Neener's Travel Blog

I have been home for a month and ten days now.  It feels strange.  Like I'm just stopping back at my birthplace before I head out on my next great adventure.  But at the same time I don't feel out of place here.  I've never been more happy to come home.  I've been having all sorts of mini adventures with my amazing family and friends.  2014 will be a year to remember, for a multitude of reasons. Readjusting to life in Canada was (and is) a process, but wasn't nearly as difficult as I had anticipated.  I was prepared for the absolute worst in every aspect of my life and to be completely miserable...but I haven't.  And I can't decide if that's good or bad.  I wasn't prepared for everything to go so well, and frankly, I don't know how to handle it.  I was all set to have to work incredibly hard to fit back in with Canadian culture and reconnect with my friends and find a church and discover places to serve...but it all came so natur...

South East Asia Missionary Life Some of the trivial and strange things that have come to be normal life over the past few months. That moment when: - you can't remember the last meal you had without rice - toilet paper is no longer a necessity - traffic back home will never seem bad again - you discover that it is possible to live without wifi - you run out of water - you've had more bucket showers than real showers in the past month - electricity just decides to go out sometimes - you prefer to go to the market than an actual store - you can't remember the last time you sat in the front seat of a car - it's been an even longer time since you actually drove a car - two outfits are all you need to get through three weeks - you only shower once a week (it's cold in Darjeeling!) - or you want to shower once an hour (it's HOT everywhere else!) - you can't go a day without a tea break (Morning tea - the best time of day!) - cars...

Wednesday, June 11, 2014 Well, debrief week has come and gone, full of meetings and packing and cramming in as many fun times in our last days together as possible.  It's been a good time of relaxing and reflection and planning for the future. We had this really great moment in one of our meetings where we all had a chance to encourage our fearless leader, our beloved Rachael.  It was Sarah's turn to say something and she got about a sentence into her encouragement and started to cry, and instantly about 7 of the rest of us also started to tear up.  "Girl's DTS!"  We laughed...and continued to cry. Our last required reading for DTS was the book Re-Entry by Peter Jordan.  It talks about coming home after missions and the problems that we might encounter.  And there are a lot.  After reading it, I am now prepared for a lot of things, and I was already convicted about some attitudes of mine. I have to apologize for a post that I made near the beg...

Thursday, June 5, 2014 After Darjeeling, I just wanted to be able to survive semi-pleasantly through the remainder of DTS.  I was aiming to try my hardest to serve God and give it my all in the last few days of outreach, regardless of how I was feeling.  It was my goal to "finish well".  I don't know how many times I've heard that phrase in these past couple weeks, but it is a lot. So we headed to our last outreach location, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  We didn't really know what to expect until the day before we left (which was the day after we got back from India - that's right, three countries in three days), so I didn't really have time to prepare or get excited or have any thoughts at all on what our time there might be like.  All I knew was we only had 10 days there, compared to the 3 weeks we had in our other locations.  It was going to be a short one.  Little did I know just how short our time there would be! It turns out that finishing well...

Sunday, May 25, 2014 An overview of our outreach time in India - it's a bit of a long one.  India ended up being a very mixed experience for me.  Darjeeling really was beautiful and we were able to be involved in several different ministries.  It was such great experience to see such a variety of ministries. I went to a children's slum ministry, where the kids ranged in age from around 1 to 12, mostly falling into the 5ish area.  There were about 40 kids packed into a room slightly bigger than my living room (which is not big enough for 10 people sitting, let alone 40 brawling children).  Despite the utter chaos, we were still able to act out Daniel and the Lions' Den (I was one of the bad advisors.  It was a real big hit when I was eaten.), play some games (still not entirely sure how that was accomplished), do a lion mask craft (lions are now green, purple, blue and covered in flower patterns) and hand out snack.  It was over so quickly and all ...

I am getting exhausted. I've gotten tired and worn out several times on this trip. Exhausted in every way - physically, spiritually, emotionally. And every time I think this is it, that I can't go on anymore, God leads me back to Psalm 23. It seemed cliche, until I realized that, despite being one of those overused/not fully understood verses, it is still God's word. He can use it to speak to me and encourage me. And there is so much solid truth and encouragement in these six verses. I wrote my own version of the Psalm (using NIV) today during my quiet time, when God led me to this passage yet again. My 23rd Psalm The Lord is my shepherd. I am a part of his flock and I am valuable to him. He watches over me and sees everything that is going on around me. He provides shelter and food and water and everything that I need. He protects me from dangerous terrain and from predators lying in wait to attack me. With him I lack nothing. When I am with him, there is nothing th...

Saturday, May 3, 2014 We left on the night of April 29th to catch our flight from Bangkok to Kolkata, India.  Pretty short and uneventful as far as airports and flights go.  Also I was half asleep, so I don't remember much of it... I do know that when we got off the plane there were two women from Mega Cities (Kolkata is currently the focus of the Mega Cities initiative - sending as many outreach teams to that city as possible to really hammer them with Jesus) waiting for us.  They got us on a bus that took our Music DTS people to their accommodations and continued on with us Children at Risk DTS people for about another hour to where we were going to stay.  Oh, this is all at, like, 4 am.  I slept through most of it.  We got to our hostel at some point and just crashed.  Two of our leaders went out to figure out our transportation to Darjeeling, and this is where things started getting complicated.  We were trying to get tickets on a sleeper t...

Sunday, April 27, 2014 We had a week back in Thailand between locations.  On our first weekend here, some of us went on a day tour and it probably ended up being my favorite day in Thailand.  We had a wonderful adventure travelling to a floating market, the bridge on the River Kwai and an elephant camp where we got to play with elephants in the river and ride on them.  It was so much fun - we got to sit on the elephants trunks and the elephants would throw us into the water and we got to aim their trunks and spray people! We had a couple days of prep and then headed out for Camp Zoe, at a golf resort about 3 hours from Bangkok.  We took about 50 kids with us and had about 30 volunteers.  We spent 3 full days and 2 half days there.  We did worship and teachings with the kids, and tons of fun activities to keep the kids busy.  Icebreaker games, team building (they were split into 4 teams for competition over the weekend), Capture the Flag, Crazy Nigh...

Sunday, April 20, 2014 Our first weeks of outreach flew by!  We have completed our first location, and that is just wild to think about.  Three weeks ago we left for Cambodia, and after a long ride in a gross bus sitting next to an old Asian man whose nasty feet were in my space the entire time, a seemingly long walk across the border with my far too heavy backpack and an unexceptional van ride, we arrived in the city of Battambang.  And I was in love.  I don't even know what it was, but as soon as I had those first glimpses of the country of Cambodia, I loved it.  Battambang has a small town feel - not very developed or Americanized, you can walk pretty much everywhere you want to go - with that special Asian charm - sugar can drink and food vendors all along the street, plenty of tuk tuks on the road, and allllllll the motos.  Plus, there was just that little of extra Cambodian spice in the mix.  It's difficult to describe all that was so special a...

Thursday, March 27, 2014 These past few weeks have absolutely flown by and I can't believe we leave for Cambodia in two days!  It's been so crazy busy around here lately, it's probably a miracle that I'm not dead, or least mostly dead.  I am exhausted in every way possible though.  Physically, emotionally... just when I think I couldn't possibly give any more, more is required of me.  God is the only reason I haven't cracked, the one thing keeping me together, I know that.  But to be honest a tiny part of me blames him just a little bit.  Sometimes I feel like he's just requiring far too much of me, more than I can humanly give. I've been learning a lot these past few weeks, and God is showing me all sorts of amazing things.  My understanding of worship was brought to a whole new level.  It is awesome (in the true sense of the word) how holy and worthy God is of our whole hearted worship.  I was struck by the scene in the throne room in R...

Monday, March 3, 2014 It is one thing to hear about things and to know they are happening; it is a completely different thing to be right in the middle of it and see it with your own eyes. Pattaya was quite the experience.  I am so glad it happened, but honestly I'm glad we only spent 4 days there.  We had some truly powerful times of prayer and evangelism, and my heart was just breaking the whole time. We did a couple nights of evangelism, going out in groups of three, and I was involved in talking to an Indian couple working in Pattaya, a young woman tourist from Russia, and a Thai prostitute.  The Russian woman was so wonderful to talk to.  We talked about her life back in Russia, travel (places we had been and wanted to go), and other random things.  Then we asked if we could pray for her. "Why?" she asked. "Because God loves you." "Me?"  She pointed to herself and looked absolutely shocked. "Yes, God loves you!" "You know...

Thursday, February 27, 2014 Well, it has been insanely hectic lately! Alright, last week's lectures were about the Fear of The Lord.  Which is so much less complicated and scary than we make it out to be.  But I think much more serious and important than it has come to be in our lives.  Fear of The Lord is not about being terrified of him - how can we be afraid of our loving Father and Savior?  How can we have relationship with someone that scares us?  It's about being in awe of him and having deep reverence for our King.  God is truly amazing and we should be awe of his power every second of the day!  Fear of The Lord is about giving him control of all areas of our life.  ALL areas.  Every single one.  Even that one little part that we would really like to just take care of ourselves.  He's the Creator and King of the universe, I'm pretty sure he can handle my life. So, I've been working on total surrender.  I've been wo...

Sunday, February 16, 2014 "This is an easy week," they said.  "A very straightforward topic," they said. But this is DTS.  Nothing is ever that easy or straightforward. I will admit, this week was easier than some of our others have been.  Less emotional perhaps.  But, wow, was it ever a lot to think about.  It brought up a lot and I'll be turning these ideas over for months. This week was World Issues week.  We had three topics in three days: refugees, orphans and women.  We heard about refugees on our first day. Did you know: There are 15.4 million refugees worldwide.  When you include internally displaced people, that number grows to 45.2 million. 80% of the world's refugees are hosted by developing nations. (I was in the group that presented a report on refugees at the end of the week, so after our class on Monday and researching on Thursday, I am basically an expert.) The needs of refugees are what you expect - shelter, food, ...

Monday, February 10, 2014 My previous post was a short story I wrote based on my first couple weeks here - the journey I went through with God in that time, and some pictures he gave to me during an intense time of forgiveness and breakthrough. And now, for the announcement of our outreach locations!! We will be spending the first two weeks of outreach in BATTAMBANG, CAMBODIA.  Then we will be coming back for a week to SOMEWHERE IN THAILAND that is close to our current location.  Then we will be splitting into our Music DTS and Children at Risk DTS groups.  For four weeks, Music will go to Kolkata, and CAR will be going to DARJEELING, INDIA (think northern India, up in the mountains!).  Then, all together again, we will go to SOMEWHERE IN MALAYSIA.  We are so excited to be traveling to so many different places! This has been a pretty intense week.  With a topic like Intercession and Spiritual Warfare, though, I guess that's to be expected.  (Ok...

She peeled her face off the concrete alleyway, bits of gravel embedded into her cheek.  She blinked her gritty eyes and squinted into the pale light of early morning, trying to bring the world into focus.  Beginning to sit up, a wave of nausea roiled in her stomach, making her collapse back onto her face.  A headache like an ax cleaving through her skull pounded in her temples.  Taking a slow, deep breath, she pushed herself up to her knees; the alleyway whirled around her from the effects of the previous nights orgy.  Come to think of it, she had no clue how she had ended up out here.  But that wasn't a first. Then, all of a sudden, it was coming and there was nothing she could do to stop it.  She leaned over and puked her guts out, retching until there was nothing left.  She didn't notice that her backpack was beside her until she had quite sufficiently covered it in vomit.  Perfect.  It probably wasn't disgusting enough already; it ...

Sunday, February 2, 2014 God asks that we be wholeheartedly devoted to him.  Such devotion comes with a price though - obedience to his word.  However, a relationship with God is like marriage.  There is a price that comes with marriage - commitment to one person for eternity, not straying, not sinning against that person.  But is that really even a cost, when you get to spend the rest of your life with the person you love?  Those are just things you automatically want to do, and the reward so outweighs the "cost". This past week was very intense.  All I've been able to say about DTS so far is that it is good, but hard.  Very hard, but very good.  Nothing easy, no real breaks.  Just constant intensity.  Our topic this past week was Repentance and Forgiveness.  We spent the week discussing how God desires a personal relationship with him and what is required from us for that to happen is whole-hearted devotion.  Sin gets in ...

Saturday, January 25, 2014 It turns out there is no warm up phase to DTS or any fluffy topics to ease you in.  It is intense right from the get-go.  But, as LJ (one of our lovely DTS staff) said, God was ready to do this with me.  There has been immense change in my life in these past few days.  God has healed my heart in so many ways.  I'm being super vague about it right now, because I feel really inspired to write a short story about it - I feel that will explain it better.  I will say, though, that God has really shown me how much he loves me, and the love of the King of kings is a beautiful thing. As far as working in the community, this week has been incredible!  On Tuesday we did an after school program in the slum.  I was in the arts and crafts group.  We made friendship bracelets and colored the armor of God.  It was difficult, not knowing any Thai.  I didn't even know any of the rudimentary key phrases like I knew in S...