One Week Later

So a week later, things are much much better. I still can't wait to be home but for the time being I'm pretty happy. Work has been pretty good, although I had couple more run ins with Frank, our lead Manager. He's a very interesting guy to say the least. Yesterday he wasn't very happy that I asked for next Sunday and Monday off, I needed them off for our ACMNP orientation. However, when he found out that I am with ACMNP he was a bit more favorable... just a bit. He's not a Christian by any means but he seems to appreciate, at least, our work. Other run in happened today, I guess there was a mixup/miscommunication with my work schedule and I wasn't supposed to work. Frank still had me work so I still got in 9 hours, not sure how it worked out but it was ok.
Ah, Sunday night I had a weird dream. It was one of those dreams where you're running away. In my case I was hiding/running away from groups of people. I vaguely remember one group and it was just a nice seeming family. Soon after I woke up and I wondered why I would be hiding from them. It might just be my overinterpretation but I've had dreams like these before and I believe they carry some meaning. In this case, it was showing how I have a hard time just being open to new people, they could be the nicest family and I'd avoid them just because its my personality. Well I didn't think that much of it until after a little event later that night. I had worked earlier on Monday and got off at 4:30. Showered and ran some errands, called home. By the time I'd gone through that it was 7pm. I was going to dinner and found out our employee dining room closes at 6:30. So I decided to try another spot, but they closed at 7. As I was walking out there was a family of 3 leaving as well and for some reason I struck up a conversation. The parents had an adorable little girl who was maybe 8. She asked me if I wanted to hear something really scary. She then proceeded to tell me about her 2 pet rats she has at home and how I shouldn't touch her if I'm scared of rats. All I could do was listen and laugh! That definitely made my night, that short 5 minute conversation with the family from Kansas City for some reason brought me so much joy.
God's been so faithful even in teaching me how to interact with people. Really, it isn't hard here since everyone is from somewhere different there is always something new to learn or a new story to hear.
I gotta say, I love working with international students. I don't know if living in Antioch had anything to do with it, but work is so much more interesting because of it. Lately, I've been working with a few gals from Thailand, I think I mentioned one of them earlier, Rainy. The other two I got to know a bit better today, Am and Toon, who have been best friends since High School. They all speak English fairly well, sometimes I have to concentrate to understand them but we get along great. Today I set myself to start learning some Thai. Am seemed to really enjoy that, and I think it opened up our relationships a lot more. Unfortunately, Am and Toon are leaving in a couple weeks.
Ahh what else. We've gotten snow the past couple days. It usually melts by the end of the day but its been really weird having snow coming down all day long.
Oh, big news, I got an email yesterday from one of the girls in our ACMNP group. She told us that her heart wasn't really in this ministry and that she was going home. Really unfortunate that she would give up on us, but it strengthened my resolve to stick things out here. I know things won't always be easy here, but I also know that God is stretching me and growing me to be more effective in serving Him. Our last 2 members showed up yesterday too, so next week is our ACMNP orientation and we'll begin our Sunday services. I'm still thinking I'm going to enjoy working more than doing those services but its all in God's hands.
Thats all for now I guess. More later!