Gateway is a missionary training center located in rural Langley, about an hour away from Vancouver, Canada. The program I'm in involves living in community with the staff while taking classes about different aspects of missionary life, then embarking on a 3 month internship.
Settling in to life at Gateway has been very easy, everyone here is friendly and helpful. When I first arrived I was the ‘new girl’ since all the other students have been here for a few months either learning English or taking extra bible classes. That was nice since it was my birthday only 4 days after I got here. I wasn’t going to tell anyone or make a big deal out of it, but somehow they all knew ( probably from all the paperwork I had to fill out). [Picture of the student team, left to right: Yongjin + Sunhee (S. Korea), Paul + Kim (England), me, Elda (Mexico), Jinhyeok + Sunjoo (S. Korea)]
Living in community means that everyone has chores and responsibilities, like cooking dinner, sweeping the laundry room, or collecting eggs from our chicken house (it really doesn’t smell that bad).Most of the staff has spent a decent part of their lives abroad on the mission field, which can lead to very interesting lunch conversations... “While I was living in the Gambia I ate…"; “The politics in Chad…"; “Riding on the bus in Columbia…"
The only real difficulty for me has been the adjustment to being a student, it’s been a few years since I had homework to do! I feel silly admitting that, since the workload really isn’t that intense and there are students who are not native English speakers and have children to take care of. Although all in all things are going very well! [Picture of some of the staff helping me celebrate my birthday!]
Praises:
- I’ve been getting along really well with Elda, who’s the only other young single woman here. Yay new friendships! Also she’s from Mexico so sometimes hablamos en Espaniol!
- The power adapter I ordered finally arrived after two weeks! (this might seems silly, but without being able to use my computer, I had no way of listening to music, which apparently I’m dependent on)
Prayer Requests:
- That I would manage my time well (I’m doing an o.k. job).
- The student team would continue to get along well and would form good friendships.
