Answered Prayers

I've been just reading over my blog entries of the past few months and I smile at the roller-coaster of feelings I have described! From the frustration and worry of my pre-departure days to the anxiety and excitement of my early days here, then the irritation and despondence of settling in and the exhilaration of finding my feet :) Above all, I realise once again how faithful God has been. Every prayer I had listed in my journal on the night before I left Singapore has been answered in loving ways. 

#1 I prayed about my knee. I wrote, "Father, please help me to enjoy my time in the US by healing my knee. I want to go on walks, go trekking. I don't want to be the old woman with the bad knee holding others up." My knee has not completely healed but the pain is a lot less and my almost-daily evening walks along the trails around the place I live are a highlight of my day...

Lake Artemesia, a trail walk I enjoy

A creek just behind The Varsity where I live

#2 I prayed about having friends an about my flatmates. Like a teenager I wrote, "I'm anxious I won't have a friend, Abba." and "I'm anxious about my flatmates. I know You have already chosen them. Lord, help us to help each other..." And my friendship with J & L has been great! We have connected so well, we look out for each other and we enjoy each others' company! As for my flatmates, we are from Singapore, Finland, Argentina and India and we get along better than the UN!

My Singapore 'kakis'

My apartment mates!

#3 I wondered about where I would live, whether my room would be dingy and cold... but no, it is sunny, open and after I did it up, a pretty place I look forward to coming back to! 

My blue-green themed room!

#4 I told God, I was anxious I wouldn't be able to cope with the studies and would struggle to complete the capstone project. I wrote, "Father please give me a conscientious, kind tutor who will help me craft a good project and put me in touch with good contacts." I am blessed to have Dr McA who is the kindest, most good-humoured, humble and caring tutor I have ever met!

#5 I wrote "Abba help me to use the 123 Fulbright days to the fullest. Fill the days with learning, experiences, friendship, travel, enjoyment and growth Help me to find blessings in each day." Then I forgot about this prayer, but 2 weeks ago, I was prompted to do just that - to begin a 100 Days of Gratitude album on Facebook!

#6 I prayed for Christian fellowship. I asked, "Where will I go for encouragement Abba? You will provide encouragers for me, won't you?" and yes, I have been blessed with MCF and the dedicated ministry of the pastor Jeff Warner. It took a lot of courage to call him up and to go to church on my own, but Jeff and his wife Dawn have been nothing but kind. It took me a whole lot MORE courage but I have joined a Growth Group (which is how they refer to their cell groups) AND I have signed up for the church's Fall Retreat! Now THAT is pretty scary for me. But I know I had to step out in faith and I know God's step will rise to meet my foot. I know this is how He will answer my prayer #7 - "Abba may my Fulbright days be days of growing closer to You. Help me to have a closer walk with You and may these days be an oasis of remembering Your goodness to me."

These are my Growth Group leaders :)

And the Lord has watched over my household too as I prayed #8 "Abba, I ask for Your protection over my family, for your eyes to be upon J & R." All has indeed been well, very well - apart from a cockroach invasion :) Two days ago, I couldn't stop squealing when C called to ask for our blessings before he proposed to J ... 

My future son-in-law who ticks all the boxes :)

There is a verse in the Bible that says "Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." I have read it and wondered what it would feel like. I have not had such a phase of life before. But now, as I sit with my journal open before me, I know I would be foolish and ungrateful if I did not praise my God , my Abba who heard my fears and comforted me.

In the past, I used to feel fear when things went well. I would not celebrate or share good news because of a superstition that drawing attention to one's good fortune would in some way attract the unwanted attention of evil spirits and that good news would be followed by sorrow. When children passed exams or if others had commented on how cute a child was or congratulated someone on good fortune, the practice was to perform a ritual to get rid of 'the evil eye'. This ritual involved taking a handful of dried red chillies, salt and mustard seeds and then circling one's hand three times around the person who might be the object of 'the evil eye'. Then the person would be asked to spit into the ingredients and the ingredients will be thrown into fire. Of course the fire would flare up and splutter, but this would be taken as proof that an 'evil eye' had indeed been cast and that the curse had now been broken. 

It took me a long time to shake off that baggage. Every time things went well for me, I would wait for the 'inevitable' sorrow that would follow. And of course when I looked for something I would find it. I am emerging from the shadow of that fear of blessings. I am learning to accept the good and the bad from the hand of my Father. I am learning not to fear, to know that God is good. I am happy and I can say 

 "My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
    let the humble hear and be glad... 

I sought the Lord, and he answered me

                                                       and delivered me from all my fears."

To My Readers If You Exist

I have decided to limit access to this blog. It's been around for a while and I like writing it though I am not as frequent now as I used to be when I started it. Mainly that has been because I write in my journal more - where I don't have to be as circumspect as I sometimes have to be on a public platform. 

But circumstances have changed. I started this blog when first J then R went abroad and I felt I had not told them all I wanted to. I felt I needed to share who I was before they became young women of lives of their own. But my daughters' lives have changed. They now have private lives and thoughts that I do not want to be accessed through my blog.

More importantly, I have changed. I do not want to keep a blog describing just my travels and my external life. Increasingly I find myself going deeper into myself. Some days I feel I am on the outside of Vara, knowing why I said that or why I felt a spurt of sadness or why I didn't care. And I have become afraid I might become too honest and hurt someone without intending to. I'm afraid I wouldn't care because what I had felt had been true for me. And I want to be able to write without wondering what my nameless, faceless reader would think of me.

But I know there are readers I can trust; readers who know me as I want to be known and love  me anyway. So, if you read this blog, and you think you might still want to come by now and then, don't be hurt or surprised if you find the blog closed. Just let me know and I will give you access willingly. I will lock my blog on 30 Sept 2012.

Ir-responsible

What I love most about these days is the irresponsibility. Well, no, that word may not have the right connotation, but I can't think of what the opposite of 'responsible' is, so that would have to do for now :) I love not being responsible. I love waking up in the morning and knowing that if I didn't want to, I needn't do a single thing that day. I love not budgetting.

Perhaps this is a phase of growing up I just missed out on. While I was in school, I felt a sense of obligation; I was reminded on every possible occasion that my sisters were paying for my education. I didn't have carefree days in the Institute of Education because those days consisted of lectures in the morning and teaching in the afternoon - so that meant marking and preparing for lessons during spare time. When I got into university, there was again the awareness at the back of my mind that I was there on a govt scholarship and I needed to keep my grades up. Being accepted into the very first Direct Hons programme didn't help matters at all, because I spent all my time studying and writing papers, always, always conscious of the fact that I needed to keep up a B+ average to stay in the course.

So these Fulbright days feel to me like a second chance. To do the things many people did during their university days that I just did not have the courage - or the irresponsibility - to do. I do my readings, but I don't stay up late to ensure I have finished ALL the recommended readings. I do the assignments, but it doesn't matter because they don't get graded. I don't feel the burden of juggling teaching, administrative work, running a household and mothering that I felt when I was doing my Masters. This time, I am in university to enjoy student life - books, cafes, conversations with friends, time to travel, unwashed laundry, trashy tv, drinks at night, meals-for-one, the jangle of pop-Christian-Hindi songs in the apartment. Irresponsible living.

Making It My Own

During orientation in DC, Holly, from IIE told us that we will need to be comfortable with ‘structured ambiguity’. I didn’t think more about the phrase then, but in the last week since we came to UMD, I realise there was wisdom in that caution.

I am not yet sure of the classes I am going to attend, but I have some idea of what the classes are likely to be. I know which school I will be attached to and the names of my partnering teachers, but I haven’t met them yet and don’t know what I will be doing in the school.

The past week has been a time of adjustment and I have had to struggle with my natural need for order. I realised yesterday that I liked just staying in my room. Perhaps it is the order I have created; the safety. And I have been doing more of that – creating structures. I have a weekly schedule – when I will do grocery shopping, when I will clean my room. I know where to look for the bus schedules. I know how to get to the DC sights from my apartment. I learnt how to use Dropbox so I can store my notes and photos. I have walked to the ATM and withdrawn money. These seem like small tasks when I compare them to all I used to do in Singapore. But each small success has mattered.

This morning I made it to my Faculty Mentor’s room for an appointment at 9am and spontaneously accepted his invitation to visit his class on Storytelling. He told a tale from Limba (now called Sierra Leone) – of how a chief’s daughter was stolen and then rescued by 5 ‘strangers’ – a spider, a rat, an anteater, a chameleon and a biting fly. At the end of the story he asked us – with which of the ‘strangers’ did you identify? To me it was the chameleon. Because he was The Adaptor. And that is who I want to be at this particular time – the one who fits in, who doesn’t stick out, the one who doesn’t need to ask for directions, for help.

As I stood outside the Chemistry building after the class, the thought came to me – I knew where I was. I knew in which direction to walk to get to the library, which direction to take back to the apartment. I knew what I had to do this afternoon, what errand I needed to run and how to find directions to get to the shop I needed to go to. I don’t have to stay in my room.

Not Today

I have had a quiet day today. I intended to. I decided to take this one day to just slow down and to allow the hours to pass, without an incessant need to fill every unforgiving hour with yet another experience, or opportunity or learning. There seems to be a frenzy among some of the others here to DO something - shop or travel or attend a concert or sight-see and often I hear how we must make the most of the opportunity we have. Some days I agree. But when I woke up this morning, I didn't want to DO; I just wanted to BE. I know there are 365 things to do in DC, but today I am not in the mood for any of them.

I think my mood is affected by my lack of sleep. And I am irritated by the lack of connectivity. The internet connection in my room is really bad and I spent a good part of this morning just trying to surf. I am in the students' work room now and the connection isn't any better so I don't know if it's my laptop that is the problem. Or maybe it is because the kids are all using PCs, I don't know.

I wonder at my own inertia. This is what I have wanted to do for so long. To study abroad, to travel, visit museums, read. Yet right now all I want to do is find a good book and a cafe. I hope this is just part of the culture shock and that this feeling will soon pass. I can't put a finger on it, I can't name it. It isn't homesickness. It isn't quite depression. I feel disengaged - like a receiver taken off the cradle. Not willing to connect. Not today.

Sleepless in College Park.

It's 1.40am and I'm wide awake. I just got back into my room after an emergency evacuation at 12.30am. I'm furious because I feel so helpless. Every night we are at the mercy of idiotic kids who shouldn't be allowed to live here unsupervised. Every night since Moving In Day last week, the students have been yelling, puking, stomping down the corridors and dragging furniture around in their rooms from around 11pm till the wee hours of the morning. It has been a week since I had a good night's sleep. 

I don't know if this is just culture shock but I am really miserable from just not being able to sleep. I am so fed-up with these kids. I'm fed-up with the uni for putting us up here. I'm fed-up about the fact that there are 5 guards on duty and they have absolutely no power to do anything or say anything to these kids.