You know it's funny how God can make you fall in love with the same things you started off hating. I'm not gonna lie, my first few weeks in Jordan were probably the most miserable weeks of my life. I had not prepared myself at all for the task at hand. I thought I had, but I hadn't. I mean I had been to Haiti and Honduras before this and loved it, so why would I not like this? All those reasons why I wouldn't like it started hitting me as my plane trip to Jordan began. Was I ready to spend 2 months in a country I didn't even feel called to? I knew I was suppose to be there for that time but I didn't feel much more than that. Was I ready to hardly have any communication with the outside world? Was I ready to pour my heart 100% into these Muslims? Was I ready for the spiritual warfare that would be going on? Was I ready to teach and be sick at the same time? Was I ready to learn how to live in a small house with 12 girls and a small family? Was I ready to die to my rights so that others could be happy? The truth is, I wasn't. But you know what else is true, God was. God knew what I was doing, and He knew what He was doing.
One of the fist things we did in Jordan was write a small journal entry of our first impression. My first impression went something like this:
"So this place is really dirty. To be honest, there isn't much good that I see. It all is so bland and I feel like time has slown down. All I want is for time to speed up. I kind of feel paranoid about a lot of things, like my interaction with the guys. I just really miss home already and 2 months is going to take a really long time. BUT I also know God will change that. The good thing is the people here are beautiful. Other than that though, God is going to have to change how I feel. It all just feels so gross right now. And EVERYTHING here is just hard. But I also know that every hard thing can get easier. So God I'm trusting you to change my heart about this place."
I really was really starting to think though that God maybe wouldn't change how I felt about these things. But He came around. My heart slowly but surly started changing. And here is how that story began. It started with orientation. In orientation, we learned what exactly our time in Jordan would look like. It sounded scary but it was a challenge, a challenge I was excited about. An average week in Jordan was going to consist of teaching on Monday and Wednesday and working behind the coffee bar on Sunday and Tuesday. On the weekends we would spend time with students and help prepare for class the next week. On Thursday we also had Treasure Hunts (walking around different places just listening to God and acting on what He tells you to do). Who knew that all these things would be some of the things that changed my life forever! I surely didn't.
Each day was a new challenge, that is for sure. The biggest challenge was teaching. When I heard I was teaching English I thought it would be like singing some little songs or reading some stories then asking questions. NOPE! That's not what it was at all. I was teaching English just like my Spanish teacher taught me Spanish, except I was teaching 2 classes for 2 hours each (so 4 hours straight all together). My first class had 15 students and my second class had 13 students. As a teacher I had to have lesson plans prepared and had to figure out how to cover units 6 - 12 with time left to review for the final test that would determine if they could go onto level 7. I was teaching them things like the verb to be and all sorts of other things that I didn't even know existed in the English world. They had a Student Book and a Work Book that we worked from every day. I would give them home work at the end of the day and sometimes they would even give presentations in class. The crazy thing was that I was teaching engineersres, other teachers, mechanics, doctors, and parents with kids my age.
Who knew teaching would be such a joy though. My class became my family and close friends. They always showed so much respect for me and could not wait to show me what they had learned. They were always inviting me over to their house. Some of them would bring me coffee every class. The girls always wanted to ask me about life in America. I got to reach into so many girls life because of teaching. I loved getting to even talk about my promise ring and how I had promised God to stay pure. Countless times I got to share the Gospel to students in my class and during class I got to teach Biblical lessons over and over again. The awesome thing was the more I shared about what I believed, the more they respected me. Through teaching I got to tear down stereo types they had created about Americans and Christians, and at the same time they tore down stereo types I had about Muslims. It was such a beautiful thing.
Working behind the coffee bar was my favorite. I loved getting to just randomly buy students coffee and them buy me coffee. They would always ask you how you were and make friendly conversation. Sometimes we would sing back there or make beats with all the random supplies we had. Other times my friend would start dancing back there. Either way, every day in the coffee bar was just full of fun and excitement. I also had some good talks back there with the people I worked with when no one was there to buy coffee.
Treasure Hunts were awesome because God showed me a lot about my life. I enjoyed praying for Jordan and starting to get God's Heart for those people. Also other people got to pour into my life a lot during those moments. Not only during treasure hunts though but just in general. I grew so much because of team meetings and people just encouraging me. God also used many people to just show me His character. As you are pouring yourself into other peoples lives, God really uses other people to pour Himself back into you. I really enjoyed experiencing that.
So over all my time as all of this happened, I slowly began falling in love with Jordan and the people. God did huge things in my life and as a result I didn't want to leave in the end. All of this hit me when we almost didn't get our visas to finish our time there. When that happened, it hit me that I was there for a reason and I had a mission to complete. From that day on Jordan became my mission and it was so wonderful. Though I am very happy to be back in America I will miss Jordan and I hope to come back one day.
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