September 6, 2008
I've been out of town this past week. We had a small group of new friends from Texas come to visit us and get the "grand tour" of the beautiful area we live in. We took them out to my favorite small town, to smaller towns beyond that, and even to a brand new village we have never been to before. It was a great trip and a great time getting to know some new friends. While we were showing them around and explaining everything about our local friends and the details of our lives I found myself personally coming to a greater appreciation of the place I live and the people I know here. I have stumbled across a beautiful part of this country, and am in such a unique situation with how I get to live in a big city with some modern conveniences, but I also get to constantly travel out to the countryside to be surrounded by breath-taking landscapes and really friendly people.

It got me thinking about how I'm constantly living for the NEXT adventure in my life. In so many ways I look to the next step in my life with such great anticipation of what it might hold that I don't fully appreciate the step I'm currently in. My life here has been something amazing so far, and I have felt since Day One that it's where I've been called to be. But rather than living in the moment, I start thinking long term, and have been planning the details of going back to the States to get my master's degree and then returning here in a couple years.

I day dream all the time about going back to Iowa to visit my family and friends, and spend time with my young nephew who doesn't even know me right now. I think about the things I miss in the States that I can enjoy again when I return. But at the same time, I have a GREAT thing going on, right here, right now. And if I'm realistic I have to know it's most likely that if I return to this country in a few years I won't be able to return to the situation I'm in RIGHT NOW. It got me wondering about the possibility of staying here a bit longer. Maybe just 10 months longer than I have been planning, because I still want to go to grad school and do all of that. But a few things I know are that when I leave I will lose the momentum I've built up here with my relationships and with my language. No matter what, even in San Francisco, my language will not be as good as when I'm actually living in this country.

The longer I stay here, the more effective I am in the goals I have for my life here. It seems a shame to work so hard at it and then leave next year, just when I really start getting a handle on the language and culture. It's something I'm going to be talking to dad about A LOT, because I feel like he has laid it on my heart to trust him for the next step in my life, rather than rushing off to go find it the best way I can think of. He might have something different in mind. If that's the case then I can be SURE that it's a lot better than anything I might have planned.

So this past week of playing tour guide with our Texas friends was a week of reflection for me. The more we talked with them about our lives here, the more I felt overwhelmed with appreciation for where dad has brought me. I can easily see how my friendships with local people are growing week-by-week, and it's exciting to see the momentum that is building up right now. It's exciting to be in a time and place where dad is working and moving and USING us for his purposes. I don't want to walk away from that. I want to stay here as long as he will use me, and I gladly lay my own ambitions aside in order to live in his plan.

With that said, here are some highlights of our travels with our Texas friends this past week. We spent time in all my favorite local places. I didn't get my camera out very much, so I'll just show you a snippet of our adventures.

We had a few dinners with the English teachers at my favorite small town. We also ran into some other friends I have made over the Summer. At one of the restaurants a waitress came up to me and started speaking English. She spoke quite well, which was very surprising. Waitresses are often young girls who weren't great students, so they weren't able to go to college, and often didn't finish high school. But this waitress told me she was a good student but her family couldn't afford to send her to school anymore so she had to start working. It's a common reason to stop going to school in the countryside. We became friends and I'll be staying in touch with her in the future.
    

I saw a few huge spiders while we were hiking around.
    

We went out to a village where my friends know an old man. We hung out at his house for a while, watched a movie, and then he showed us around his town.
   
    

At the end of our trip we decided to explore a village we'd never been to before. We picked a spot on a map and then had a small adventure to find the place. When we finally did, it was full of a special minority group of people, and I was able to speak to them a tiny bit in their minority language. The village was surrounded by huge beautiful mountains and many friendly children who followed us everywhere. We went outside of the town to see the town's temple to their idols and the children followed us all the way, and then sat on some rocks to watch us until we left. It was a lot of fun and the people there were very friendly. I hope we go back soon.