I’ve been tagged, by Sandi, with the 8 random things meme.
1. Simon Cowell (!) was in my dream last night. He was in charge of casting for a middle school play and I was part of the staff. He was nice to me.
2. I flew (kept in the air) a 6-seater plane for about ten minutes once. The pilot was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, who shared his lunch with me and answered my questions about the instruments and such.
3. I used to like liverwurst.
4. I’ve been to Africa and the Czech Republic; Africa with Wycliffe Bible Translators, to see what the work is like, and Czech with Josiah Ventures, to teach English in evangelistic summer camps for high school and college students.
5. I’d love to go to Indonesia to meet the seventeen-year-old we sponsor through Compassion.
6. I’ve been working on the same knitting project for over a year. It’s Sonnet at Knitty.com; I’m knitting it in a purply-red wool and subbing box stitch instead of garter.
7. I like to watch House M.D., American Idol, and This Old House.
8. I’ve never broken any bones, but I’ve had stitches in at least three places: my chin when I was three and my sister dared me to jump off the cement steps, my finger when I was in high school chemistry and broke a glass stirring rod, and to fix tearing from childbirth.
9. I’m somewhat reactionary / rebellious; sometimes I like that trait in myself and others, and sometimes I hate it.
OH I envy your travel experiences and wanna know more! (((((HUGS))))) sandi
Comment by titus2woman — May 19, 2007 @ 9:32 am
I went to college tentatively planning to join Wycliffe. Their summer program seemed like a good way to see if a Wycliffe career would be a good match for me. Our team of eight students plus our leader and his wife and two of his kids started in Kenya, where we did a little sight-seeing and language-learning and heard lectures from various Wycliffe and associated folks. Then we split up — Jen and I went to live with the Nelsons for three weeks in what was then Zaire, and two of the boys went to do the same with the Sawkas about 10km away, and the remaining four traveled to a variety of Wycliffe sites within Kenya. Afterwards we all joined up again for debriefing and such. I’ve written a little about my experiences in Africa before: http://prochaskas.wordpress.com/?s=africa
Mark is half Czech, with his dad coming from a largely Czech settlement in Nebraska. So the opportunity to go to the Czech Republic for a few weeks was inviting. Our team of adults were the English teachers; we each had a group of students ranged by level of proficiency with English, and we did fun enrichment stuff focused on conversation. The camps also had sports and zany games and an evening program with music and stories, all led by a youth group team from another American church.
I have mixed feelings about this strategy; it’s fine to include English language activities as a feature of a camp, but I think the Christian emphasis should have been more prominently explained in the promo material — I don’t like the idea of tricking people into something that is going to include evangelism — it’s too cult-like.
Both trips involved raising financial support via donations from church friends and family; in fact, in neither case were participants allowed to pay too much of their own way. This wasn’t to burden others, but to foster more awareness of the church as the Body, a community, with mission trips a communal experience and not just something for the ones who are sent.
Comment by Marcy — May 19, 2007 @ 11:41 am