A few pictures!

A few pictures from my first days here!

Worshipping with one of the local churches... what a blessing indeed :)

My desk!

My room!

Our favorite Samba!

Yum! Seminary food rocks!

Electricity has been out the last few days... this is my source of light for my room.

And that's it for now! Maybe more later? Maybe!

I guess I will use this blog to recap here and there and share thoughts and meditations that I have during my time here. I guess that's what you do on a blog, eh?

Something I reflected on the last few days is how blessed we truly are living in a place like America. I know this is said over and over, often times where it loses its meaning but when you come outside of the environment you have grown up in, I think you can really see what that statement means. Even something I know is such a blessing but I take so much for granted is the gift of being a fluent English speaker. One of our main ministries here is to be English teachers at the seminary here, AECS (Asia Evangelical College & Seminary). Right now, they are on vacation so we're not teaching right now but I am able to see the last few days how God is using us the last few days.

This week, we've been working in the office, doing a lot of translating from Korean to English (which takes forever... and for all we know, we can be totally translating something wrong!), helping the missionaries revise and proofread documents, and drafting letters for them among other tasks. It really makes me think, our gift of being able to speak English proficiently is used in tasks and things that seem so menial or much like time-killers and used to help the ministry here and do things that we can help out in. At morning prayers, we are reading about 4 chapters a day in the New Testament and they ask Edward and myself to read, so that they can hear and follow along with the text and hear a clear pronounciation. Even something like that, reading to them, somehow is used to encourage the missionaries and seminary students here.

My prayer is to be a willing and able servant all throughout this trip, in whatever is asked of me. No matter what, I hope to serve wholeheartedly with complete joy for the glory of God alone. So, being able to have something like a proficiency in English has made me appreciate how beautifully and masterfully God has created us and how He is able to use anyone that has a willing heart :)

Until next time..

ciao!

I made it!

I'm in INDIA!!!!

:)

I arrived here safely by God's grace alive and well.

I am so blessed and encouraged to be here.. and am excited what God has in store for me the next few months!

I'm mostly updating through email, I'll try and blog when I can. So, if you'd like to be updated through email, let me know! :)

pictures aren't working right now.. so I will try and post some soon.

God is good! all the time!

We are bound for India Land

I leave for India tomorrow! :)

I will try and blog as much as I can.

I'm mostly going to email but blogs are nice too :)

Please let me know if you'd like to join the email list.

If you have any prayer requests also, I'd love to pray for you! Let me know how and what I can pray for through email.

A couple of prayer requests right now would be:

1. For safe travel to India: that we would have a safe flight to India and arrive without any complications or setbacks and for God's protecting hand to be over Edward and myself.

2. For God to continue to prepare my heart to serve Him and the missionaries and that God may go forth and prepare the work that is to be done!

I'll try and update this blog as often as I can, hopefully next time with pictures! :D

In His Grace,

James

And... for a few pictures! yahoo!

Edward, my partner in crime (but no crime will be involved!), Missionary Chung (the main missionary we will be working with), and myself!

One of my classes I taught last summer! I hope to see them soon!