5-Year-Plan Update

As a senior in high school, I developed a 5-year-plan for the years immediately following my high school graduation. I am almost exactly halfway through those five years now and thought it would be a good time for an update! :-) The items that are struck out are items that I’ve completed (although in many of those areas, I can certainly learn more and will strive to do so!) Next to other items, I’ve made note of where my progress is right now!

Prepare to be a good wife and helpmeet by:

·         Learning how to run a household budget and do banking (*I handle a lot of my own finances, but I would like to learn more about what an actual household budget looks like*)

·         Read through all the “Tightwad Gazette” issues and book

·         Learning how to clean an entire house regularly without using lots of cleaning products (read “Household Cleaning”)

·         Learning how to cook healthy, balanced meals on a reasonable budget (read “Cut Your Grocery Budget in Half”)

·         Learning how to manage my time well

·         Learning how to garden organically

·         Learning how to raise livestock (*we are currently in the process of acquiring chickens and rabbits!*)

·         Learning how to purchase good quality clothing on a budget

·         Taking care of young children via babysitting/nannying/foster care?/church (*I have babysat, been a nanny, and worked with children at church. Currently, I am working to get involved in a local foster care and adoption agency/ministry!*)

·         Helping homeschool/tutor my younger siblings

·         Submitting to my father’s authority

·         Learning basic sewing skills

·         Learning “special” household chores (mowing grass, weed whacking, changing/rotating tires, minor household fix-it jobs, etc.) (*I probably know a lot more about car maintenance, lawn care, and fixing household things than your average college-age girl. But there’s still a lot of things I would like to know before I don’t live in my Daddy’s household anymore!*)

·         Planning our family’s annual Cobbler Party

·         Taking a week to learn how to cook Abuela’s Puerto Rican food

Grow in my relationship with God by:

·         Personal devotions and Bible study

·         Reading books on theology

·         Reading R.C. Sproul’s works (*I am nearly finished reading the books we have by him.*)

·         Memorizing scripture (including at least 1 full book)

·         Mentoring/discipling a young lady one-on-one

·         Being mentored

·         Participating in occasional group Bible studies

·         Increasing my prayer life

·         Attending appropriate conferences related to spiritual growth

·         Starting a Bright Lights group?

Prepare for a lifetime of ministry/missions (regardless of location) by:

·         Earning a B.A. in International Studies from College Plus (read “Accelerated Distance Learning”) (*Lord willing, I will graduate in spring 2017!)

·         Attending the World Mandate Conference

·         Attending the Austin Stone Conference

·         Learning how to play violin and guitar

·         Writing to Valencia and financially support her

·         Volunteering at pregnancy center or homeless shelter

·         Volunteering at VOM (*Our church is talking about doing this later in the year!*)

·         Spending a month on the mission field (preferably in Haiti)

·         Helping coordinate missions trips for A Child’s Hope (potentially a team from our church)

·         Reading books we have on missions work

·         As I’m able, financially supporting missions work

·         Youth ministry/missions internship at church (learn about relationship building, how a church works and is involved in missions, and the nitty gritty of planning and administration)

·         Learning how to be flexible and live with less

·         Taking the Perspectives course

·         Taking some type of medical training course (*After I graduate from college, if finances allow, I would LOVE to get my EMT-B license.*)

·         Getting a private pilot’s license

Miscellaneous:

·         Taking a concealed weapons class (*I’m almost old enough!*)

·         Taking a photography class

·         Doing a photography internship

·         Going skydiving (*This is on my bucket list for 2016!*)

·         Reading 52 books in one year

·         Organizing family photos into albums

·         Starting a blog on post-high school life (*You’re reading it right now. ;-)*)

·         Writing a book (*I have started the process on this, but definitely will not work on it very much until I graduate from college.*)

·         Weighing 125 (*As I focus on fitness and eating healthy, I’ve become less concerned with this number and more concerned with how I feel and how my clothes fit.* :-))

As you can probably tell, I most likely won’t get to doing everything before 5 years are up. But the goal was to keep busy and keep learning, and that is definitely being accomplished! :-)

Dealing with Conflict

Since I last posted in November, I have been pretty busy with school, work, traveling to visit family for Christmas, and spending some time with Jessie during his break from school. :-) We celebrated 18 months together earlier in January. It's crazy how time passes by so quickly!

Lately I've been thinking about the subject of conflict in relationships. Any close relationship is bound to have conflict at some time or another. While Jessie and I get along very well the majority of the time, we still have times when we argue and get upset with each other. It's a dream of mine to write a book someday on the subject of healthy romantic relationships. I look around me and see so many couples who are hurting, broken, and confused about what a "real" relationship looks like. Jessie and I are learning so much, and we are so grateful for our parents and other mentors who share their wisdom with us, but more importantly, lead us by their examples.

There are a few things we've learned in the past few months about dealing with conflicts that can be applied to really any relationship (not just romantic ones.) I thought it'd be good for me to write those things out, and share them here as well. :-)

1.) Pray. This is hard to do in the heat of the moment. It can be easy to want to wallow in anger. Praying for God to soften your hearts as you deal with conflict is really important. It's even better if you can do this together. It's hard to remain angry at someone you pray for.

2.) Don't fight via social media. It is so easy to text your way into a heated argument. Tone can be misunderstood very easily. It is far better to talk face-to-face with someone you are in a conflict in. Seeing emotional responses does a lot towards softening hearts rather than when you are protected by the anonymity of a screen. Jessie and I have discovered that even a phone call is not the best option for us when we're dealing with a conflict long-distance. A video call is the closest thing we have to face-to-face discussion, and it's hard to stay angry for long when you see the hurt on someone else's face.

3.) Communicate clearly. One of the traps I fall into constantly is expecting that certain things should just be assumed or understood. While that is true in some cases, I have to remember that Jessie (or anyone else) is not a mind reader. If I don't clearly express my expectations or desires, it shouldn't surprise me if they're not met. 

4.) Remember that you're fighting for resolution, not to win an argument. This is a big one. The goal of conflict resolution should be to understand where the other person is coming from, understand the root cause, explain what hurt you and why, and then resolve the issue. If we are set on being right all the time, we will lose many valuable relationships.

5.) Be humble and quick to forgive. In most instances, blame for a conflict lies on both people. Learn to accept your share of the blame, apologize for hurting the other person, forgive them for their part, and then agree to move on and discuss it no longer. The simple mantra of "forgive and forget" is easy to say, but definitely takes effort to do.

So there you have it! These are some of the lessons I've been learning lately. :-) Hopefully I'll be back soon to post more about what's going on in my life lately!

Guatemala Reflection: Critical Thinking

One big lesson I learned in Guatemala was that the way a culture does certain things isn’t necessarily wrong; it’s probably just different. Learning to look at a situation with a critical mind is important. Sometimes, the way one culture approaches a situation is different, but may work better based on the values of its people.

For example, Hispanic cultures have a very different view of child-rearing than the American culture. Children in Hispanic cultures typically spend less time in school per day than American children. Bedtimes for children are basically non-existent in Hispanic cultures as well. If there’s a late church service, they’ll go to bed late. If they’ve had a long day, they go to bed early. They also tend to nap wherever and whenever. Like their parents, their lives are far less time-structured than Americans. Neither approach to child-rearing is right or wrong. They’re just different.

Naptime at VBS.

Thankfully, despite the many differences, there are some things that remain the same across cultures. People still have the same basic needs. The rules in Scripture apply across cultures. Life is valued across cultures.

So I think two of the biggest keys to doing cross-cultural ministry are *listening* and *observing.* Developing a ministry plan should be done alongside Christian natives in the culture in order to be the most effective. An open mind is an important trait to have on the mission field. :-)

And those are some of the lessons I learned during my internship in Guatemala! I hope that I will continue to apply them in the future. :-)

Guatemala Reflection: Perspective Transformation

Stereotypes are much harder to hold onto when you have a chance to live with a group of people for an extended period of time. I came to a clearer understanding of many things about Hispanic cultures during my time in Guatemala City. I was struck by many of the similarities where I thought there were differences.

For example, I had the opportunity to visit many different types of homes in Guatemala. One day, a family from the church opened their home up to the mission team for lunch. I was stunned at how spacious it was! They had a hammock in their dining room, a pond/pool in their foyer, an outdoor pool for swimming, and a yard filled with different varieties of fruit trees, sugar cane, and coffee plants.

A view of the backyard.

A couple of weeks later, we visited another neighborhood nestled under a bridge in Zone 17. If I had one word to describe this neighborhood, it would be “squalor.” This community works 6 days a week cleaning cow parts (particularly intestines) to re-sell. The one day a week they don’t work, they all get high on drugs. There were mangy chickens, turkeys, and dogs roaming around. The street was littered with cow parts. The level of poverty was shocking and sobering.

El Pinito.

Photo Credit: Jessie Bullard.

In America, the situation isn’t too different. Similar homes and neighborhoods can be found here as well. Our climate, government, and language are different from those in Guatemala. But if you remove those barriers, there are not many differences left.

My values were challenged in many ways by living in a Hispanic culture. I was inspired by their focus on people. They are a task-oriented culture versus a time-oriented one. It may take them longer to accomplish something than they intended, but finishing the task well is more important than doing it quickly. That can be a difficult culture to work in at times, but when it comes to focusing on people, I can learn a lot. I want to take time to invest in *people* over projects.

A team member stopping to talk with some Guatemalan women in the street while VBS went on.

To be continued . . . 

Guatemala Reflection: Understanding and Applying Knowledge

The primary mission of Fellowship Guatemala is to form missional communities in Guatemala City. They have a residency program for Guatemalan pastors. They are working to plant churches and form discipleship programs in different zones of the city.

What I learned the most was about doing ministry with a long-term vision in mind. I knew that ministry/missions work needed to have this mindset, but I didn’t really know how one accomplished that practically (especially how a long-term ministry would host short-term mission teams.)

One mission team that came down held a discipleship conference for pastors from all over Central America. By coming and doing all the teaching, they were being a big help to the missionaries! And by helping host this conference, they were also helping carry out the long-term vision of Fellowship Guatemala (discipling pastors to start missional communities.)

A break in between sessions during the discipleship conference.

I also learned a lot about working across cultures, specifically in Hispanic countries. Their culture is very open to discussion. That makes doing door-to-door evangelism an effective method of ministry. But a big difference in a Hispanic culture versus American culture is their sense of time. If you say an event starts at 2 o’clock, most people won’t arrive until closer to 3 o’clock. Each country has a complex set of cultural norms, customs, etc. Understanding the culture is key to determining the best ministry approach.

Going door-to-door in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Zone 25 in Guatemala City.

I discovered on this trip that I work very well in a Hispanic culture. My personality blends in very well with a people-oriented culture.

                        

To be continued . . .

Guatemala Reflection: Interpersonal Development

Going into Guatemala for my internship, I didn’t have a lot of stereotypical expectations, since I had been to the country before. I am also half Hispanic, and am pretty familiar with the culture, food, traditions, etc. That was definitely helpful in doing ministry!

Delicious tacos in Guatemala!

I understand a decent amount of Spanish, but have trouble speaking it. That’s one reason I love working with children: I can have simple conversations with them. J I tried to learn more Spanish while I was down there . . . but full immersion for a matter of months will be necessary for me to get anywhere close to fluency!

My appreciation for the Hispanic culture only grew on this trip! I love how relaxed they are relative to the American culture. People are not worried about getting sued for every little thing they do. Children have more freedom at a younger age to do things that would be considered “unsafe” for American children (play in the streets, stay out after dark, etc.) It’s almost like stepping back a generation or two.

Learning the #1 Guatemalan game: soccer! Aka futbol. ;-)

Their approach to time is far more relaxed than the American culture as well. If you tell someone an event starts at 2:30 p.m., most of them will arrive sometime between 3 and 3:30 p.m. It’s hard if you’re trying to actually start at that time. But if you’re expecting it, it’s not a big deal. :-) That was part of developing tolerance and respect for another culture and the way they do things! I learned a lot about “going with the flow” and doing whatever was asked of me, whenever it was asked of me. Even if that meant unloading groceries at 11 p.m. ;-)

To be continued . . .

Reflecting Back on a Semester

My very first semester of post-high school life has officially come and gone. There were parts of it that I expected, and parts that took me by surprise.

 

I want to take a moment to reflect on what was accomplished, and on some things that I have to continue to work on.

 

First of all, as most of you know, it was a “gap” semester for me. While technically enrolled in my college program, I delayed my start until January. After a very hectic Senior year of high school, I was ready for a break and some breathing room!

 

But just because I had an academic break does NOT mean I wasn’t learning a lot! My time was occupied primarily with two things: nannying, and my internship at church. I also helped tutor my 3 high-school-aged siblings in math, taught a cooking and art class to my youngest brother, planned our family’s 1^st Annual Cobbler party, read “Accelerated Distance Learning,” started a blog on my post-high school life, began learning grocery shopping and budgeting, and finished memorizing 52 Bible verses that were part of a kit on “Excuses.”

 

I also started reading a book by R.C. Sproul. I want to finish reading it, as well as 2 other books by him. I had “Attend World Mandate Conference” on my list, but that didn’t happen this fall. Possibly next year!

 

I am really grateful for all the learning opportunities God gave me this semester. I learned a lot about balancing my time when I have a lot of commitments on my plate. I learned about working for others, as well as serving my family. I am slowly learning the life skills that will be required of me in the role of wife and mom someday. All in all, I’d say it was a pretty valuable semester! I can’t wait for this upcoming semester and all that it will bring (more on that next week!)