Along the Journey: Looking ahead

For several months now, we have been planning to move out to a smaller city to continue our studies and do research for our company. So this past weekend I took a trip to a city in the Southeast corner of our province to have a look with two co-workers, mainly to check out apartment availability, education, healthcare, religious situation, situation in the outlying villages, etc.

We entered the city with only two initial contacts. My soccer friend helped us find a good hotel over the phone. Later in the weekend, we visited my tutor’s mother’s cousin who lives there. From a culture perspective where relational connections are your lifeline, our startup situation looked pretty grim! But by the close of the weekend, we had made several other local acquaintances.

Here are a few snippets of our interesting weekend:

Eating grilled fish at 2 AM with some locals

Having the wife of a night club owner ask, “Isn’t it normal for a husband to have a girlfriend other than his wife?”

Visiting a local service composed of nine ladies

Sitting in a beauty parlor discussing the local religious situation

Stumbling upon a minority village with only 92 families

Living in a city with a large expatriate community, it has been difficult this last year and a half to discipline ourselves to depend on the local community for help. We are excited about the opportunity to depend even more on the local community when we move, and are specifically trusting Dad for local family members who can not only help us adjust, but also become our companions. We are excited about the opportunities I had this weekend to begin friendships with such people, already willing to help us settle in when we arrive in August. Firmly convinced of the importance of being a learner first, we are thankful for these fledgling relationships that will play an integral part in preparing us to teach in the future.