Ok, so I've been back about a month. And I've had lots of time to think about this blog post and how to summarize everything I learned in two months into a couple of paragraphs. Because I've discovered that people stop reading blog posts after they get too long.
So this summer I did some crazy things that I've never done before, talked to people I would never ever talk to otherwise, and learned a whole about the Creator of the Universe. Instead of making one super long post, I'll just divide it up into two parts. First part is the informational post- the who/what/when/how/why, etc. Here's a brief overview of the common questions I get:
Q. Hey, so, like, what did you actually do everyday?
A. Well, my days were spent between training and evangelism. Some days we would sit and learn about apologetics and evangelism, and the next day we would go out and put it into practice. Evangelism varied between setting up table to give out free books about Christianity and talking to women in coffee shops and parks. I loved meeting new people and being in such a diverse place! I was with teammates from different parts of the world- Korea, Finland, Bulgaria, Pakistan and Texas just to name a few. I interacted with over 30 different nationalities this summer- NEWS FLASH: Jesus is not just for Americans! About every two weeks we would have different teams come in for different programs; some people were there for 2 weeks, some for 2 months (me!), and others for 1-2 years!
Q. Woah. Was it hard telling people about your faith in parks and coffee shops?
A. YES. Yes it was. Like, really hard. Especially at the beginning of the summer; I would sit in the van and silently convince myself to get out and do evangelism, even though I felt like I was going to throw up. But it got wayyyy better with time! (More on this next post.)
Q. Did you love it? Are you moving overseas? Don't you miss it so much?
A. Yes. I loved it. I made some amazing friendships with people all over the world! No, I'm not currently planning on moving overseas (but its never out of the picture!!). I think two months was the perfect amount of time; I learned A LOT. And I loved being there, but now I get to come back to my wonderful UTK BCM family and teach people what I learned! That's the really exciting part to me.
Q. Did you go to the Olympics?!?!?!?
A. No guys, I did not. Sorry to burst your bubble. I went across the ocean to tell people about Jesus. Once I found out my free days, the tickets for beach volleyball and pretty much every other sport were sold out. Plus, Americans had to pay more for tickets... turns out they really are still bitter about the Revolutionary War. But we did have one free night during the Olympics and we went to a park with a bunch of big screens and we got to watch several different events with a couple hundred other people! That was pretty awesome; the whole city's atmosphere was the most unique experience.
Q. How did you find this trip? That sounds awesome!
A. Simple... I did my research! There are lots of mission trips out there. My personal favorites are sportsmissions.com and imb.org. And if you're a Tennessee BCM student, go to sendtnmissions.org :)
BONUS QUESTION FOR READING ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE BOTTOM!!!
Q. You're a senior, right? What's your whole life plan? ...Oh, you don't know? Well what will you do next year then?
A. Next year I'm planning on going to grad school somewhere and getting a Masters in Social Work. Combining that with my business degree might help me somewhere down the road if I want to work in the administrative part of the non-profit sector. As for figuring out my whole life... God and I still have some work to do! And thats ok with me! :)
This concludes my first entry about my summer. Next time I'll share some stories about conversations and more reflections!
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