May 17, 2010
Well I have officially been living in SA for nine months already! I can hardly believe that! Sometimes I think back to when my fellow SwaLeSa SALTer’s and I arrived those 9 months ago and how excited we all were to finally step foot on African soil, South African soil, that is! It has been a good 9 months, many good memories of adventures, laughs, tears, hugs, near death experiences (flying bricks!, I must be a brick magnet, lol), friendships, sad goodbyes and the list could go on.
As I sit here pondering what to write thinking that I had lots of ideas on my walk home from the MCC SwaLeSa office today, and yet I draw to a bit of a blank. Actually those thoughts I want to blog about, but for a later blog entry. I want to blog, I want to write something, something interesting, something thought provoking, something with passion and charisma or something inspirational. Hmm, what to write, what to write!!!
So here I go, I think I’ll write about my unknown future; my future that only God knows “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, “plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11.” One of my goals this past year was to figure out my future; to figure out what am I good at? And what do I want to do when I get home? I don’t want to work the rest of my days working behind a Tim Horton’s counter asking, how may I help you and what size of coffee and how do you take it? Regular? Double double? Triple triple? No, I need something better, sorry Tim Horton’s fellow co-workers and coffee friends; making and serving coffee isn’t my life career!
When I came out here to SA I thought I would be working in an office behind a desk doing various admin office tasks. Well I guess I do work behind various desks! My days at the MCC SwaLeSa office I’ve been working on writing up journal entries and reconciling bank statements, and putting together MCC SwaLeSa’s liabrary, so a bit of office work. My days at Project Gateway with the DMPR (Donor Marketing Public Relation) department I have found some admin work, and also at Gateway Christian school also some admin work, but all together not what I had expected. This has caused me some frustration at times. I would like to say I have enjoyed working here, so please don’t think from what I’ve written that I haven’t, it just been a challenging year working at three different locations every week! A number of years ago I was enrolled in a business program and I thought that my future was in business; business of some sort like Inventory Management! And then my country reps offered me this SALT Admin Assistant position and I felt that yes God is reaffirming this career avenue I had so long ago started. But the last number of months, actually I don’t know how long, I have been giving this a second thought.
Then one day at school I sat in for Melanie (Grade R teacher) for a few minutes, holding up a story book and turning the pages as the students listened to the story of Jonah and the Whale from a CD player. Afterwards I asked the children a few questions about the bible story. Melanie returned and as I wandered back to Mrs. Bennett’s office I came to a different understanding of my unknown future! I excitably shared this with Mrs. Bennett, how enjoyable and fulfilling those few minutes with the Grade R’s was. The next thing I knew, Mrs. Bennett and Melanie arranged an opportunity for me to spend a good hour once a week in her class. You must be thinking how can spending those few minutes make such an impact? Well it isn’t just that one experience; I’ve had other brief moments of interaction with the students. And I’ve also had someone else here whispering into my ear I should go into teaching. So now I’ve been analyzing my purpose here in SA, and my future back home. I am a little unsure about being a teacher, but possibly an Educational Assistant (EA)?!?! Maybe God brought me here to show me that business isn’t my future plan, but maybe working with and helping children learn is!
So where do I go from here? What is my next step? My sister Kristine, kindly had her college mail me a Niagara College program course book and I’ve read through the Educational Assistant program and I ask myself, can I do this? Am I capable of achieving this career? This is where I get stuck!! So, I will end here for today with these pondering questions that only God knows the answer to. And so I ask all of you to pray for me as I decide this career option.
Signing off and Mach Gut ….
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