26 January 2016 Greetings from Guatemala! We are finally here! We landed safely in Guatemala at about 3:00 in the afternoon on Thursday the 14th. Both flights went well and we have all been enjoying our first few days in Guatemala City. We spent the first two nights at the CASAS-Semilla guesthouse, where we participated....
Reflections on the Empire
It has been two full days of Egyptology! Pyramids, the Sphinx, Tahrir Square, street markets, Museum of Cairo, a carpet factory, and a scenic drive out of the city to the Coptic Christian retreat of Anaphora. We’ve seen artifacts from before 4500 BC, trekked inside (and then sang in!) one of the pyramids of Giza,....
Coptic traditions at Anafora
We had the opportunity to spend a few days at a Coptic Orthodox retreat center an hour out of Cairo called Anafora. The Coptic church聽traces their roots back to the apostle Mark and a visit he made聽to聽Egypt. So this experience was a chance to worship with one of the聽earliest church traditions. The leadership at Anafora....
Egypt
18聽January 2016 So, we are finally in Cairo and I am jet lagged, but am so excited to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Cairo has a distinct smell to it, a mixture of smoke and incense. The streets are chaotic and bustling with life and everyone is trying to get you to buy something.....
Tibetan experience in Xiahe
6 November 2015 The town of Xiahe, in one of the four Tibetan regions of China, has been the most memorable part of my cross-cultural. Only accessible by winding, rarely paved roads, Xiahe (Shah huh) is set back in the ridged steep mountains covered with auburn leaves and evergreen trees. The culture alone was completely....
Host Families
5 October 2015 I was so nervous as I waited to be claimed by my host family. It felt as if I was a young child in an orphanage waiting to be adopted. As my family approached me, I was relieved that the mother was there and they looked fairly young. My first impression was....
On the streets of Nanchong
21 September 2015 The first thing you need to know about Nanchong streets is that they are filled with people, especially in the evening, especially on weekends, and especially at lunchtime. Now, when I say, 鈥淭he streets are filled,鈥� I don鈥檛 mean every single street 鈥� far from it. For a city of 1.3 million....
A divine appointment in the Beijing subway
On Sunday, our second full day in Beijing, we boarded the subway and headed to the Forbidden City. I was standing on the escalator when several people from our group asked for someone who could speak Spanish to join them. I immediately made myself known. A lady pushing her two-year-old son in a stroller asked....
Exploring Beijing
10. September 2015 We arrived in Beijing at about 5:30 pm (5:30 am EST) on Friday feeling very groggy but still overwhelmed at the fact that we were in China. We ate our first authentic Chinese meal, Beijing Duck, and then fell into our hotel beds exhausted. Our first full day was slightly rainy but....
Know where you come from
During the past three weeks, I have been blessed with incredible knowledge, faith, hospitality, love, and strength from all of the beautiful Maori people our group has come in contact with. Our stays have included time at their sacred Marae鈥檚 where we learned about their history and traditions. I was touched to hear about how....