In Bouake and adjusting

Hey! Well today is Saturday and I've the day off. We have a busy schedule, which is great, but can also be a bit too tiring. I got a cell phone yesterday by the way! I'm not giving that out to anyone but a few people, since it's expensive to use. It is nice to be able to text and call now though.

Traveling here was a blast, though it wasn't without its stressors of course. In Brussel's I got to hang out with my friend María and her friend Claudia from Spain. It was so good to see Maria again, and to meet Claudia! They showed me around the town a bit and then I left for Africa. I got to see the Alps, the Mediterranean, and the Sahara from the plane window...so cool!

We arrived last Friday night and spent the night in Abidjan. After an amazing breakfast with freshly laid eggs Saturday mornings, we took the 5 hour drive to Bouaké in the center of Cote d'Ivoire. It has been amazing here! I've had only one chance so far to actually walk around in the city itself, which was fun. Most of our time so far has been spent on campus at ICA. We are taking French classes, learning about culture from Rod and Angelika, and having discussions about how we want to shape Journey Corps. These next several weeks are for preparing us to enter into villages around the country to live with families and be involved in service.

The ICA (International Christian Academy) campus is beautiful. It looks like Dharma Initative from LOST; lots of older buildings in the middle of a tropical climate. The heat and humidity is pretty intense here....the bugs, arachnids, birds, and lizards are even more so! Especially the 40 mosquitoes that decided to eat my feet alive the first night! I'm still feeling my mistake of spending an hour with Chazz opening a cocunut with a leatherman at 5 in the evening. It didn't even taste good because it had already fermented. Epic letdown! It has been great walking around exploring the campus though.

God has been doing a lot of new things in me, and showing me a lot of things about myself I didn't know, and probably would have never learned in the states. I'm really excited for what we are developing here; being a port of Journey Corps' pilot program is challenging, but really rewarding too. The training we are receiving is so amazing, and the seminars are going to be an opportunity that almost no missionaries ever have. Journey Corps is shaping up to be a pretty amazing opportunity for young people to get great hands on mission training and life experience in the field. The whole idea is that I will be comfortable by myself living in West Africa after this year as a missionary. I'm not necessarily saying that will happen, but it's an exciting goal nonetheless.

A typical day for me so far looks a bit like this: wake up at 6:30am, eat some oatmeal and tea for breakfast, then head to bible study. We study a chapter (in John right now), and then we have a short break before French class. We spend an hour and a half with our amazing French teacher Beckie, and then we have free time until lunch. In my free time I do anything from playing my guitar to reading, or maybe doing more french....I also like to spend time with the Ivoirians living on campus. It's disrespectful to pass someone and not at least say hi and ask how they are doing. In America we are so private, but here it's expected that people will how up throughout the day just to spend time with you unannounced. I LOVE that. Anyways I digress....we spend a while cleaning up the campus, we have another meeting, then dinner, then free times till bed. The meals are amazing! My stomach needs to adjust though....

Anwyays, I'll post more soon when I get the chance. My internet time is almost up here in this cafe. I miss you all and am praying for you! Please pray for me over here to fit in as much as possible!


- Jason