VMS Training Course Pics

Here are some pictures from my first three weeks in the VMS (vernacular media services) training course:

Learning about planning by dropping rocks into a bucket of water - the splash is what we do, the ripples are what results from that

Working on a poster showing the goals of VMS

In costume, getting ready to sing the now-famous RBM song
(the picture when we were actually singing was blurry)

Eating lunch outside the VMS building

Last week was a VMS prayer retreat at a local park

At the retreat, lunch by the lake

Done! And Song

Just a few minutes ago, I took the last of my malaria eradication pills! Yay! Time will tell if it was successful or not... hopefully I won't get malaria again.

In my last post, I mentioned doing a little recording for a song. Last week, I was involved in a group project that culminated in a creative presentation. For this presentation, my group wrote and performed a song about our project - a results based management (RBM) plan.

One of the students recorded the song as a thank you to our instructors, and you can hear it by following this link: RBM Song

(For a little background so that the lyrics make more sense, the results based management plan we wrote was to use a Bible storying approach to improve relationships in a community in Guatemala.)

Busy Week

This has been a busy week! My course is going well - we spent most of the week doing a group project - and I've had lots of fun times in the evenings. I was out every night but Tuesday this past week!

On Monday night, I went to a young adults' Bible study and got to meet some other people about my age from the area. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights, I was invited out for dinner at different peoples' homes and got to enjoy delicious food and good conversation. On Saturday night, one of the girls from the Bible study hosted an ice cream and games night at her house, which was great!

(Another highlight of this week was giving my testimony for the course students and instructors on Thursday. It was encouraging to reflect on how God has led me and protected me up to now, and to hear others' comments of how that encouraged them.)

Tonight I stopped by the house of one of my VMS classmates so he could record me singing (look for more about this on the blog later...) and his hospitable Vietnamese wife invited me to stay for a traditional Vietnamese meal. I enjoyed the spontaneous meal, good conversation and their adorable toddler son.

So I guess to sum up this week, I'm busy and enjoying life! I don't have pictures from any of these things yet, but I'll post some if I get them from friends.

Goodbye Malaria!

Even though I'm home from PNG, there are still a few things from PNG I'm dealing with. One of those is the malaria living in my liver.

At some point during my first few months in PNG, I got bitten by a mosquito carrying the malaria parasite and was infected. I didn't know that had happened, but as long as I was taking my daily preventative medicine, I wasn't sick with malaria.

Twice I stopped taking my preventative (once because I didn't know I was infected and once because I was sick to my stomach and couldn't keep the pills down) and both times I became sick with malaria. So, every day since then I've taken my malaria preventative medicine.

Well, now that I'm back in the US, I've still been taking my daily preventative pills, but there is something I can do so that I don't have to do that every day for the rest of my life: malaria eradication treatment.

Tonight's malaria eradication cocktail

This is good news for me in the long run, but there's a not-as-happy short term side - actually taking the pills. There are a few days of high doses of medicine (I took 9 pills tonight!) and then another 10 days of medium doses. The medicine is making me feel kind of queasy, but it will be worth it for a malaria-free future!

First Day of School

Today was my first day of school - with "school" being the vernacular media training course at JAARS. We spent part of the day getting to know each other (10 students and at least 5 instructors) and then jumped right in to the subject matter.

The 901-page (!) course manual is a bit intimidating, so I was glad that we started on a topic that I am pretty comfortable with - sociolinguistics. In my last two years, much of my time was spent doing sociolinguistic research, which is looking at how society affects the ways people use language.

Understanding general concepts like this are the foundation of effective vernacular media work. In coming weeks, we'll study the technical side of doing recordings and dubbing videos too.

(New) Home Sweet Home

Today is the 11th day since I've been back in the US, but it feels like I've been back much longer! I've done a lot in that 11 days, including a road trip the last two days.

I drove from northeastern Pennsylvania to southern North Carolina with stops in Lancaster and Philadelphia. Lancaster and Philly aren't on the way, but the driving was worth it to visit two of my college roommates and another friend from college. :-)

On Friday, I arrived at the JAARS Center near Waxhaw, NC and moved into my apartment, about a mile from the center. Here's a map of the area:


View Larger Map
The next picture shows my apartment - I'm in the one on the far right. (That's my car too - thanks Grandma!) The apartment is small, but comfortable and in a nice quiet location, a bit away from the road and with lots of trees around.

My course starts on Tuesday, so I will continue exploring the area and resting until then. I'm looking forward to visiting a local church tomorrow and maybe going on a hike or birding on Labor Day.