Spring Break Loop

Spring Break this year was more than I originally expected. First, Asuka and I went to stay with my mom and Step-dad in Sheridan. The next morning (Friday) we got up and went to Hot Springs for the day. Saturday morning we got up and helped them with moving a little before heading to Memphis to pick up Asuka's mom at the Airport. The next three days I spent driving around Jonesboro and we also went to Little Rock.

Tuesday night was a night without much sleep. We had to leave for Memphis by about 4 am. I didn't intend to sleep at all but decided to take a nap. I reset an alarm (or so I thought) and then I get a call from Asuka. I look at the clock and it says 4:30. I start scrambling around and rush out the door leaving pillows, blankets, a hairbrush, and other items that I would need for the next three days camping, only to get to my car and find out it is 3:40. Oh well, too late now...


View Larger Map

The adventure would soon begin. We dropped her Mom off at the Memphis International Airport about 6 in the morning. Then we started off toward Petit Jean State Park near Morrilton, AR. We stopped at a rest area in Arkansas and slept until about 9:30 in the car. It was one of those places though-- I couldn't go into a deep sleep. I always felt like someone was watching me. We got to Petit Jean and set up camp before hiking to the waterfall. The weather was amazing, probably in the upper 70's or lower 80's. We got back to camp and cooked dinner, went to shower, and went to bed by about 9 p.m. Then I woke up at midnight. The temperature had dropped about 40 degrees in the past four hours. I was shivering.

Finally 7:30 came around and I got up and stumbled into the cold morning air, with a cotton blanket wrapped around me. Two and a half hours later we were on the road to Oklahoma. We had a picnic at the visitors center; I found a geocache and we visited the log cabin of Sequoya, before heading back in to Arkansas.

We drove to the University of Arkansas, enemy territory, so that Asuka could see their campus. It was rather large, and I have to say I am glad I chose ASU over UA. I paid for an hour and a half of parking and the meter expired before we made it back to the car. I was beginning to think we might have to call campus police to help us FIND the car. We finally found it and headed to the store to buy more groceries for the camping that night at Hobbs State Park. Timing had other plans.

When we drove through the park, I had no clue where camping was and the visitors center was closed. I searched points of interest with the GPS and found a camping area not far from Eureka Springs which was to be the first stop for the next day. We arrived and it was a safari park with a lot of big cats, and an RV park. I decided it wasn't the best tent-camping spot and headed on into Eureka Springs for Lake Leatherwood. When we got there, it was abandoned. No one was in the cabins or the campgrounds. The office had a sign "will return at 9am." So we went to a campsite with water but no electricity. We got out and the bathroom had a sign that said, "closed for cleaning; use other side." I went to look and it was dimly lit and dirty. Another aged sign said "please shut the door so the pipes don't freeze." That was too much; it gave me the creeps. It looked like the scene from a horror film. When I got back to the car, Asuka was being cornered by the geese and quickly agreed to find somewhere else. We ended up in a Hotel. The attendant there said he worked at the BCM in Fayetteville at one point, so I asked him if he knew Arliss. Small world.

The next day I showed Asuka the Crescent Hotel, Christ of the Ozarks Statue (from the Hotel), and downtown. Then we headed to Branson. We camped at Tablerock Lake State Park. Finally, a place we could have a camp fire. We set up, paid, and then went into Branson. We got back and cooked in the dark which was an interesting experience. We'd planned on cooking the night before so our fish was soggy. It was cold so we weren't really in the cooking spirit. We ended up with Teriyaki rice, green beans, corn and mushrooms mixed together, and Teriyaki fish ticks. The fire didn't do much to keep us warm. We gave up and went to bed.

At about 6am cold turned to cold and wet. I began seeing white flashes and knew it was a storm rolling in. About 6:20 it got loud with thunder and rain. It was time to evacuate the tent and head for the car. We slept for the next four hours in the car with heat and soft chairs, until the rain stopped. When I went to check the tent I found our clothes, and sleeping gear soaked. There was at least one pool of water.

We cooked and broke down camp, knowing that it would be a long night of cleaning up when we arrived back in Jonesboro. We went to eat at a fish and steak restaurant at Branson Landing, with a little fear of being turned away for the clothes we were wearing. There was no problem, with the exception of being cold. We ate and headed for Jonesboro.

When we got back I unloaded the car. Later Asuka and I set the tent back up in the living room of my Collegiate Park apartment (luckily, all of my roommates were still out of town).  We dried it, inside and out. We washed the dishes. We washed the clothes and towels and pillows. Finally at midnight it was time for bed. Spring break would soon be over.

[I will add photos as soon as I have a chance to get them on my computer.]

Cooking Culture

I have had the privilege to be the driver for a friend and her mom (both from Japan) during the first days of Spring Break. My friend speaks English very well. Her mom knows minimal English and it has challenged me to slow down more when I speak. She knows a little bit of English and can somewhat understand some phrases and even speak some.

Of course, with time, it all gets better. I always say that I learned more the ten days I was in Spain than I did three years of Spanish classes. I am sure her English improved the past three days. But tonight, well its after midnight so yesterday, I was cooking Spaghetti. I cooked most of it before they arrived. However, her mom arrived about five or ten minutes before. Amazingly, we did just fine communicating.

Later my friend arrived and commented about how I was breaking the noodles. She also commented on portions, etc. It is amazing how different cultures can be, even when it comes to the ways we cook some of the same foods.

Bonfire

This weekend was amazing! We missed several people this year, but many new people came. The bonfire had been planned for New Years Eve but was canceled because of rain. We rescheduled for this past weekend and had a lot of fun.

(Left to right: [ Yi Chen (squatted), Ashley Handcock, Derrick Brockman, Duane Johnson, Asuka Morimoto, CG]

We left campus around 1:30 on Saturday and headed to Sheridan. Once we arrived we unloaded the cars into the spare bedroom. In the process of getting the firewood to the park area, several of the non-drivers got to drive my mom's fourwheeler which is a lot like a car. Later we went on a tour of the property, before returning to the fire for dinner and s'mores.

Dusty holding a s'more

After a nice time around the fire, and a few marshmallow fights later, we went inside for a night of karaoke.

(From left to right: CG, Ashley Handcock, Dusty Johnson (green), Derrick Brockman, Yi Chen (Red) and Mizuki Ueno open up the Karaoke with Lady Gaga's Poker Face.)

Later we all made a recording of Hallelujah (the one from Shrek).

We had an amazing break from school work. We returned to Jonesboro Sunday evening and had dinner at the Hibachi Grill.

Thank you to my mom for letting me use her photos in the blog. I was a bad journalist and forgot my camera!

Discouragement

Although it was a rather boring Halloween weekend, today started out pretty good. The Japanese Student Organization hosted "Little Japan" today and I was finally able to attend one of their events. Before going to my class I got to watch a Japanese dance, try some Japanese food and learn to fold a throwing star from one of my Japanese friends.

Then came class which brought with it discouragement. I love to speak in Spanish and I have been practicing, trying to read Spanish short stories. In order of proficiency, I am probably: Speaking, Writing, Reading, and listening isn't even on the chart. When it comes to the last two, I am not always exactly sure what I am reading. It doesn't always make since and what I think is happening isn't necessarily happening.

I said the character dies in the end of the story. The teacher shakes his head no and asks the class, "What do you think, does he die or not?" No one can answer and he says to have an answer for the next class. He speaks slow and I get the gist of it, he speeds up and I don't even try to take notes. He says this is how they actually speak in Spain. I believe him.

It isn't uncommon for me to ask my friends to repeat themselves when speaking Spanish. Or other times I just make up an answer and hope I understood correctly. I began asking myself, should I apply for this job in Spain that I want to get so badly? If I get there and I can't understand the majority of what they tell me it is going to be very difficult.

If English is the hardest language to learn, I hate to imagine what so many of our international students must feel like every day!

Graduation Preparation

I’ve been having a rough time this semester. Emotionally I have been pretty low lately and there are several reasons why, I think. One is I am having to spend so much time in the library studying for all of my Spanish that I very rarely see my friends. The other is that I am supposed to graduate in May.

I don’t regret double majoring in Spanish. I think it is a good decision and will open doors down the road. The thing is, I am a slow reader in English. When I have to switch over and read in Spanish it takes me hours to get through a page or two. Most of the time I have to study alone to get anything done. Other times I study with a friend and classmate who pushes me to work harder, but it is still too much time in the library.

 I don’t mind spending time with my friends in the library, but I miss when I was able to hang out with more than one person there. And I really miss being able to hang out outside of the library. I fear I may lose some friends this semester because I am never around. I miss going to the park. I miss hanging out every night on the weekend. I miss those late night McDonald’s runs. I miss the occasional eating out. I miss movie nights. I miss sitting around the dinner table for an hour and a half.

Then there is the graduation thing. Most people look forward to graduation. They look forward to being done with school and getting started in the “real world.” But I see it a little differently. Don’t get me wrong, I am ready to be done with my studying, but I also see the positive side. I am off on the weekends. I get holidays. I make a lot of friends. And when I graduate I see what I am going to lose. I won’t be able to take classes with my friends anymore. I won’t see my friends very much because we will live in different places, eat in different places and generally be doing other things. Or worse, I will have to move off to find a job. There may not be any opportunities in Jonesboro.

Even if I do stay in Jonesboro to start out, a lot of my friends who are also graduating will move away. The friends who are still in school will eventually graduate and most of them will also move. Many of my friends I fear I will never see again because once they graduate they will probably be on the other side of the world in Africa, Asia, and Europe. I will miss them. I try to tell myself that thanks to technology we will stay in contact, but it doesn’t help. I know from experience that when we go separate ways we begin to lose contact, even with our closest friends. Thinking about not seeing my friends again hurts.

What hurts more is thinking about how many do not know Christ and who I won’t even get to see in heaven. I know the most important thing in the friendship is to share the gospel with them so that they might believe; and pray for them. I want to see them know Jesus.

We are all sinners. There is no one reading this that can say they are not a sinner. Just taking the ten commandments and what Jesus said, I don’t think I’ve kept a single one of them. I have borrowed and not returned (stolen); I have looked at a girl with lust (adultery); I have lied; I have hated (murder), and the list goes on. All it takes to be separated from God is one sin. He is the great, fair, judge. A just judge wouldn’t let someone off the hook when they used the excuse, “I only did it once.” They do the crime, they do the crime.

But God loves us. He wants us to be with him. None of us have done anything that is too bad for him to forgive, through Jesus. He sent him, he lived a perfect life. He was tempted just like any other human, and then sentenced to die on the cross. He died for OUR sins. After they took him of the cross he was in the grave for three days before he was raised from the dead. He conquered death. He died and he rose again! Through faith in Jesus, we too will be raised. We will have eternal life with God, which is good. Being separated from God would be torture enough, the other stuff of Hell I don’t even want to think about. But Jesus paid the price so we didn’t have to. The world needs to know this.

This morning, God showed me another reason why I felt the way I do. He is preparing me. I keep saying that I don’t know what I will do when I graduate. I say I would like to stay in Jonesboro to work for a while so that I can stay where I actually know people. I don’t want to leave and go somewhere I don’t know anyone. But I also have an opportunity to apply to go to Spain for a few years and help teach English, which is only available right after I graduate. I want to do this. Then there is graduate school, seminary and/or working somewhere outside of Jonesboro and maybe Arkansas. I don’t know what to do.

Well, this morning at church God spoke to my heart. Several missionaries from our church that had returned from the field shared their testimony about what God was doing. The first told us about spending two years in the Journeyman program. (I need to look into that a little more.) She was in France for those two years; sometimes there were teams, other times they tried to build relations with those in the area.

That is when God starting bringing some other scriptures to my mind. He reminded me of those who wanted to go back to bury their family member first to which Jesus responded, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God,” (Luke 9:60 NIV).  He also reminded me of the man who wanted to say by to his family. “Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” When I gave him my life, I was giving him my entire life. My life is no longer my own. That means if he calls me to go to a far-off country where I don’t know anyone; I don’t know the culture; I don’t know the language—I am supposed to go. He will go with me. The question is not an if he sends me; it is a where will he send me.

I began studying Spanish so I could use it in missions. It opens up Spain, Central and South America as places I can communicate. But I am willing to go wherever. Through my time at ASU God has placed a lot of East-Asians in my life. We have become friends and I have had the opportunity to get the gospel in many of their hands. There are other opportunities I have missed. But God has really put them on my heart. I wonder if he is not only preparing me to leave all of the familiarity but maybe even calling me to China or Japan.

I will be honest: the thought of going to be a long-term missionary in China, a communist country, scares me. Japan scares me simply because of being a different culture and language. But should I start trying to learn those languages from friends right here at ASU? Which one? God definitely showed me that he is preparing me to leave my friends and my family this morning. I don’t know how. I don’t know where. But I want to do it, filled with joy. Life is a journey. Life is an adventure. It is a good thing that I am not supposed to be the pilot.

Please pray for me that God would ease the stress some and that I could enjoy the friendships while we are right here together. Pray that he would give me the opportunities (and that I would take the opportunities) to share the gospel with them. Please pray that God would tear down the walls in their hearts and that he would grow the seeds. Please pray for me, that God would show me exactly where he wants me to go, when, how and all of that good stuff.

God bless.