Nearly 4 Months Later...

In the past 4 months since the last post, this is what's been happening --

* My team made it home in June/July. Yay! Praise God for safe travels and arrival. :)

* I turned the big 2-4 on June 30th. God has been so good to me during my first 24 years of life. :)

* I left my job at Westwood Gardens in Fayetteville to take a gradate assistant position at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, starting August 2nd. God has big plans for me! :)

* I moved out of my parents' house in Fayetteville, and trekked on to the big (little) town of Stillwater, Oklahoma. I found a pretty awesome roommate to live with. She's from China. Work started a couple days after moving in. God never left me during my kind of rough transition period. :)

* I started attending Stillwater's Church of Christ regularly, and started getting involved in a weekly bible study (that I love!). It's been kind of tough making new friends, and starting over, but this is where it all begins. God is teaching me commitment and patience, for sure. :)

* In early September, I decided to get a mini lop-eared bunny on a whim. She's been a handful, but definitely a blessing as well. God knows my heart for animals! :)

* A few weeks ago, I sent out a catch-up email to all of my students in China, and received a few emails back. One of my students, Eli Wu wrote me back and told me all about his long lost childhood friend that he was recently reunited with, who had been living in Oklahoma (of all places!) to attend MIT. God has a way of making this world so small. :)

* Class has been going well, and I have enjoyed it a lot. Strange. haha.

In all of these things, God has been at the center, and I try to see through this world to get to the beautiful blessings God gives us every day. Recently I have very much so realized how crafty the devil is in using this world to bring down our faith in God. The world tells us this, the world tells us that - NO. it's the devil manipulating the things of this world to make us think it's the world, and that it's good to fit in and follow it. God has allowed me to see this, and he never stops teaching me. He is my Father, my Guardian, my Guide. There is none other like Him. :)

The Team Comes Home!

It is Thursday night, June 17th, and the rest of my team comes home from China in 4 days! I know they are certainly excited to come back to home sweet home. I plan to go down to Little Rock on Sunday night to welcome Drew home on Monday morning, bright and early! I am so proud of my team for the work they've done in Wuhan this past year. It was difficult to endure at times, but well worth the price of sowing the Father's seed.

As far as life in the career world, I have been working at the same job for 4 months now. My, how time flies! During that 4 month period, I have also taken the GRE and applied for graduate school. This week, the committee is reviewing my application. I am a little nervous, due to the grades on my transcripts, but I have been praying a lot and asking God to guide me. I feel God could use me in a pretty awesome way if I were accepted, though. If I were chosen for graduate school, I would most likely be rooming with a Chinese female (several of whom have already emailed and asked if I needed a roommate for the coming year). Imagine the possibilities! Besides that awesomeness, the professor who I would work under is a strong Christian and not afraid to talk about it! Not going in to much detail, I feel confident that this would be a most positive opportunity to take part in. However, if this is not God's plan for me, I pray that He gives me the grace to move on and conquer what He has in store for me!

In other news, I have occasionally received emails from some of my students. Rain has written about wanting to come to America some day, and longs for the beautiful scenery and fresh air. I definitely had to write her back and say that she certainly has a place to stay if she ever got the chance to come to America. Another student wrote me and asked if I would send some wedding photos (?). LOL. I must say, that might be a while before they receive such photos. It made me chuckle reading that.

Until later, I will leave you with a part of one of my favorite Chris Tomlin songs...

"Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God You are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome and power...

And if Our God is for us, then who could ever stop us?
And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?"

Getting a job...

I am now in my third week of working at my first permanent full-time job. I am learning more and more of my fear of commitment, but that is beside the point. I started working at Westwood Gardens, where I can somewhat use my degree of horticulture; however I'm not fully utilizing my degree because I am just the retail girl who rings you up at the register and asks if you need anything.. oh and occasionally answers the phone if you call. It is disheartening to know that there are few horticulture jobs out there that require a bachelors degree, mostly if you want to live close to home (Arkansas), and my position would be one of those that does not require a degree. I also found out that we receive no benefits from working at this nursery, and I am getting paid close to minimum wage. I've been analyzing these things for the past week or so, and weighing my options. I have decided to stay there for at least a year, while living with my parents, and see where it takes me. Here are the possibilities after said year: I could move in to a position in the greenhouses at work, I could use the experience to gain a better position with another company, I could save up money to go back to school for teaching, or I will stay in the same position for longer. I foresee 1 or 3 happening.

There is no new news on the China team. They are still doing well and my rabbit (Kavu) is still growing! Emmalyn showed Kavu to me on Skype the other night and he is getting bigger and bigger. I am blessed to have friends like Emmalyn that will take care of my babies after I'm gone. :) Please continue to pray for their ministry over there, spreading God's light and His message to all the Chinese people. We are so blessed in America to have a government that will allow us to follow our God openly! I pray that some day China will know of this freedom and their people will no longer be controlled and suppressed. In other news, my student Doris sent me some photos this week of her new born child! Here they are...

More News on the Team

The rest of my team started teaching again this past week, and the new girl arrived last week some time. So, they now have a team of 4 again. They all have new students (but Drew still has his juniors from last semester), and I was informed that my students do not have an oral english class this semester. That makes me very sad. :( I was also informed that my rabbit and guinea pig were brought back not too long ago. Emmalyn is keeping them and she showed them to me on skype.. that rabbit is so BIG now! However, they are proving to be a handful so she wants to get rid of them soon. I don't blame her, but I wish I could have taken them home with me! I have not heard any other news about the team, but they seem to be doing well. Continue to keep them in your prayers! They need a lot of them.

p.s. I miss my China. I want to go back some day.

Back for a While..

I woke up early this morning, and felt compelled to read my Bible... and you know what? It's been a wonderful day since. God is truly good.

I'm in my fourth week of being back in the States, but it feels like last week that I came home. The third week and this fourth week are bringing feelings of restlessness, not having a job, so needless to say I am in the process of finding a job right now. I am also considering going back to school in August, to pursue a special education degree. I have applied to two universities in Oklahoma, but haven't found any universities close to home that offer this major as a bachelor's degree. I have been researching a lot lately about what I want to do for my future, and it's been weighing me down some. I've never been incredibly gifted at making major life decisions such as. It's a good thing too, because it brings me to rely on God to lay out my path. It brings me to Him in prayer and keeps me from somehow thinking that I control my life and me alone.

On a tangent, I have been missing China a bit for the reason that I felt closer to God there. China is not filled with the best foods, houses, cleanliness, safeties, and little things that we take for granted in America. I had to rely on God to get me through my time there, and keep me close to the people I love back home here. It gave me a sense of humility and taught me to be content with what I had. I loved that. It's really hard to get in that state here in America. We're well taken care of, and then some.

Other news: the rest of my team in China is doing well. Two of them returned from their vacation in Shanghai this morning, and one of them is still vacationing on the island of Hainan. School doesn't start again until the first week of March. Continue to pray for them.

My time is passing quickly and plesantly

These past few weeks have been filled with productive labor. I have been teaching 7 classes a week, which keeps me very busy, and have recently started to reach out to my students. Everyone here is so kind and generous, and we are blessed to be in a country filled with generous people.. even if some of them are being generous for selfish purposes, that does not exclude the fact that they are kind people. It is sad to learn of their culture and the demands of their obedience within their society.

Some activities that we have recently done: visited Wuhan University, which is very much like the scenery in Arkansas with the hills and trees (minus the palm trees), visited the infamous Walking Street, sang on stage for a talent show, found some excellent salons that wash your hair and give you head massages, and a few people that were in the program a few years ago came to visit us from the States for a few days (which is how we were introduced to the salons that gave head massages). October 1 is a national holiday here, celebrating the 60th year of communism, so we have a week off from teaching and classes. September 30th, we are leaving to meet some other teachers in the program, and we are going on a Yangtze River cruise to see the Three Gorges and the Three Gorges Dam that was recently built this year. It is suppose to be one of the largest dams in the world now.

I believe that is all the news for now. If you want to see some videos that I have posted, please go to photobucket.com, and look for courtneylaynesidwell11 in the search bar under 'people'.

Please continue to pray for our team and that we effectively reach out to those we meet here.

Thank you!

"We have the greatest reason of all

We'll build a city or we'll fall
We'll build a city without walls" --Braddigan

"Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,

and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering,

he will see his offspring and prolong his days,

and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand." --Isaiah 53:10

August 31, 2009

The Arrival

We made it to Wuhan, China last Sunday (August 23) at about 10:40 a.m. and have been very busy since then. Every day we have had someone accompany us around the city and campus. Two student ambassadors (English names Stephanie and Frank) have been helping us almost every day, making sure we have everything we need and showing us around. One of the previous teachers from last year, Daniel (whose apartment I live in now), came to visit us on Friday and Saturday to show us around and take us to the teachers' gathering.. about an hour and a half cab ride away. These gatherings are held about once a month to talk about what's been going on and our progress, and to sing and have a devotional. We also met another Chinese student tonight, named Charles. He took us out to eat near campus.

Sunday, we received our teaching schedules and a list of our students in each class. My classes start on Monday, September 7th, and will continue until January 10th. I will be teaching 7 classes of oral English, all consisting of post graduate students. Stephen started his first bout of teaching this morning, and Drew and Emmalyn will start teaching next week. We plan on writing a syllabus for our classes this week.

Tomorrow, we will go to the international affairs office to sign the second half of the contract. It looks like a busy week ahead of us, yet again.

I will try to keep everyone updated. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. :)

"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting." --Henry David Thoreau

" With men it is impossible; but to God all things are possible." -- Matthew 19:26