This past week was not as fun as expected because almost everything Lucio -our speaker- talked about we learned before our DTS outreach reading Foreign To Familiar by Sarah Lanier. It was basically the book that all of us read on the plain ride either to Russia or Peru, so we kind of already had an idea of everything he was teaching on the first couple days. However it is a really great book, even just for anyone to read whether you choose to be in the mission world or not because it explains the difference between 'hot and cold cultures'.
The idea is that Northern America, Canada, and Northern Europe (places where it is for the most part cold) is considered cold culture, where everywhere else in the world where climate is generally hot is considered hot culture. So that seems really basic, but the reason for talking about the differences really opened my eyes to how people in different areas and cultures go about life. In the cold culture areas -Minnesota as an obvious example-, people are very task and time oriented. We like to have things scheduled out from start to finish so that we have time to do other things and go other places. We don't typically talk to 'strangers' in public places, in fact we get irritated when someone interrupts our plans for the day.
The hot cultured people on the other hand, so think of like a family from the southern part of the States, are veeeery relationship oriented. For example, if you've got a friend in Louisiana, you can show up at a meal time and assume that they will be happy to see you, invite you inside, and feed you a pretty amazing feast. They'll expect you to stay however long you want because you're welcome to any food they have, you're welcome to their house, you're invited to any events they attend and paid for by the host. A cold culture person however would want to know in advance if you're planning on coming over so they can plan out how much food they need to make, whether or not you need to book a hotel room, and they'll assume that if you're going out to a movie with them that you're paying for yourself. Hot culture views the most priority in relationships, then business. Cold culture being the opposite wants to take care of the task and maybe become friends in the process, but probably not. Because of these kind of drastic differences, people often get offended or feel like others are being rude because that's just not how they've lived their entire life. Since I personally have been to many different places around the U.S. and South and Central America, these differences really make a lot of sense and I kind of wish I would've known them sooner. I feel like if everyone knew this kinda thing, we would avoid so many conflicts.
Of course it's a generalization so it's not the exact definition of anybody that lives in these areas, but it's kind of true also when you think about it.
We also did a temperament test which I kind of think would've applied more to the first week learning about our personalities, and unfortunately I don't have my definitions with me so I'll just sum them up.
There's people that are more Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and/or Phlagmatic. I know those words are really weird. I personally am a good split between Choleric and Melancholy. The first two (sanguine and choleric) are typically the outgoing, extroverted people where the melancholy and phlagmatics are much more quiet and introverted. Sanguines are the ones that love people all the time, they're very likeable. Cholerics (don't laugh..) can be kind of harsh and sarcastic, stubborn, and they're not afraid of conflict. Melancholy people tend to be smarter, they can get depressed easily, very loyal in their friendships, they don't often commit to things but when they do, they're extremely deeply committed (this one is my dominant one). Phlagmatic I don't remember much about, but I do think they're very cautious about what they do and they really don't want to hurt people. But yeah that day was interesting too, finding out what everyone fit into most.
Then the excitement of the week! Mission Adventures (MA) is a program run out of our YWAM base that puts on almost a mini-DTS over a weekend for youth groups that then go on a week long mission trip put on by our staff. So our first two teams showed up Thursday night and left this morning for their mission trip at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. One of the parts I love about my school right now is that as students we get to help with the MA training weekends. So we helped teach them dramas, dances, my friends Lisa and Tommy spoke at a few different sessions they had, and we got to hang out and spend a lot of time with them. I really, really appreciate how much preparation they're getting for their mission trip. I've been on mission trips before and we didn't have this kind of thing, and those mission trips were great but I think they could've been so much better if we had this kind of training leading up to it. So they spend 2 1/2 days learning about the culture they're about to go into (some of the teams go to Peru, Panama, etc. so it's different every time), learning how to put on a Vacation Bible School for the kids, and really taking their relationship with God seriously before they go out and share it with the people they're about to serve. It was seriously so much fun, Lisa and Tommy's talks were really great, and I enjoyed the weekend a lot... But we're all SO exhausted from it. We hardly had any free time because their schedule is so packed and we're so much a part of it that all of us were giving 150% for 3 days straight, and now basically all of the students are spending all of today doing nothing so we can recover from our tiredness haha. As worn out as we are though, I think we all had a great time and I'm looking forward to the next two training weekends. We're also going on a trip with a team at the end of August which I'm sure I'll tell you guys all about when it happens :).
This post was much longer than I expected, as usual, so I'll give you a break from reading. Once again, hopefully I can find time to update next weekend! I miss you guys!!
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Arrived and Already On Brain Overload!
SOMD has officially started! Me and a few friends from DTS met up last Saturday and spent the night together catching up and hanging out before the busy school life started again, and from there me, Ahnna, Kallie, Caitlin, Scott, and Brenden made our way to the YWAM base on Sunday afternoon. We reunited with a few people we'd known before from our base, Jasmine, Jo, Jenesa and Monica, and met Ivan (from Argentina, did his DTS in Chile I think) and Becca (from Texas, did her DTS in England), so we've got 12 students total. It feels like we've already been there a month instead of just a week, but that's usually how it is when you live with people 24/7. Even though it's been a long week with not enough sleep, it has also been really fun and exciting because of our class subject where we learned a LOT about ourselves and each other.
So this week was Strength Finders and Spiritual Gifts. Bonnie, our school counselor, was our speaker. If you haven't heard of Strength Finders (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/strengthsfinder-20-tom-rath/1008432146?ean=9781595620156&itm=1&usri=strength%2bfinders#CustomerReviews) you should definitely look into it. You get the book which has a code in the back to take the online test which takes maybe half an hour, you answer a ton of questions about how you relate to people and situations and stuff, and at the end it gives you a list of 5 of your top strengths based on your answers, and how to work with them in your life.
My top five are Communication, Restorative, Empathy, Input, and Belief. It also gives you descriptions for all of those explaining what they are which the book has general explanations of each one, but after taking the online test the definitions it gives you are based on the questions you specifically answered. So there were a lot of other people in my school with empathy, input, and belief in their top 5 but all of their descriptions of how that strength is evident in their life was WAY different than mine. After I got my results, I brought them to a few of my friends in the living room and asked if someone would read them out loud to me, and it ended up being so funny and entertaining how entirely accurate it was (like Communication really explains why I talk so much...I'm a verbal processor to the core) that we ended up reading them out loud for pretty much every student.
Then a couple days later we took another similar test that would give us results for our Spiritual Gifts which gave us equal insight on ourselves and each other because we had 2 days of discussion on all of them during class. So my list of Spiritual Gifts in order are Mercy-74, Encourager/Exhorter-73, Giver-72, Prophet/Proclaimer/Perceiver-68, Teacher-65, Administrator-61, and Server-53. With the Strength Finders there's a really long list of all the strengths so they just give your top 5, but the Spiritual Gifts, I listed all of them (the results you can get) and the numbers are how high I ranked in each one. So it was very interesting seeing how equally I ranked in the top 3, and even through my 4th one -prophet- every word of the descriptions defines me. It's crazy. If you guys wanna see the explanations for all of them, I'd love to show you somehow so you can understand me and the way I function, but I think this blog is gonna be long enough by itself so I'm not gonna type it all up here.
But like I said, this week was really fun and interesting and I'm so grateful we did it the first week. It really helped us understand why people act the way they do and how their brains work, how they react to situations and why. They purposely did it the first week because last year during this school, lots of people were having conflicts until this week when they could really understand each other and they suggested that this week be first for every school because it's so helpful and I agree with that wholeheartedly.
Sooooo I would love to explain more in depth these gifts and strengths but I kinda have to go. I'm at Caribou with a few people right now, but I wanted to give you guys an update and let you know I'm still alive. I'll be sending out update letters within the next couple weeks I'm pretty sure, so if I still need your address, please give it to me!
Next week our topic according to our schedule is Cross-Cultural Communication which will be interesting considering our speaker is one of the funniest people we have on staff at our base. I'm pretty excited about everything we learned this past week and what's coming up!
Oh also, everything we do is being translated in Spanish because Monica doesn't know much English and Ivan understands most English but not everything, so my translating skills are improving drastically. I'm extremely happy about it :)
Ciao guys! I'll try to update again next week!
So this week was Strength Finders and Spiritual Gifts. Bonnie, our school counselor, was our speaker. If you haven't heard of Strength Finders (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/strengthsfinder-20-tom-rath/1008432146?ean=9781595620156&itm=1&usri=strength%2bfinders#CustomerReviews) you should definitely look into it. You get the book which has a code in the back to take the online test which takes maybe half an hour, you answer a ton of questions about how you relate to people and situations and stuff, and at the end it gives you a list of 5 of your top strengths based on your answers, and how to work with them in your life.
My top five are Communication, Restorative, Empathy, Input, and Belief. It also gives you descriptions for all of those explaining what they are which the book has general explanations of each one, but after taking the online test the definitions it gives you are based on the questions you specifically answered. So there were a lot of other people in my school with empathy, input, and belief in their top 5 but all of their descriptions of how that strength is evident in their life was WAY different than mine. After I got my results, I brought them to a few of my friends in the living room and asked if someone would read them out loud to me, and it ended up being so funny and entertaining how entirely accurate it was (like Communication really explains why I talk so much...I'm a verbal processor to the core) that we ended up reading them out loud for pretty much every student.
Then a couple days later we took another similar test that would give us results for our Spiritual Gifts which gave us equal insight on ourselves and each other because we had 2 days of discussion on all of them during class. So my list of Spiritual Gifts in order are Mercy-74, Encourager/Exhorter-73, Giver-72, Prophet/Proclaimer/Perceiver-68, Teacher-65, Administrator-61, and Server-53. With the Strength Finders there's a really long list of all the strengths so they just give your top 5, but the Spiritual Gifts, I listed all of them (the results you can get) and the numbers are how high I ranked in each one. So it was very interesting seeing how equally I ranked in the top 3, and even through my 4th one -prophet- every word of the descriptions defines me. It's crazy. If you guys wanna see the explanations for all of them, I'd love to show you somehow so you can understand me and the way I function, but I think this blog is gonna be long enough by itself so I'm not gonna type it all up here.
But like I said, this week was really fun and interesting and I'm so grateful we did it the first week. It really helped us understand why people act the way they do and how their brains work, how they react to situations and why. They purposely did it the first week because last year during this school, lots of people were having conflicts until this week when they could really understand each other and they suggested that this week be first for every school because it's so helpful and I agree with that wholeheartedly.
Sooooo I would love to explain more in depth these gifts and strengths but I kinda have to go. I'm at Caribou with a few people right now, but I wanted to give you guys an update and let you know I'm still alive. I'll be sending out update letters within the next couple weeks I'm pretty sure, so if I still need your address, please give it to me!
Next week our topic according to our schedule is Cross-Cultural Communication which will be interesting considering our speaker is one of the funniest people we have on staff at our base. I'm pretty excited about everything we learned this past week and what's coming up!
Oh also, everything we do is being translated in Spanish because Monica doesn't know much English and Ivan understands most English but not everything, so my translating skills are improving drastically. I'm extremely happy about it :)
Ciao guys! I'll try to update again next week!
Monday, June 13, 2011
Tour of San Jose!
FINALLY after many months of trying to upload this stupid video, youtube let me upload it. So this is the extremely long tour of our very favorite village, San Jose. It was also the first village we stayed in, so my first experience in the jungle! Ok the video isn't THAT long, but it's longer than the rest of them because I didn't really know what I was doing and that I should walk fast to make it less boring for you guys. But I hope that at least some of you watch and enjoy it :)
http://www.youtube.com/user/S0meCallMeRed?feature=mhsn
http://www.youtube.com/user/S0meCallMeRed?feature=mhsn
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
18 Days!?!
I know it's been forever since I've written, but I didn't really have much to say I suppose. So then last night I was determined to come up with something to tell you guys, and realized I've known I'm going back to the second YWAM school at the end of this month, only 18 days away from now (so crazy!), and I've mentioned it a couple times here, but haven't really told you guys about what it actually is. Half the time when I say "SOMD" nobody knows what I'm talking about, so this seems like the prime time to fill you in on the details! Or at least as much as I can give you for now..
On June 26th, me and most of the students that were with me in DTS plus a few more students from other places will be starting our School Of Ministry Development, or we refer to it as SOMD because YWAM is all about acronyms as you may have guessed by now. It will be a very similar set up as the schedule for the school I just finished, a 3 month lecture phase and then at least a 2 month outreach. The subjects we'll have speakers talk about each week are (tentatively);
On June 26th, me and most of the students that were with me in DTS plus a few more students from other places will be starting our School Of Ministry Development, or we refer to it as SOMD because YWAM is all about acronyms as you may have guessed by now. It will be a very similar set up as the schedule for the school I just finished, a 3 month lecture phase and then at least a 2 month outreach. The subjects we'll have speakers talk about each week are (tentatively);
- Principles of Ministry Through Community
- Bibilical Worldview
- Cross-Cultural Communication
- Spiritual Gifts and Strengths Finder
- Personal Evangelism
- Principles of Servant Leadership
- Compassion and Justice in Ministry
- Faith and Finances (for Ministry)
- Preaching and Public Speaking
- People Groups and Belief Systems (World Religions, one of my favorite topics since high school)
- Planning and Leading an Outreach
The last one is kind of important. The big thing about this second school is that our Outreach is really our own. During my DTS, I went with a group to the Amazon, most of the planning was done by the leaders, the location and connections were already covered, it was just a choice between one trip or the other. This outreach portion we will have 3 options.
1) We can go on our own outreach to wherever and do whatever. We make our own connections, plan our own budget, and really make this outreach our own. The description from the website sums it up a little better than I can: "Custom design your own outreach. You pray, you hear, you plan, you go. YWAM staff will provide guidance, but you will be the one who puts this outreach together. It will be an exciting time of growth as you learn to exercise what God has given you for ministry."
2) Group Outreach. Same concept as the first option, but as a group of 2+ people with the same goals, going to the same place and working together.
3) Staff Internship. We have the option of staying as an intern and staffing the fall DTS (the school I just finished) and eventually co-leading their outreach. So it would mean being a leader through that school, which means staying an extra 3 months for their lecture phase, and then helping plan and lead their overseas outreach wherever that would be for the next 2 months. This one honestly would be the most expensive, most challenging, and longest commitment since I wouldn't only be staying till November like in the other two options, but would be gone till at least February.
I haven't fully decided which one I'm doing yet, but I do feel God calling me more towards one direction, but I'd rather not make it common knowledge until I know for sure. I haven't even prayed about it that much yet because I didn't want to make any decisions before I even started the school since I know how quickly God can intervene and change my mind. But as soon as the decision is officially made, probably more towards July, you guys can definitely count on more details, specific prayer requests, and my financial situation.
I'll also probably be sending out my last mailed newsletter once I decide on Outreach so that everyone can for sure hear about it. After that I am planning on keeping my blog up to date for people because it's just too expensive for me to keep sending out 100+ letters when this is free and less time consuming and I can do this way more often.
Hope this gave you some helpful insight on my future plans -at least what I know for now!
If you wanna check out the website for the school the link is
http://www.ywam-mn.org/index.php/ywam-training/ywam-somd
or you can just check out ywam-mn.org and see everything my YWAM base has to offer :)
http://www.ywam-mn.org/index.php/ywam-training/ywam-somd
or you can just check out ywam-mn.org and see everything my YWAM base has to offer :)
Monday, May 2, 2011
My Favorite Amazonian Bird!
This was my favorite bird to listen to in Peru. You'll understand when you hear it, at least I hope.
http://youtu.be/QeX-KcViN-Y
The ones we saw were yellow though I think... But they literally make the sound of water dripping! They're called oropendolas apparently. I'm really excited that I found a clip for you guys, I really miss hearing this every day. Especially now that birds are coming back north because they think winter's over (yeah I thought so too guys..) and I'm realizing how boring birds are here. Who knew that was something I'd ever notice?
those dangly lookin things are their nests. and I guess we didn't get any pictures of the actual birds, but obviously you can see them in the video.
http://youtu.be/QeX-KcViN-Y
The ones we saw were yellow though I think... But they literally make the sound of water dripping! They're called oropendolas apparently. I'm really excited that I found a clip for you guys, I really miss hearing this every day. Especially now that birds are coming back north because they think winter's over (yeah I thought so too guys..) and I'm realizing how boring birds are here. Who knew that was something I'd ever notice?
those dangly lookin things are their nests. and I guess we didn't get any pictures of the actual birds, but obviously you can see them in the video.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Ever Watched River Monsters?
This blog basically is for anyone that has spare time that you might want to spend getting to know some of the things I witnessed :) but not necessarily from my point of view this time.
I just discovered this show because I was looking for some other show I remembered liking on Animal Planet. Thought it would be fun to reminisce and watch the Amazon Assassins episode. Basically I just want to puke. Who convinced me that getting in this river every day to bathe when you CLEARLY can't see anything around you AT ALL was a good idea??? Oh my gosh. It's been how long since I've even been there and I'm still terrified of what could have happened to me haha. I mean Kirstin did get bit by a pirahna twice -while I was in the river with her, did I mention that part?-and Taylor either cut his finger on something or got bit by who knows what -let's be honest, the chances of either of those are equally likely...
But anyways. Here's the link to the first part of the episode http://youtu.be/eSM5yMyI2ig and from there you can click on the 2nd-6th or 7 parts I don't remember how many. I haven't finished it yet, but actually just watching the first part is fun because I saw the giant dinosaur fish they're talking about! Except we called it a 'paiche'. Saw them at the zoo. We've got some pictures but probably not very good ones. And seriously, they were 7-9 feet long, huuuuuuge fish, they really do jump out of the water like that, but thank goodness I only saw them at the zoo.
So if anyone happens to watch this with me, or even part of it, you should comment so I can talk about it with you! I thought this blog might be a little more fun than my boring back-at-home-life. :)
I just discovered this show because I was looking for some other show I remembered liking on Animal Planet. Thought it would be fun to reminisce and watch the Amazon Assassins episode. Basically I just want to puke. Who convinced me that getting in this river every day to bathe when you CLEARLY can't see anything around you AT ALL was a good idea??? Oh my gosh. It's been how long since I've even been there and I'm still terrified of what could have happened to me haha. I mean Kirstin did get bit by a pirahna twice -while I was in the river with her, did I mention that part?-and Taylor either cut his finger on something or got bit by who knows what -let's be honest, the chances of either of those are equally likely...
But anyways. Here's the link to the first part of the episode http://youtu.be/eSM5yMyI2ig and from there you can click on the 2nd-6th or 7 parts I don't remember how many. I haven't finished it yet, but actually just watching the first part is fun because I saw the giant dinosaur fish they're talking about! Except we called it a 'paiche'. Saw them at the zoo. We've got some pictures but probably not very good ones. And seriously, they were 7-9 feet long, huuuuuuge fish, they really do jump out of the water like that, but thank goodness I only saw them at the zoo.
So if anyone happens to watch this with me, or even part of it, you should comment so I can talk about it with you! I thought this blog might be a little more fun than my boring back-at-home-life. :)
Monday, April 25, 2011
Not In School, But Still Learning
Being home is hard for me, I don't know if I've said this before, but I feel like my life is on pause. I'm in between YWAM right now, and I've spent pretty much this whole time thinking my brain and heart are also on pause until school starts again because what could I possibly learn while I'm at home? Ha. God has been trying to convince me that there's still growing to do before I go back in the summer, and that these few months of my life are just as important as ones spent at the base or on Outreach.
So what am I learning right now... I've seen how faithful God is to the promises He made me while I was in Peru. We did a lot of talking then -funny how that works out- and He's come through on everything He said He would help me with once I got home. I guess I'd have to go into details to explain what I mean but I'm not going to do that here so if you'd like to hear examples, we should hang out or talk some other way :)
By the way, you can reach me by email at sarah_valentine1@yahoo.com or S0meCallMeRed@hotmail.com. I don't check my email much, but I realized I had never put it in here or on my letters...I think...
What else am I learning.. Ok so a big part of my DTS was having hope for my future that I didn't before. Just not thinking I'm good enough to accomplish anything, thinking other people are so much more faithful to God's work than I am so why would my future ministry be anything worth talking about, like extremely down about myself and my "lack" of gifts and skills, etc. A few people have given me some insight the past couple weeks on what kind of person I'm going to be in the future (through visions and God speaking through them...I don't know how many people following this blog actually believe in this kind of thing so I guess if you want specific details on this too you can ask me). It's really crazy the things I've heard, just tiny glimpses of what could be true of my future ministry if I let it happen. The things I've held onto the most are that I'm supposed to be an encourager and a counselor. It's funny knowing that now because my initial thoughts are "yep that's definitely in the future because I've got a LOT of growing up to do before that's true". I don't consider myself an encouraging person just because I'm such a downer all the time, and I think I'm terrible at consoling people because I'm so blunt all I can say is "yeah that does suck" when people just want to hear "it'll be ok". But God has funny ways of showing me He's working on me right now because I'm getting lots of practice in...
My friend Jo (from YWAM, also went to Peru with me), her dad just died last week. Obviously words can't even describe what she's going through (please please please keep her and her family in your prayers!), but the interesting part is that since me and her are so close, I'm the only one she wants to talk to. I mean at first I was the only person in the world she wanted to talk to, and now I'm the person she can actually be real with and we talk every day about how she's doing and what else is happening in our lives. Because of my personality, my real-ness that I can't help and the fact that I don't want a surface answer of "I'm doing good", I'm realizing it's easier for people to talk to me because they can be themselves and say what's actually on their mind instead of just saying what people want to hear.
I've also been told that my listening is going to be the biggest part of my counseling, that people will take great comfort talking to me about things because I can listen. So I'm really trying to put that into practice and be the person that people can trust so this can really happen someday. I'm starting to believe my future is sincerely going to help/impact a lot of people instead of just hope that I do something kind of worthwhile.
So these are a couple of things I've been thinking a lot about the past few weeks and trying to improve on. Not much else to say for now...
Peace out everyone.
So what am I learning right now... I've seen how faithful God is to the promises He made me while I was in Peru. We did a lot of talking then -funny how that works out- and He's come through on everything He said He would help me with once I got home. I guess I'd have to go into details to explain what I mean but I'm not going to do that here so if you'd like to hear examples, we should hang out or talk some other way :)
By the way, you can reach me by email at sarah_valentine1@yahoo.com or S0meCallMeRed@hotmail.com. I don't check my email much, but I realized I had never put it in here or on my letters...I think...
What else am I learning.. Ok so a big part of my DTS was having hope for my future that I didn't before. Just not thinking I'm good enough to accomplish anything, thinking other people are so much more faithful to God's work than I am so why would my future ministry be anything worth talking about, like extremely down about myself and my "lack" of gifts and skills, etc. A few people have given me some insight the past couple weeks on what kind of person I'm going to be in the future (through visions and God speaking through them...I don't know how many people following this blog actually believe in this kind of thing so I guess if you want specific details on this too you can ask me). It's really crazy the things I've heard, just tiny glimpses of what could be true of my future ministry if I let it happen. The things I've held onto the most are that I'm supposed to be an encourager and a counselor. It's funny knowing that now because my initial thoughts are "yep that's definitely in the future because I've got a LOT of growing up to do before that's true". I don't consider myself an encouraging person just because I'm such a downer all the time, and I think I'm terrible at consoling people because I'm so blunt all I can say is "yeah that does suck" when people just want to hear "it'll be ok". But God has funny ways of showing me He's working on me right now because I'm getting lots of practice in...
My friend Jo (from YWAM, also went to Peru with me), her dad just died last week. Obviously words can't even describe what she's going through (please please please keep her and her family in your prayers!), but the interesting part is that since me and her are so close, I'm the only one she wants to talk to. I mean at first I was the only person in the world she wanted to talk to, and now I'm the person she can actually be real with and we talk every day about how she's doing and what else is happening in our lives. Because of my personality, my real-ness that I can't help and the fact that I don't want a surface answer of "I'm doing good", I'm realizing it's easier for people to talk to me because they can be themselves and say what's actually on their mind instead of just saying what people want to hear.
I've also been told that my listening is going to be the biggest part of my counseling, that people will take great comfort talking to me about things because I can listen. So I'm really trying to put that into practice and be the person that people can trust so this can really happen someday. I'm starting to believe my future is sincerely going to help/impact a lot of people instead of just hope that I do something kind of worthwhile.
So these are a couple of things I've been thinking a lot about the past few weeks and trying to improve on. Not much else to say for now...
Peace out everyone.
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