some seats that were in the middle of the front row. Across from us were places for he wedding party with a square space of about 10 by 7 meters. To the right of this square was the brides family section and to te left was the groom's. I assume our section was for other visitors and extra places for family. We waited for a while and after a while they served us bottled drinks...coke, fanta, water, maracuja (passionfruit). Then when the wedding party entered, they entered with an entourage of traditional rwandan dancers. When the party was seated, the dancers continued to entertain using the square of empty floor in the midst of all the sections. First the women, then they left and the men came out and danced. (there were also singers in the background.) After they danced, the traditions of the Rwandan wedding began. They brought a pot of what I assume to be banana beer out and put it in the middle with a seat on either side. First each spouses grandfather came out and greeted eachother, sat down and took some of the beer through a straw as they had a short conversation. Then the fathers did the same. Later at one point the bride, groom, maid of honor and best man also sat around and drunk from it. Then they also had the cutting the cake part, which resembled the way we do it. After the bride and groom cut it and feed each other they each take some cake to the other spouses family and then the rest of the wedding party serves it to the guests. After the cake part the dancers came back out and did some sort of 'mating dance' because both men and women were dancing, probly to show the life of a man and woman living together. It was very interesting. As they were finishing their choreographed dancing they went up to the bride and groom and got them to come join them on the floor. Then one of the girls also came over to me and invited me on the floor!!! AAaah! I guess I saw it coming though so I wasnt all that surprised and decided it would be polite to accept the invitation. So....I got up and danced with them! I followed on of the girls as she showed me how to do the traditional way of dancing...very interesting!! yes, (to answer the question you all have) someone did take video....no I havent seen it yet and no you cant use it as blackmail cuz I really dont care who sees it. I had fun and thats all that matters! later, the MC came and sat next to me and the first thing he said was "you're a good dancer". LOL! Then he explained the rest of what would happen which was basically members of the family getting up and saying whatever they want to say to the family and then the grooms family went and greeted the brides family at the end and offered them some drinks because "it is time to leave and they have a long journey ahead of them"...coming from african tradition where the wedding happens at the grooms home and te brides family must return home. After this, the family has their own personal traditional reception in the room where the new couple will sleep to introduce them to marriage with a 'drinking milk ceremony". I dont know exactly what that entails because I wasnt invited.
Anyway...thats the short story of the wedding day. Next time I post I will tell about the funeral.

a wedding and a funeral!

2006-06-11T19:49:00.000+02:00

Hello all!
First of all I want to apologize for not posting in so long. Yes I am still alive...and doing great! It seems that every time I am at the Jenkins house, I get caught up in socializing with the people here, especially the Rwandans. Imagine that! Pretty weird huh!
Anyway, enough sarcasm. Last weekend the Jenkins took rusty and onawa out for a weekend to Nyongwe forest because they had to leave this past friday if she still wanted to have her job when they got back and they wanted to be able to see some of the country outside of Kigali before they left. So the 4 of us who stayed at the guest house were allowed to make our own weekend plans. Saturday we basically just walked around Kigali all day looking for places our students had told us about. I was amazed with how well i'm learning to know my way around the city...or at least down town. We really enjoy saying hi to people as we pass them on the street in their own language. They are amazed and usually very impressed by our knowledge of their language way before we really get a chance to show them all we know. Only two men Ive met have not been impressed. The two men who lived in between us at the guest house for a few days seemed to only talk to us in a way that was testing our kinyarwandan...kind of like the pharisees were constantly testing jesus. However, one morning one of the men passed me as I was jump roping and I think at that moment I started to sense impression and respect in his attitude towards me. He said that jumproping is the best type of exercize because it exercises the whole body and even the mind. After that I had a very good conversation with both of them late one evening. We were speaking a mix of English, french and Kinyarwandan. they taught me a lot about the rwandan language and culture and I felt ver happy to have had this conversation with these men. I havent seen them since then because they left the guesthouse.
So much has happened this week. I dont have the time now to type it all and you probly dont want to read it all, so I'll summarize most of it and spend a little time on the end. I got my hair braided again on monday. then Tuesday we continued the english classes at Kist and SFB, dicussing mainly the parable of the two men building a house, one on a firm foundation and one not. Then on thursday we went to a little independent orphanage of only 10 children! that was amazing! we will return there later so I'll write more about that in the futere.
Now for the title. Saturday we went tot he wedding of a nephew to one of the church members here with the Jenkins, Justin rudasingwe. That was amazing! It started off in a Catholic church and then the ceremony was a at a different place in town a few hours later. We killed those few hours by exploring on mount Kigali! the ceremony was awesome! I'll need to describe more later, but for now I'll tell ya that it was a very interesting mix between a traditional african ceremoiny and a more modern ceremony.
Today we went to a funeral. The body of a relative (who had died in the genocide) of Charles, also a member here, was found. That was also very interesting and Ill have to tell more later because I should start getting off the pc now.
Pray for Charles (and thank God for him because he's an awesome man!) and pray for our main taxi driver jean and a security guard at Novotel who both feel weak in their faith.
Praise God! Imana ishimwe!

we've started teaching!

2006-05-31T18:58:00.000+02:00

The first week was one of acclamation and anticipation. The second one is tiring, yet exciting. We started teaching at KIST university this past Tuesday and today we taught at SFB. We've been reading parables of Jesus with them which we discuss. We ask them many open ended questions and listen to their responses. Most of are Christians who attend a church from one of many denominations here in Kigali, so they all have very good thoughts and ideas. We really enjoy hearing what they have to say. Some of the challenges include getting everyone in the group to talk, because just as in every culture, some people are less talkative than others. We've been going through the parables that talk about being lost, they tell us about sins and the value of a lost sinner returning to God. One of my students said that he thought the main point of these parables were to show God's love and kindness because he considers his children so valuable that he would go through a lot of trouble to find them and bring them back.
please keep praying for the students we meet with. Tomorrow we will be back at KIST and teaching the same students we taught on Tuesday. PLease also pray for our encouragement, health and ability to teach English well and talk to these Rwandan people. Pray that God helps us encourage the many Christians we meet and show God to the people who don't know Christ.

Got my bags!!

2006-05-28T20:25:00.000+02:00

So as a continuation, and hopefully an end, to my luggage saga I finally was able to go pick up my bags at the Kigali airport yesterday! My dad went to the Brussels airport and talked it over wth the British Airways manager there. He finally admitted that because of the partnership between british airways and SN brussels airways, no one was taking responsibility, so he just decided to fix it and sent the bags on the next SN flight from Brussels to Kigali. SO praise God!! Imana Ishimwe!
In the mean time here in Rwanda everything is going great! Yesterday we went on a city tour, so we learned a lot about Kigali and Rwanda. Rusty and I had already done this tour last year, but we still learned more this year and had fun. We also got to know the guides pretty well and learned a lot of cultural things from them. Their names were norbert and Junior and tehir English was really good. Today the four of us who are staying at the Episcopalean guesthouse went to church there, sort of out of 'social obligation', but also because it was easiest. That was very interesting. they were having a special women's day where their women's fellowship led everything. They invited one of their muzungu (white) members to speak: a woman from Zeist, nederland, named Yzette Verwiz, i think. We also stayed a little longer for most of the Rwandan service after that.
Tonight we had the Bible study that the Jenkins have been having at their house. We had a very good sized group! i was amazed! I think there were about 10 rwandans. One was Patrick, a professor at the university I worked with last year and will be working at again this year. Rusty and I taught his class last year.
After we finished the biblestudy we still visited for a while. I talked with a man named Charles for a long time. We talked about a lot of things and learned a lot about language (Kinyarwandan) and how things work here with three languages and education and stuff. He also asked questions about christianity in europe and the States and he told me about christianity in Rwanda.
well, thats all for now.
Praise the Lord!
Imana Ishimwe!

Welcome to Rwanda!

2006-05-26T19:11:00.000+02:00

Well, we are in Rwanda and glad and excited about what lies ahead of us!
This has definitely been a learning experience for me when it comes to travel. If you read my saga of my trip from Oklahoma to Belgium, you might be interested to know that the saga does not end there and continues on as I type. Because of that missed flight from London to Brussels, when I got to the british airways check in desk, they would not let me check in because I "was not on the flight"! After I had confirmed it twice. And on top of that, after she called SN brussels airlines (through whom the ticket is booked) and said I was on the waiting list, she declared that my bags were overweight. Apparantly according to her I was only allowed the 20 kg weight limit for that BA flight, despite the fact that I called BA a few times from the states to make sure I would be allowed an international allowence all the way through! So, dad and I went to clear it up with the SN desk. I told hte guy my problems, he looked at my stuff, booked me another ticket and confirmed that I was allowed international allowance because my kenya Airways ticket says I can have 2 pieces of luggage. Yey! All set...right? not so fast.....when I got back to the check in desk, the girl said that the flight has been closed already! She called the gate to see if I could still make it and said if I ran I might get on the plane, but there's no way my bags will make it. SO I ran and left my bags with dad to figure it out...sorry dad! And thank you so much. However, BA wont do anything to help me get my bags, eventhough its obviously their fault (and also partially SN's fault). They want dad to send it with cargo, which would cost 350 euros to send, and more to receive on our end. I talked to an SN desk here and they eventually concluded it was not their problem and if I pay for the cargo to send it and give sufficient documents to proove it was not my fault they would eventually pay us back. Now who believes that? Ach, I'm not complaining, I can live fine without my bags...I'm really more frustrated witht he fact that no airline is claiming responsinility and keeps referring me to either the other airline or cargo.

ANyway....I'm in rwanda! These first few days have been days of acclamation, hanging out and running errands. Its been amazing! I love being back in Rwanda. I've ben able to use my Kinyarwandan and French skills, which is really fun to see people's reactions when they realize you speak their language..a little. Its a great way to strike up conversation and start potential relationships.
We will start teaching English at KIST (Kigali Institute of Science and Technology) on Tuesday. I am very excited and slightly nervous. I guess I'm nervous because I've done it before and thus feel like I should do a much better job because I'm "more prepared". We'll see. I am very excited to meet our students. We will also be teaching at SFB (school of finances and business) and I think we have about 200 students total.
We've also already had dinner with the minister of education. That was exciting! they are working on the selection of which students get to take advantage of te scholarships that OC is providing starting this coming semester. I am so excited to get to know the students that will eventually be selected! I didnt really get to talk to the minister because I as obviously not at te head of te table with her...i'm not quite that high up in the 'hierarchical system', but Adam and I had a great conevrsation with her personal assistant! His name is Valence and he told us a lot about the rwandan education system and how they're trying to improve it.
Ok, that's enough for now. Please praise the Lord and thank him for our good and safe trip here (yes, despite my luggage saga) and for all of our health..so far :). And please pray that He continue to lead us in everything we do because really most of the time we dont know what we're doing. We do everything one step at a time and have to be extremely flexible. Praise the Lord for flexibility! Imana Ishimwe!

Africa here I come!

2006-05-23T11:26:00.000+02:00

First of all, in case you were wondering what my hair looks like now, I got dad to take a picture when he and mom came back from Paris. I'm wearing the shirt they bought me! Thank you mama and papa! This pic is just the front angle, so if you want to see other angles and a few pics of mom and dad in Paris, check out Flickr!
Well, today is the day. I'm leaving for Rwanda this afternoon. My plane to London leaves at 5:20 pm...and arrives there at 5:30, after an hour of flying. Oh how I love having different timezones! The best part is, once I get to Rwanda I wont actually have to change my body's timezone because its on the same time as Belgium.
As much as I hate leaving home after such a short visit, I am really excited about getting to Rwanda. I'm excited to see the Jenkins again and to see some of the people I met there last year. I am excited to see how God will use me this year, and through the contacts I will make and the experience I will have, how he will use me in the future in regards to Rwanda.
Well, i should continue getting ready...please pray for our team as we'll be traveling. We should arrive in Kigali on Wednesday at 3:30 pm their time, so in Oklahoma it would be 8:30 am. If you live somewhere else, you can figure it out :).

EdwarScissorhands-like Father Daughter bonding

2006-05-19T14:59:00.000+02:00

So, who knows what its like to get your hair cut with huge garden scissors? I can now i say I do! I wanted to get my hair cut before i go to Rwanda so its easier for the African women to put braids in my hair while I'm there. (its hard for them to work with such soft white person hair, so i'm guessing that the less of it there is, the easier it is) Dad jokingly suggested that he use his new garden tools on my hair and I jokingly said yes. But if you are familiar with our family's sense of humor, you know that anything we say jokingly because it sounds crazy, we are probably serious about.
Needless to say, dad had a ton of fun! I really did not mind letting him experiment because I figure it didnt matter if it turned out bad cuz I'll be covering it up with my African hair pretty soon...but I really think dad did a pretty good job!
Look for more pics on Flickr.
Oh, by the way...my parents are in Paris this weekend, so I'll be taking care of Jesse here at home. I'm kinda sad to miss a whole weekend of quality time with my parents before I leave for Rwanda (Tuesday), but I'm happy to let them have a nice weekend with just the two of them and I'm really happy to have this weekend of quality time with my lil bro!

The blessings of being home

2006-05-15T11:19:00.000+02:00

I am so happy I am able to be home for a few weeks before I go back to Rwanda this summer. I know the time is short and wish I could be home longer, but God is truly blessing me so much while I'm home.
The biggest blessing of all is being able to spend time with my family and being able to see at least part of the growing up process of my little bro Jesse (7) and my little cousin Gideon (6 months). The are the cutest kids and I enjoy every moment I have with them. I'm also happier than words could desribe to be able to deepen my relatioinship with my parents. As a teenager you just dont realize how important that relationship really is. Then you go off to college and all of the sudden you remember that you need them, not only financially, but you need their love more than anything. I enjoy feeling and experiencing that love firsthand, and not from the other side of the world by means of a skype telephone call.
Another cool thing I got to experience the first saturday I was home was a dutch speaking ladies day at our church that my mom organized. I got to see a lot of women who have been rolemodels throughout my whole life, true friends and sisters in Christ. I also got to experiene that story I've heard from so many preachers/missionaries...you know, they tell you they were just visiting a church when all of the sudden someone asked them to preach, or lead singing, or stand up and give a 10 mnt testimony....you visit a church and you should always be prepared for something! Well, mom asked me to lead the singing at this women's day. It felt so great to be able to just come home and jumo right into helping out the church.
I've also been privileged to help my cousin Luk both with his evangelization project in Ghent and working on his new house there. I distributed flyers for the Let's Start Talking campaign, attended their first church meeting at his house and even served as a secretary for the LST campaign by answering his phone while he was driving. I also helped him put up a plastic roof for the weekend while the roofers were gone and Luk waited for them to come back and finish putting up the roof.
I've had some great times here at home and am really going to miss it when I leave...but I know God plans on using my for His work in Rwanda, so I am also very excited to see that all come together in a little over a week! (I leave Belgium on May 23rd!)
oh, the picture here is of my dear little cousin Gideon. For more pictures, click the link to go to my Flickr picture account.

I made it....a day late, but I made it!

2006-05-07T16:29:00.000+02:00

So, who ever knew that an exciting trip to Rwanda (or Cairo) would start in good ol' Chicago O'Hare airport!? Let me tell you my story. In Oklahoma City, the lady where I checked in looked at my schedule and immediately got a worried look on her face. I figured out that my flight to Chicago was going to be 2 hours late...but that was not the problem. She told me I would most definitely miss my flight form Chicago to London and she did not know what to do for me. All she could do was tell me that the next flight out of chicago to london was the next day in the afternoon. So she went ahead and gave me my tickets from OKC to Ohare and from Ohare to london, even though I would miss that flight. I assured her I could figure it out from ohare and thanked her for her help. She made sure my bags would follow whatever I do! So i got to Ohare and had fun walking around looking for the big dinosaur where the ticket rerouting desk was. The line was amazingly long. As we all waited in line I met Jeff Veal. He is a professor of physics and astronomy and South Western University in San Diego (I think…yea). He’s been teaching for 7 years and is now taking a sabbatical. He is on his way to Cairo and plans to travel around there for a month. After waiting in line for a while and watching people in front get frustrated with the help they were or weren’t getting, they decided to open up a few more desks with more agents to help us. So we got bumped to new lines where we got to the front pretty quickly. My agent(s): two young women, not much older than me. Their mood: frustrated, tired. Their comments: “oh (bad word)….why did I get this one?” (because my flight schedule was so long and confusing) and “Oh man, this schedule is so long and confusing.” Fortunately I have learned a lot about how helpful it can be to remain a patient and happy passenger. By the time Jeff was done with his agent and had walked over, both girls were in a better mood and soon helped me get a ticket to London on a flight the next day, and a voucher with a discount for a few hotel of my choice (from a list) in the area. So Jeff and I decided to stick together….we both had interesting stories to tell and love to listen to others and hanging our waiting for an airplane is always more fun with someone to talk to than alone. So we each got a room at the cheapest hotel, using the voucher we got a $39 room 20 mnts away. We talked for a while that evening and then met up in the morning to go back to the airport, got our tickets settled and then had lunch before we split ways…me to London and him to Frankfurt. We had some really good conversations about belief and God and about life and school and pretty much everything.
SO anyway, I got on my plane to London, had a great flight, and finally arrived in Europe. I got my next ticket figured out and then once again, as I have done quite often now, I walked around terminal 4 in the Heathrow airport and enjoyed a cappuccino at the Starbucks there. I then flew to Brussels and waited for my luggage…and waited…and waited. Hmmm, not come my luggage did. Apparently, despite my 4 hours in London, they had left my bags there. For those frequent travelers out there, this was on British Airways…so beware. They said they would be on the next flight out of London to Brussels…the next flight was later that day…and they would call me when they came in. The next day I called them to ask for progress. My trunk had arrived. I don’t need my trunk. My trunk is full of stuff I’m taking to Africa and leaving there. My trolly suitcase thing was still in London. It was supposed to arrive that evening at 6:30. They would let me know when it got there and send it to my house the next day….the next day. Yey. There was no one available for us to talk to about why they could not get the bag to me that evening, after I had been missing my luggage for two days because of their mistake. Not to complain…I did fine without the luggage for a few days…but its just something you expect an airline to do better than that. LOL, I learned that my dad is not a pushover…and takes every opportunity to teach his daughter how not to be one.
Anyway, I have my luggage now…got it Friday after I arrived home on Wednesday. Being home has been so great! I’ve loved it. I love talking to and hanging out with the fam! Jesse (my 7-year old brother) is a hoot and a ton of fun to play with and talk to! Its great to see my cousins Luk and Holly’s baby Gideon grow up (6-ish months now). And I really enjoy seeing my Christian brothers and sisters here in Belgium and Holland!
Over and out.

"I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"

2006-04-21T20:42:00.000+02:00

I feel like the bunny on "Alice in Wonderland", not because I'm late for something, but because I always have something to run to. My life consists of running back and forth from one thing to another. However, I'm not very stressed because of this busy life, and really, I enjoy everything in my busy schedule. So I'm relaly not complaining...merely professing how busy and tired I am.

As I have already posted, the ambassador of Rwanda came a few weeks ago in preperation for the president of Rwanda coming next week. Its exciting times waiting for him to come. He will be here a total of an hour and 15 mnts! Ha! I think thats what they said anyway...15 mnts for a question and answer session with students and one hour for lunch. Then he will be off to getting money from rich americans to help his country.
Another big thing going on in my life is that I received the Zondervan Greek Scholar Award of the year. I am the first female to be awarded this at OC. I get a small metal and a greek book of my choice off of a Zondervan list! I feel very honored to have received it...but what makes me feel even more honored is that all the Bible faculty are proud of me and tell me I deserved it. The award lunch took place at the weekly preachers luncheon, so I took the oppurtunity to tell tell all these preachers why I'm still studying Greek even though I dont need it for my major. I told them I would like to be involved in starting up Bible schools in Europe so that European Christians can have the same type of education I am getting to prepare Christians not only if they want to be preachers and teachers, but also to equip them with the kind of knowledge I would have never gained if I hadnt come to OC!

Next main event in my life. Tonight, I will be in my first play ever! No, I have really never been in a play. This evening at OC there will be a series of one acts directed by students who are directing these plays for their class. Hmm, their grade depends on my performance! There's a lot more at stake here than my personal pride. Anyway, I'm excited...and nervous!

Hmm, one more week of finals and I fly home for three weeks!!! Then I go to Rwanda to work with the Jenkins family for six! We're hoping to get some preschool English sessions going with the university there, but they havent set anything yet, so hopefully it will all work out! I'm not nervous about it. If that doesnt work out, I'm convinced God will have something for us to do.

Please pray for the last week of school for everyone here, and just the end of the school year for everyone! Pray for the people of Rwanda with whom the Jenkins are in contact. pray for the Jenkins and their living and registration situation. Also, pray that the visit of the president goes well here and let that lead to the possiblity of registering the church in Rwanda so the Jenkins can remain there and register the church.
Praise the Lord for wonderful people! Thank him soo much for the small things of life! God is great!

Surfin' the slopes!

2006-03-30T17:27:00.000+02:00

SO, spring break came and went. I was planning on staying at school all week so I could get a lot of good homework done...but that plan got shot down pretty much every time I told someone. The thursday before the break, when I told someone that's what i was probably going to do, along with the shooting down of my brilliant plan came an invitation to go along with them......they were going snowboarding!!! My first question..."how much does it cost?". Their answer, well, we can give you a pretty good deal." My second question...."ok, but, how much will I have to pay?" My friends answer: "well, how much are you able and willing to pay?". After playing that game for a while he finally came up with a possible price for me. I realized he wasnt the one behind the planning and then even later I realized he really had nothing to do with the planning at all and after a while started knowing less than I knew about the trip, lol....thats why he had no straight answer. Anyway, I decided to go! I told them I had to take homework with me though....and i did do some of what I brought....so i'm kinda proud of myself for that. But despite the fact that I got very little done of what I had originally planned, I had a blast and I am really happy that went!! Oh, by the way, we went to Breckenridge, Colorado.

I dont know if you remember, but a while ago I wrote that I had dreamed of skiing, and then randomly thought about it a few times in one day....wel, this was like a dream come true! After three years of missing my family's ski vacation, I could finally go again! ofcourse, it made me more hungry to go back to the resort in France where I know the slopes and the runs...I know where the good jumps are and at what point of the slope you need to get your speed up to make it past that flat stretch...I also really missed skiing with my parents and brothers. We're all really good at keeping up with each other. And I think most of all I think I've missed seeing Jesse get better every year and start zooming right past people.
So, I had an awesome break!!

Now I've been back in the real world...well, that is what a real world is like for a college student...filled with studying, research, writing papers and trying to keep up with non-academic activities such as club, work and preparing for Rwanda and trying to occasionally just socialize with no real agenda.
These last few weeks will be really busy!

This weekend our Rwanda team is having a training weekend out by harding with their program called HUT. Please pray that that goes well and I'll let you know how it went when we get back!

Rwandan Ambassador

2006-03-21T16:14:00.000+01:00

Almost a month from now the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, is coming to the States and will make a stop here at OC. I am invited to a lunch in his honor and will get to meet him as the student representative of OC.
About two weeks ago we got our first taste of this visit. The Ambassador of Rwanda to the US, Zac Nsenga, came through as a preperation for president Kagame's visit. He spoke at Quail Springs Church Of Christ Wednesday evening. As he spoke he showed pictures and statistics. He talked about what Rwanda was like before the genocide (both before and after colonization), then during the genocide and then right after the genocide and now. He explained how the country is enthousiastically building it self up again...the whole nation is doing what they can to reach their vision for 2020. They have a document which states what that goal is ("vision 2020") and working hard. You hear the people in Rwanda talk a lot about this vision. STudents learn about it in school and learn how they can help. Each disctrict has its own specified vision within the great vision for the whole country. This vision is real and the people are making it possible for their country to reach its goal.
The next morning those of us who went to Rwanda last summer and those of us going this coming summer were invited to breakfast with Mr. Nsenga. I believe this was much better than anything we're gonna get with the president, because this was such a select group that his speaking to us was very personal....he spoke directly to us. He wasn't just 'speaking to the masses'. AFter he spoke we asked questions. The question was raised "what is the most important and very first we we (or AMericans) can do for your country?". What he said has stuck by me. The greatest thing he wants people to do for the Rwandan people is be interested in their story and genuinely be their friends. I think its amazing, because that is exactly what I saw when we were there last year. I know someone could easily walk away from that experience saying 'they just want our money', because we had those times that the people asked us for money in exchange for their services like showing us a certain building we were looking for, or you could say 'they just want to use our friendship to get into America', because we had plenty of those requests. I prefer to remember the many times when people merely asked for knowledge and not physical help with the intention to use that knowledge to help their country with their own physical strength. ALong with asking for knowledge came true friendship, and along with those questions they asked to help build up their country came their questions about our knowledge of their people and country. They want us to know them, befriend them, and help them.....as their friends.
so I want to encourage you to learn about Rwanda. Maybe even do some research to see if there is a Rwandan refugee near you and make an effort to reach out to them. Above all, pray for them, because they are our friends and many of them are our family in Christ.

If you are interested in the vision 2020 document, let me know.
Check the link to see pictures from the Quail Springs website.

Spring Sing

2006-03-04T16:21:00.000+01:00

I've already told you a little about Spring Sing, our school's big club show where every club gets about 5 minutes to do show. Well, that time has finally come! This whole past week has been filled with performances and today we have our last two. My club, Beta Beta Sigma, is doing "school of rock" (for all of you who dont know, there is a movie with that title). We have a blast performing it because its just a ton of fun! I have some pictures of the shows we've already done:

Artichoke

2006-02-26T20:36:00.000+01:00

Have you ever had artichoke? I don't think I ever had before my sister in club, Vanessa, intorduced me to it. I know I've heard of it, and I might have had it inside a dish, like a casserole or something....but I've never eaten a whole fresh artichoke.
Most of you who know me, know that if I have the oppurtunity to eat something enw that I've never eaten before, even if it sounds really weird and maybe gross...I'm gonna go for it! Some people tend to say "I'll try anything once". I don't like that saying because to me it means that whoever says that expects not to like it and will only have it once in their whole life. I just say "I'll try anything and I'll probly like it."
So when Vanessa and I were talking about food and she started talking about how she eats artichokes, I was like "Thats so weird! I want to try it!" SO we went to the store together, bought two apparently huge artichokes (i didnt know they were huge cuz i didnt know what a regular size was) and went to my appartment where we boiled them. When they were soft, we got them out and atr them. The eating was such an interesting and fun process! First you take the outer leaves and eat out the piece of meat/fruit that is hidden within the leaf at the end that is attached to the vegetable. But first you dip in ranch to give it an extra bit of flavor! When you've eaten all of the leaves (you dont eat the whole leaf, just the soft part inside), you're almost to the heart. You spoon out the prickily stuff cuz that would hurt to swallow down. When you've done that you can basicly just eat the rest...the heart and stem (of course still dipping it in the ranch if you like that extra flavor....or any other sause of choice).

I think that's a good attitude to have, not only when visiting other cultures where they might get offended if you dont eat there food. Many people seem to forget how exciting it is when we can try new things and hear and see new things even with people who are from the same culture as us and who seem to be a lot like us. Everyone is different and might have weird habits, whether its eating habits or something else. If someone wants to share one of their weird habits with you, go for it and be excited you get to try and learn something new. Everyone has their own family recipes that they like to share with others. Don't be afraid to share you weirdness with others or to try someone else's weirdness.

More pics on Flickr!

my Rwanda team

2006-02-20T19:16:00.000+01:00

I realized I hadn't posted a picture of our Rwanda team yet:
The back row is Holly Hixson, Rusty and Onawa Linden, I'm in the middle, Michael King, Adam Blackerby, then between Adam and me is Alex Volpe, and then on the other side of me is Bryan Hixson with their two daughters Grace (in his arms) and Alexis (next to me).

my volunteer work

2006-02-20T19:01:00.000+01:00

Every week I go to a school and help a little 5-year old french boy named Hugo in his american kindergarten class. I not only translate things that he doesnt understand, but I also help him be motivated and have fun and enjoy class even though he doesnt understand everything and the other children dont understand him.
Here's a picture of Hugo and me. (I'll post more on Flickr)

I'm using Flickr now!

2006-02-18T18:10:00.001+01:00

I've added a link on the sidebar to my new Flickr account that I just set up so you can see more of my pictures. So far I've only uploaded 6 Rwanda pics. But I plan to put more on later.

I'm still alive

2006-02-18T17:05:00.000+01:00

Ok, so i'm realizing more and more that just because I want to do something it doesnt mean I have to do it...if I did, my days would consist of 48 hours each and I still would not have enough time to get the amount of sleep that I would like. I've been saying for a while now that I'd prefer to be just a little too busy than bored. And that's still true, but I do needa raelize that after I've said that a few times is probably not a good time to take on something new unless I'm going to drop something else out of my schedule.
However, I dont think this busy schedule is something I cant handle because I feel God working through me and He gives me strength to get through everything and get things done. I'm still getting good grades, but not only that, I'm really enjoying everyone of my classes. If you asked me which class that I'm taking now is my favorite, I wouldnt be able to tell you. I might be writing a one-act play for my modern drama class! Does anyone out there with experience have advice about that??

I think I learn something new about America every day. Whether it be about the history, the people or the culture, something usually grabs my attention. A while back I started noticing the biggest difference about grocery bagging. Its not that they have someone bag yur groceries for you...I already knew that. But when they bag your groceries, they categorize everything! And I mean overcategorize....so much to where you end up bringing home about twice as many bags as you normally would need to! I also learned during superbowl weekend that its not just our family who would enjoy watching the superbowl merely because thats when the best commercials are shown. It seemed as if most people here are crazy about football, but really, when it comes to that last game, not as many people are actually interested in the game itself. It depends on who's playing. But everyone pays attention when its commercial time. Oh yea, talking about football...I had no idea till I moved here that its tradition to watch football with the fam on thanksgiving day!

I'm gonna try to remember more of those "what I've learned about America" experiences and hopefully you all will enjoy them.

ok, I'm gonna give a quick Rwanda update. First of all, praise the Lord! Because two of our guys have already gotten all their funds in. One of them was the most worried about it because he had never gone on a missiontriip, so he didnt have any idea how it would go. SO far the plan is the same. We've been working on preparing the lessons. We all think about open-ended questions to ask with each parable were going to read. We've also been working on team dynamics by getting to know each other better. We took an online "what are you spiritual gifts?" survey and discussed it. Rusty and I have also been telling them about the culture and showing them pictures because we were there last year and it would help them to prepare.
Right now our main concern is the Jenkins Visa. Its supposed to expire soon and because they havent allowed him to register the church yet, he cant get a more permanent visa. I'm not exactly sure what all the details are, but I'd like to ask you to pray about that.

well, I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Crazy, yet relaxing times!

2006-01-31T17:29:00.000+01:00

Hey all!
first of all I want to thank you for keeping up with my posts and for the comments that you leave. I love reading what you have to say.
This is the second day now that something has reminded me of our skiing vacations and given me the urge to ski (and snowboard). Yesterday I was just walking across campus...it might have been the smell of the cool air and the wind blowing against my face and creeping under my muts/beanie. Today it was just the smell of coffee in the language and literature department here at OC...for reason that coffeesmell reminded me of getting up in the morning and mom or dad setting coffee in our apt. before we go out to ski. I just cant believe its been almost 3 years now since ive skied! Man...those times have left me with really good memories! I thank God for giving our family the oppurtunity to do that!

Quick Rwanda update: We had another meeting yesterday. A young couple, Rusty and Onawa Linden, have decided to join our team for three weeks! That is such exciting news and we've been praying for this to happen for a while! Rusty was on the team with me last year and he and Onawa really wanted to go back to Rwanda....and now they can! Praise God! John Osborne came to our meeting and talked to us about how to conduct a small group sessions. It was really interesting and he had some really good things to say.
well, i tried to upload a picture of our team, but it wasnt working, so I'll need to try again later.

Ive still been sick lately....got a little sicker that I was, so Ive been staying in my appartment a lot and relaxing. Its been really nice to be able to relax....course Ive been doing my best to keep up with school work too. I have three exams this coming MOnday...In TEFL Methods, Modern Drama and African Civ.....so this weekend will be a study-filled time for me. If you could pray for my health and motivation to study well, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks!
Also, please pray for my friend Marge. SHe is one of my sisters in club and she's been struggling a lot with her health.
ok, i have to go to chapel now.
cya!
in him,
Randa

Rwanda now!

2006-01-27T19:02:00.000+01:00

Now that you've read what I did last summer in Rwanda and that I plan on going back this summer, I'll let you in on what's going on with our preperations for this coming summer and how much we know about what exactly we're going to do.
Our team consists of Alex Volpe, a Junior at OC, Mike King, a freshman at OC, Adam Blackerby, a Junior, me and Bryan and Holly Hixson, both are faculty members at OC and attend Quail Springs Church of Christ, and their two little girls, Alexis and Grace.
Our team has gotten together twice so far and we have discussed things like fundraising, what we'll be doing, what our lesson plan and tactics are, how and what the missionaries are doing, what the culture there is like and what our fears and motivations. Our last meeting was during OC's lectureship week, so Sam and Nancy Shewmaker, who have been missionaries in Africa, came and told us some of their story and answered some of our questions.

We aren't quite certain yet what we'll be doing. The original plan was to teach classes at KIST university, like what my LST team did last summer. But that plan seems to no longer be available to us. Now we are hoping to be able to have small group studies and independent one-to-one studies with students from KIST who are interested.

unfortunately my time is running out and i have to go to class now. I'll give more update and some pictures later.
Have a great day everyone!

Rwanda update

2006-01-24T15:50:00.000+01:00

Well, I promised you that my next post would be an update on rwanda.....so, I'm gonna start by just posting the newsletter that I sent out before Christmas break. For those of you who didn't get this newsletter, I'm really sorry but that means I either dont have you on my address list, and if so you should give me our address. Or you are among those friends of mine in Europe to whom I must honestly say that I havent sent one yet. I was meaning to do it while I was home for the break, but I forgot that break was busier than expected at times and at other times I just had that feeling of "i'd like to just sit and do nothing" that i havent been able to have at OC and had forgotten what it felt like. Not a good excuse, I know. But I will get those letters to you before I get the second one out!
anyway, for those of you who actually check this post, here is the letter:

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This past summer, I spent approximately 5 weeks in Kigali, Rwanda on a Let’s Start Talking (LST) trip. If you are not familiar with LST it typically sends out teams of three to six people to many different countries in the world to provide one-to-one English conversation with people. To generate conversation, we read from an easy-to-read version of the Bible with them, in the hope that they will be led to Christ.

In Rwanda, that approach got changed up a bit. Through the missionary, Dave Jenkins, we were able to work with Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). The dean of students there required that we teach all of his students taking English classes, which would not be possible with one-on-one lessons. So we ended up teaching classes of twenty to forty students. We were split into groups of three and each group had a weekly schedule.

We would start off the class session with some activities to warm them up and to get them speaking English. We played name games, riddles, English expressions, etc. After this warm up, we handed out as many LST books as we had, and started reading from the lesson. Then we picked out 2 or 3 volunteers to read the lesson. This helped them with pronunciation, but also let the Word sink in more. We then asked them questions, had them define simple terms in their own words and let them ask us questions. When we felt like we had covered the basics to help them understand the story and they were starting to become more interested in the depth, we broke up into small groups. Each teacher sat with a group of 5-10 students and talked about the lesson in more depth. Students asked questions about the story as well as things not related to it. We encouraged them to answer each others questions in order to get a discussion going and not merely a dialogue for the others to listen to. They asked us questions not only about the story, but about the whole Bible, religion in general, America and our lives. We in turn asked them the same questions and had wonderful conversations with them, getting to know their faith, their cultures, their families and their lives.

We got to know the students pretty well during school hours, but we also enjoyed our time with them outside of school hours, in order to build up our relationships with them as much as possible. In between classes we often hung out on the school grounds to continue to chat with our students and others that we did not meet in class. We also invited those students who seemed particularly interested in our beliefs to have an individual Bible study with us. Some of us walked down the shopping street with our students and went to their homes to meet their families. We also joined some at their churches to tighten our bonds and to get to know churches in Rwanda better.

This coming summer, I will return to Kigali with a Quail Springs Church of Christ campaign group. Quail Spring sponsors David and Jana Jenkins, as well as many other missionaries world wide. They have decided to send a team to every one of their mission sites in order to help with God’s work in those places and form closer bonds with the missionaries, the church and the people who need to hear the Gospel.

Bryan and Holly Hixson are serving as the sponsors for this work. Their two daughters, Alexis and Grace, will join with the mission work as well. Our campaign will look similar to the LST project I did last summer. We will work with a university and teach English through the Bible in their classes. Additionally, we will have one-on-one tutoring sessions through the Gospels so we can more easily form bonds and share our faith with our students. We will also serve orphans one day a week and we will have a few days to travel as a group and learn more about the country and culture.

Our expense for this campaign is $3500 each. God is already showing His provision by providing the first $1500. That means I only have $2000 left to raise. I need to have half of my funds raised by February 15, and the balance by April 15. This money will go to plane tickets, on site transportation, training, housing, food, some vaccinations, work materials, and resources for our service projects. In order for me to be able to go and do this work for the Lord, I will need both spiritual and financial help. If you would like to share in this ministry, but cannot help me financially, I would appreciate prayers. If you can help financially, donations can be sent to Quail Springs Church of Christ, Attention: Rwanda GO Team-MB, 14401 N. May, Oklahoma City, OK, 73134. I have included addressed envelopes for your convenience. If you send a check, please include the following memo: Rwanda GO Team - MB. All contributions are tax deductible.

I have created a blog website where I will be posting information on how my life is going. I plan on having a Rwanda update every two weeks or so where I will give information on how things our going with my fundraising, training and other preparation. I will also add photos and videos from last summer’s campaign. I hope you check it out and add a little comment here and there. Here is the site: http://randaslife.blogspot.com/.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! Have a blessed time with friends and family.

In Him,
Imana ishimwe! (‘Praise God’ in Kinyarwandan)

Next time I'll post an update on whats been going on with Rwanda so far this semester.
I'll let ya go for now cuz I've already given ya a lot to read!

school's gettin busy

2006-01-20T19:06:00.000+01:00

Hey everybody!
like the title says, school has already gotten really busy. And I've also been a little sick this past week. Ive been trying to stay on a schedule of going to bed early and getting up early so i can do some exercising, but the getting up early has been a problem for me this week. SInce I havent been feeling well Ive decided that I should get that extra hour of sleep instead of go running or walking and get more sick. I'm just greatful that God's given me the strength to go to class and work and everything else I've got going on. But i'm looking forward to the day that I can get up early and feel healthy enough to go run.
Also, spring sing practices have started!! For those of you who dont know, SPring SIng is a big show that the clubs put on. Each club gets about 5.30 mnts in the show, and up until the show in March, clubs practise their lyrics and 'dance moves' (i'm supposed to say choreography). Our club has been practising three times a already...we started this past Sunday. Its really fun and I especially cant wait til the actual show, but its also one of those things that is gonna really wear me out. One of our practices starts at 10:00....which means I get back in my room about 11:25 ish. Now, you would think that because i'm a collegestudent I should be able to handle that....and I will...i was just reallly excited about my new schedule and my 10:30 bedtime! Ahwell...hopefully that will just be one night out of the week. I'm not gonna complain.

Ok, Rwanda. some of you might be interested to know whats going on there. Unfortunately I have to go to class right now, so I wont be able to continue for now, but Rwanda will be my first topic on my next post.

have a great day!
God bless you!

beta Rush event and snow!!

2006-01-10T15:19:00.000+01:00

Here's the pics of my beta rush event:

This one is the whipped cream war:

I also wanna show you how beautiful the snow looks! We've had some really weird weather here! Its gone from pretty warm, like spring weather, back to wintery snow weather. Crazy stuff!

getting back into a routine

2006-01-10T14:35:00.000+01:00

well, school has started and I'm getting used to the new routine I've made up for myself. I'm eating and living healthier than ever before....course, it hasnt been a week yet, so we'll see how long I can keep it up ey. I'm pretty sure I can keep the healthy food up, but its the running, walking and other exercise I'm worried about. This first week isn't nearly as busy as I'm going to be getting in the future, so we'll see.
well, I'm first post a few more pictures from winterkamp for you all to see:

If you want more pics of winterkamp, let me know! I have more!
Now, I'll tell ya about my first day of school and post some pictures of that too. I went to all my classes...and work. Twas a great day. Gave me some perspective of how busy I'm gonna be! Greek at 8:00, Methods of TEFL (teaching english as a foreign language) at 10:00. Then chapel and my lunch break. Then African Civilization at 12:30. Man, that one's gonna be good! I'm excited! Then I went to work in the security office for an hour and then went to my Modern Drama class. This is a literature elective. Its gonna be really hard, but a great class! And then I went to work for Curt Niccum. I'm his greek grader, but since today was the first day of school I just did research for him. I really enjoy working in the Bible building! I enjoy my work in the security office too. Then, after work i had some time to eat and relax and get some stuff sorted out and then we had a Beta (my social service club) RUSH event. For those of you who dont know, RUSH time is the time that students who arent in club but want to be can go to different club activities to check out the clubs to see if they want to join. Our activity yesterday was with the boys club Alpha and we did "build your own sunday". We had a good turnout and we had a lot of fun! Some of my friends had fun having a whipped cream war outside. I'll post some of those pics on a next posting cuz I cant add them to this one. There must be a limit. Is there anyone who can tell me more about how this works and if there's a better way to post a lot of pictures? thanks.

the vacation ends and its back to school

2006-01-09T14:12:00.000+01:00

After spending Christmas and New Year at home with my family, my last activity in Belgium was going to winterkamp to spend time with fellow Christians of my age (16+). Most everyone who was there were people I grew up with...whom I've grown very close to and love and miss dearly!(If you guys are reading this, I miss you a lot!)

I had a wonderful time and was really sad to have to leave a day before kamp was done to be able to prepare for our flight home.
Our flight home was rather crazy in Chicago. We got held up at two security check points. Apparantly we look like terrorists! The thing was, we only had an hour and a half to get off our plane, get our bags, go through customs and security and get to our next plane (for which we had to take a bus to another terminal). We just barely made it! We were some of the very last ones to board the plane. But GOd is good and He let us on. That flight was good...it was a small plane, so turbulance was a ton of fun! Yea, i know I'm weird.
So we got to OKlahoma on Thursday and the three of us stayed with friends and family until we could move into our dorms/appartments without having to pay $20 a night. I got settled in on Saturday and hung out with some friends. We got to have lunch with some good friends from Canada, and then I got to go see one of my friends who just had a baby (and I got to see him too....such a little cute baby boy!) Could guys please pray for them (Cassie and Erick)? He was born 13 weeks premature. He is doing really well, but at this age and size, any small problem could cause big complications.

Ok, well, its Monday morning now and I start classes today, so I should go get ready to have a great day of education!
I hope you all have a blessed day! Please let me know how your Christmas and New Year went and how you feel to be back at school and/or work.
Love you all!

Christmas has come and gone

2005-12-26T21:05:00.000+01:00

Well, I havent posted in about 2 and a half weeks....school's been really busy.
My last few weeks of school kept me really busy and with not much time to relax or sleep, but I got through it, and with some good grades too. Despite the business, I still really enjoyed those last few weeks at school. I made time to hang out with some friends and get to know them better. Allt eh OC students who were gone on the Pacific Rim semester or the Vienna semester returned, so I got to see a lot of friends who hadnt seen in a few months. I had fun hanging out with them before the holidays.
Then, finals were over and everyone started going home for Christmas. On Monday the 18th, both of my brothers and I left for home...Antwerp, belgium. The flight went smoothly and we got to the Brusels airport about 5 minutes after uncle Mark (my dad's brother), aunt Jill and cousins Karina and Kristina arrived. Luk, my cousin living in belgium, and his wife HOlly just had a baby, Gideon. SO his parents and two of his sisters have come to Belgium to spend the holidays getting to know their new little family member. They've been staying at our house and weve really enjoyed havoing so much family around for Christmas!
The Friday before Christmas Listen Up, an Acapella singin group here in Blegium/the Netherlands, came to our church building and put on a little concert for us and other friends in the church so that we could have a good fellowship time. That was a lot of fun because I got to see a lot of people who I hadnt seen in a long time.
The next day our family had our traditional gourmet dinner...after our present opening ceremony. Yes we are one of those families that opens their presents on Christmas Eve. I cant remember when we started doing that...sometime after we all stopt believing in Santa. Now that we have Jesse we just have Santa bring one more present Christmas morning and fill the stockings...it works out really well.
Christmas day we went to church and had a good time there. It was nice to see church people again and have fellowship with my Belgian brothers and sisters in Christ. AFter church, the whole Brazle family and Holly's mom, Cheryl and a young couple from church, Johan and Katerina, came to our house for a nice Christmas dinner. It was great and I really enjoyed it!
Then today some of us joined my dad and the choir he sings with at the hospital in Brussels. EVery year, they go sing Christmas songs in the hallways and today I had the pleasure joining them for the third time. I really enjoy it a lot.

Life is good. God blesses me more than I deserve and shows me that He loves me all the time. I see him constantly in my family around me and a ton of other things and people. Praise the Lord, God Almighty! What a mighty and powerful and wonderful loving God we have!

Have a blessed holiday everyone! Remember the Lord, what He's done for us and continues to do.

Randa

sinterklaas!!! now less than two weeks and....

2005-12-07T18:50:00.000+01:00

Does it sound like Im counting down? lol
Sinterklaas came on the 6th and I gave the cookies and chocolate that I got in the mail from the Sint (shhh, it was actually mom who sent it...dont tell the little ones though) to my brothers.That was fun cuz Adam was really excited to get some good Belgian chocolate in his mouth!
yesterday was a really busy day for me! Spent most of it finishing up a project for school. Then my club, Beta Beta Sigma, had a Christmas party at our regular meeting time.That was really fun. We had secret sisters to whom we wrote encouragemen letters throughout these past few weeks and yesterday gave a gift to, and we also did White Elephant with funny, little, big, stupid, etc gifts. It was a lot of fun! I got playdough!!
And after that I went out with 5 of my good girlfriends with whom I have a Girls Bible STudy every Tuesday. WE've been going through the book "Every Woman's Battle". Its really good and its been providing some good discussion for us.....as if girls dont find enough to talk about as it is ey. We went to an Italian restaurant called Portobellos and had a great time! We made friends with the waitress, Jill. She was our waitress last time a few of us went and she remembered us because we accidentally stayed past closing time without realizing it cuz we didnt know when they closed and they didn't kick us out. We gasped, apologized and gave her a card yesterday to show our appreciation.

So, i was looking up weather stuff, comparing the temperature here in OKC to the Belgian temp. I saw a link to get a free desktop weather program and an idea popped in my head.You know how in Harry Potter, in the dining room they can magically make it be any weather possible...I think it'd be cool to have either a screensaver, or a desktop background that changes along with the weather...and actually moves...like if its windy or rainy or something...Does something like that exist? Please tell me if it does, cuz i think it'd be cool to have!
SOrry if that was too random and childish for ya....but I think it would be really fun.

ok, I have to go to class soon...
have a great day!

Miranda

Oh, I have a prayer request real quick. A girl named Anne White, an OC alumn who has been living in Japan for a year or so, I'm not sure, has had to move back to the US because of her health and is now at Mercy hospital in Edmund. I believe she'll have to have surgery today and they're not sure of what the outcome will be, so its pretty serious. Please pray for her!

discussion question

2005-12-05T03:19:00.000+01:00

Hey,
since Ive been reading Jane Austen a lot, its only natural that I would bring her novels and quotes up every now and then. Here's a quote by Mary in Pride & Prejudice:

"We may draw from [Lydia] this useful lesson; that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable-that one false step involves her in endless ruin-that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful, and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behavior towards the undeserving of the other sex." (p 219 in the Oxford version in case you want to know the context...thats Vol 3 ch. 5)

What do you think of this statement?

One more week!

2005-12-04T19:42:00.000+01:00

This past week has been extremely busy and this next week will not be less busy, and probly even more! This last week of school is probably the busiest week of the semester. I'll be happy when finals come ha!But, I'm not complaining about the business! As many of you might hadve heard me say, I'd rather be extremely busy, than bored, so having stuff to do makes me happy. Its a very difficult challenge to get everything done that I need to do, still have a social life and not neglect my friends, and focus on God. But I'm enjoying the challenge and know that God is making me stronger through it.

This past Friday, my brother Matthew's club, Omega, had their fall banquet. SOme of the guys have made it a "rule" that I have to be at all of their banquets because I'm getting pretty close to the whole club and like them all a lot and love to hang out with them. I was actually an official date this time...not a third wheel like my freshman year and not a last minute back up date like last year :). (not that I minded that...it was fun!) A friend of mine in omega, Justin, was my date....or rather I was his. WE had a great time. We all went to Kent and Nancy Hartman's (the missionaries in residence here at OC...they lived in Australia) house and had hamburgers and hot dogs. We played games and wacthed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the movie, on a bog screen (well, a sheet) outside on the back porch. That was awesome. Then we all went to Braums, as omega tradition and after braums some of us still hung out for a while until it was time to go to bed....I got to play Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega, which I hadnt done in a really long time! It was great!

Then on Saturday I tried to do as much homework as I could until it was time for our Third Culture Kid get together. I'll explain this concept. A third culture kid is a person who has a spent a significant amount of their developing years in a culture that is not that of their parents. They acquire two different cultures as they grow up and thus 'create' their own third culture....We have a group of this kind of weird people here at OC and we try to get together once or twice a month to have a good cultural meal. We meet at Kent and Nancy Hartman's house and usually Nancy provides an amazing meal for us! We talk, get to know each other better, discuss difference between the cultures we've grown up in. Its amazing how much we have in common despite the fact that we grew up in completely different countries and even continents. We notice that things we do or dont like about differences between America and our other culture are often the same. After we ate and talked for a while we told eachother what Christmas is like in our non-american culture and told Christmas memories. Then we played a singing game called encore. We divide into groups, the moderator gives a word and we go around from group to group who has to sing at least 8 words of a song with that word in it. Its a ton of fun! especially if you adopt the rule that you can use a song from any language you know!

Well, now i have to continue my tons of homework.....please pray for all those students who have a ton to do nowadays! And thank the Lord that we dont have to do all this work during CHristmas! All you American students...be very thankful you dont have to do all this work during Xmas....In belgium, students have really really tough final exams after the xmas holidays, so they have to spend their whole break studying....one main reason i'm glad i didnt stay there for school :).

In His love,
Randa

blessings all around!

2005-12-01T06:01:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone!
Well, my life has been pretty crazy busy! Nowadays I always have something to do and always have two or three things on my mind at the same time, and about 10 other things that should be on my mind...or so it seems. There are times in these days that I am able to just relax for a minute and realize that I have the ability to get everything done that I need to do and there is no need for me to feel stressed about it, because that would just make it worse anyway. During those times I talk to God and He helps me get through it and He's the one who keeps me from being stressed out. Thanks to Him, I am able to enjoy all the little things in life (as well as the big). I notice the little blessings in my life so much...I cant think of a day in a long time (or even at all) that was an overall bad day....everytime something bad seems to happen, some euqally good has happened as well. Or God just helps me to pull the good out of situations.
I say all this as an introduction to my list of blessings that I think are worth telling you about. Some of these are just minor things that make me happy and some of them are really funny (well...to me) and really made my whole day....all of them are blessings from God which helped me to feel His love and let me know He cares and He wants me to be happy, even with the small things in life and even during rough times.

1. yey for breakfast and good coffee! (with cinnamon)...that always makes me happy! and chatting with friends in Belgium!

2. Greek is fun! (even at 8 o'clock in the morning)....my good 'sister in club' and Christ, Jeanette, and I often find something funny to laugh at. (something related to class...dont worry, we pay attention!) Often it's because our professor, Loren Gieger told a joke! Sure wakes up the class at least a little. Oh fun times in Greek!

3. I had a nice little conversation with Francess Sawyer, the secretary for the Language and Literature department here at OC. She's such a nice lady. I love her!

4. I got an A on my US History quiz!

5. Reading for my US History quiz I learned a lot! I'll tell you one thing: I used to tell people I'm an Okie, cuz I'm from Oklahoma. I learned that I am not an Okie...apparently, the term is for roughly 300 000 farmers from Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas who were forced off their land and migrated to California during the 1930's because of the Dust Bowl.

6. I got a package from momma in the mail with Sinterklaas goodies! For you those of you who dont know Sinterklaas, this is the European Catholic St. Nicolas who comes on the night of the 5th to the 6th of December.

7. Then, I ran into Ryan Miller, who is a friend of mine here at OC who lived in Nederland for about 6 years and speaks really good Dutch, so we had a nice long conversation in Dutch (it probly wasnt as long as it took because we both struggles a little and sometimes spent a minute searching for a word) and I shared some Sinterklaas chocolate with him.

8. Jane Austen class! Love it! We talked about Persuasion! Great book!

9. Spent some time having coffee with one my new sisters in club, Heather. That was a ton of fun! She's an awesome girl! She's from Washington and loves white coffee...to give you some random facts about her. Then we went to our club's weekly social service, singing at a nursing home. And after that she came to church with me (she usually goes to a different church). I had a ton of fun getting to know her.

10. After church I spent some time getting to know another friend of mine, Brian. We went to starbucks and had a really good talk.

11. I like the cold! Lets me bundle up outside and feels great to walk into a warm building!

Rwandan dance

2005-11-30T17:18:00.000+01:00

This is a traditional Rwandan dance. My team and I went to Butare, the second largest city in Rwanda, and visited the university there while they were having a dance competition. The university where we worked in Kigali had a team there and this video has some of our students. It was very cool to be able to support some of our own students from 'our school' and they really appreciated us being there.

This semester and Thanksgiving!

2005-11-29T18:55:00.000+01:00

I'm going to try to give a synopsis of what's been going on in my life this semester:
First, this summer I spent two months at home and then about 5-6 weeks in Rwanda on a Let's Start Talking trip. That was awesome! My team and I got to have some really good religious and cultural conversations with many university students and other people in the country. We really felt God working through us. I will post more info about that later!

Then when I got back to the States, my school semester at OC started. I've been taking 5 classes: start off monday with Greek at 8:00, then Structure of the English Language at 9:00 (with Merle Gatewood, for those of you who know her). Then I work, have chapel and lunch break and then I have US History at 12:30 and general Psychology at 2:30. Then Jane Austen, yes, I have a Jane Austen class...Its tough but I love it!....at 3:30. I've been reading a lot of Jane Austen lately!! more than I could ever imagine reading in one semester...and then we talk about it in class....anyway, thats my class schedule....
In between class I work in the security office..been there since my freshman year...i like it. And on Tuesdays and thursdays I start off by going to volunteer work at an elementary school. There I help a little French boy, Hugo, with his English and to help him get used to America and school and stuff. I like it a lot. Then after chapel I work in the security office until lunch and after lunch I go work in the Bible building and grade Curt Niccum's Greek. I'm in my second year now. I also work as an intern with the college class at Quail Springs Church of Christ, which is my parents sponsoring church.
Outside of classes and work, I tend to keep pretty busy. I am in a social club called Beta Beta Sigma. There are about 40 girls in the club and I love them all. We have a great time together! I try to keep up with all the activities we have and I must admit, it's hard! I'm also involved with the Third Culture Kid group here on campus. A Third Culture Kid is someone who grew up in a culture that is not that of their parents. We have a pretty good group of about 15 to 25 people. And I also help with keeping up and African Fellowship meeting every other week. This is a meeting that the missionaries in Rwanda, Dave and Jana Jenkins, started while they were here last year. I'm also on a team thats in the proces of being formed to go to Rwanda this coming summer. Quail SPrings is sending a team to each of their missionary sites and Bryan and Holly Hixson will be heading up the team to the Jenkins. SO i've been busy with that and have mainly been working on recruiting and figuring out the basics of the trip.

Thanksgiving:
This past week was thanksgiving, as i'm sure you all know! Its amazing how many people ask if I'm going home for thanksgiving...its kinda funny...or a lot of people know I cant go home and assume I have no where to go. Thats cute...I know they're just concerned and would totally invite me if that were the case...but, fortunately I chose a University in the State where my momma grew up. So Matthew and Adam and I spent thanksgiving day at our aunt's house in Luther. WE had a great time! Almost my mom's whole family was there and it was great to hang out with them all! Especially unle Robbie's family who all live out of State now. And cousin Brian and his wife Shi's little one, Job, was there too. He's such a cutie! WE had a very nice day filled with great food, laughter, conversation, pool, and apparently its obvious to have a foottball game playing the whole time....I had no idea until my first thanksgiving in the States two years ago. The rest of the break I spent in my appartment at OC working on my Jane Austen paper and hanging out with friends who were still in town. It was a great weekend and now the busy times of school have started up again. Two more weeks of class, one week of finals and the we leave to go home for Christmas on teh 19th!! Yey!
ok, well, this is my update for now!
I love you all!
Have a great day!
in Him,
Miranda

didnt do such a great job keeping up

2005-11-29T18:43:00.000+01:00

Well, I didnt do a good job keeping this up. I was afraid of that. I went to Rwanda right after I started it and wasnt expecting to be able to keep it up there, so I didnt tell anyone about it. Now I will actually tell people about my blog and attempt to actually keep with it...

first time for everything

2005-03-15T01:54:00.000+01:00

Hey everyone,
well, I have finally decided to start a blog. The reason I've put it off for so long is because I kept telling myself I wouldn't have enough time to keep it up. Well, I've decided to test my theory and hope to prove it wrong.