A Day in the Life

You have amazing kids. 

Period. 

Each one of these amazing students is a testimony to your hard work and labor of love, known as the “mystery of parenting.”  My wife and I have lived with them for three days (honestly, it feels MUCH longer…in a good way) and we feel like we are really getting to know them.  We are seeing their passions, gifts, moods, maturity, and growth…in a way we’ve never seen in many of them.  This is VERY cool. 

It is now our second day with our host and you’ll be glad to know things are going really well.  We feel comfortable here and our accommodations are excellent.  I wish I had enough bandwidth to send you lots of pictures but a few will do.  Let me take you through our day.

After a 7am start, we meet for a morning thought and a group song to start the day (i.e. the Johnny Appleseed song).  Your kids are not…shall we say…morning people.  haha.  It always makes us laugh to see some of them come ready for the day with puffy cheeks and dazed eyes…when we’ve been up since 5:30 with a child who’s ready to start the day (if they only knew what awaits them.  muhaha).   BUT, what they lack in “get moving” power they make up for in passion.  They are eager, servant-hearted, determined, and hope-filled.  Our days start with a punch.

Breakfast is always wonderful.  Enough said.  We are WELL FED.  No complaints from anybody.

Each morning at 8:00am we have a different staff worker talk to us about his/her story.  Today was very meaningful and the team members were really interested to hear her story. 

Then the serving starts. For the rest of the day we….well, you know.  Our team is split up into different small groups with different tasks.  It’s like shift work: for part of the day we are teaching English then another part of the day we are doing something else – either playing and caring for children, bringing food to families in the nearby village, or working in the manufacturing centre. We’ll highlight each of these areas of service in the coming days.

Lunch is around 11:30 and it’s usually hearty with lots of rice and noodles, chicken and a variety of main dishes with a couple side dishes like American fries.  Water and pop are plentiful and when team members are tired of those choices, there is a gift shop only steps away, which sell lots of other items (like ice cream bars).  A word on the ice cream bars:  there is now a small group of boys who have created something called “the 50 club” which is an elite group of ice cream eaters.  50 is the number of ice cream bars one must consume in 2 weeks to get the very prestigious title:  50 club member. The prize is an extra 5 lbs of body weight.

But don’t let the fun fool you….these students are working hard, and it’s showing.  At the end of the day, they are tired - REALLY tired - and we haven’t had any issues with enforcing lights out. 

The afternoons are full of work, until an hour before dinner (which is at 5pm).  This is free-time to hang out with the language students, many of whom are the same ages as our team members.  Free time includes playing basketball, volleyball, card games, ping pong, and just hanging out. 

After dinner, we have team member free time.  This lasts for an hour and a half.  Some people take naps, others showers, others go get snacks (ice cream bars) or visit the local village, others play sports, and some read.

From 7:30-8:30 is their personal time.  They are working through daily readings in their team packet.  We have seen our team take these very seriously and we are expecting that this daily rhythm will shape each person significantly. 

Then, we have our team debrief.  Here we sing songs and think about our day.  It’s a great opportunity to share and learn from one another.

This lasts for a couple hours and includes life-together details.  For example, last night we talked about “house rules”.  We put them into an acronym called:

R - rest

E – entertaining guests (home/rooms)

S - speech

P – practical jokes

E – emergencies

C – cleanliness

T  - timeliness

The night ends right after our evening debrief with bed.  And by then, we are very much ready for it. 

Well, that’s a day in the life!  Please think about us regarding:

- yesterday was a humbling day for team members.  walking through the village, serving the host, and the full-day makes for big culture-shock.

- some students are still jet lagged

- we are mostly healthy (but the team leader…the tall curly haired one, may have torn a meniscus in his knee playing basketball…yes, apparently I am getting to be that age.  bummer).  I can still walk fine (in a straight line….but lateral movement hurts). 

- think about us regarding team energy and adaptability to a full day’s schedule

- think about us regarding living up to our team vision, stated on both the front and back of our shirts. 

We love you!  Thanks for thinking of us and please know that everyone on our team is doing well and we’ll blog again in a couple days!

Love,

CST2011