A new beginning

Well hello!

I'm sitting here in the kitchen of my unit that I share with Eun Kyong, there's chutney boiling away on the stove, and just 2 sleeps until classes start. I have been well orientated this week, ready for life and study on campus.

Thanks so much for stopping by to catch up on what I’m up to.

Since I last posted, I've spent the majority of my time back home, working as a coordinator in community care. Until last Saturday when (mum and) I had packed my car with my necessary possessions... and a few luxuries... and headed east! I am spending the next two years completing missionary training in a residential, cross-cultural learning community on a semi-rural property.

Mum left Monday afternoon after helping drive over, unpack, set up, sightsee and sneak in a few early birthday celebrations for me... I turned another year older on Thursday!

Orientation Week officially started at 4 PM on Monday and for those of you interested in the finer details, consisted of the following sessions:

• getting to know you,
• introduction to duties,
• community gathering,
• creating community,
• food safe training and kitchen orientation,
• farm orientation,
• prayer,
• fire safety,
• workplace scramble,
• connections (IT),
• intro to courses,
• commencement service planning,
• library orientation,
• missionary speakers, and finally
• city tour.

My birthday on Thursday was different to most I've had. Eun Kyong got up early to prepare for me a traditional Korean birthday meal, which for breakfast consisted of seaweed soup, rice and kimchi.

Korean breakfast of seaweed soup and kimchi.

Morning tea celebrations with everyone on campus included a birthday fruit platter.

College morning tea birthday 'cake'.

Finally, in the evening, a bunch of girls came together for coffee and cake to celebrate. It really amazed me how after only 4 days I had such a lovely group of new friends to share it with.

Girl time with coffee and dessert.

As wonderful as the people, place and program is, it's been a very busy week, and to be honest, I'm really glad it's over. I find it incredibly overwhelming meeting 80 new people, being with them all the time, taking in a ridiculous amount of new information, and following a program that for me started with vegetable prep duties at 7.45 AM, continued through the day with the above listed sessions, and finished with dinner wash up at 7 PM.

I did very much enjoy my first Saturday morning here by going off campus. Breakfast with a friend of a friend followed by hours wandering the harvest market and main shopping mall, and generally trying not to get too lost!

Wanderlust Caravan.

When I returned this afternoon, I whiled a few hours away by decorating my room, cooling off with Eun Kyong in the river that borders the property and making a delicious tomato chutney/relish with some of the abundance of tomatoes the farm is producing at the moment.

Tomato chutney/relish in progress.

Tomorrow brings my first local church visit. I am going with Eun Kyong to hers and then she has made plans for us and her church friends to go on a trip to the beach. Very much making the most of the hot weather being thrown at us this week.

I look forward to Monday, to starting my course and the routine it will bring.

Thanks for your interest in my life, and your support as I walk this path. It means so much to me.

Tahnee x