The Journey Will Soon Begin

Since the word is out I decided it was about time (after more than a year) to finally update my blog. Especially since I've told many of you that I'd do that during my time abroad for the next 2 years. It's true, in just over 3 weeks I will have 2-50 lb bags packed to board an airplane to spend the next 2 years in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, East Africa. When the opportunity 1st presented itself for me to go, I thought, there's no possible way. I talked with my Mom about it, since she's known for a long time this is something I've dreamed of! She encouraged me to apply and simply see what happens. So, I did. After much prayer and thought, I applied & then....heard nothing. For those of you who don't know, one of my good friends also applied for a job at the same Academy. She applied & immediately had a returned e-mail. I began to think, this just isn't what God intended for me. Days passed by & then I finally got an e-mail from the Elementary Director, that said ... Shannon!!! We've been trying to reach you for days, your e-mail is account is blocking all of our e-mails. So, after thinking this simply wasn't God's plan for me, I had to then begin rethinking the whole situation. I turned off all of the security settings on my e-mail, only to soon realize that still, for some reason, all e-mails from the directors at DIA were being blocked. I finally solved this problem by opening a gmail account. Within hours I had scheduled my 1st interview. Following my 1st interview I thought things sounded good. I couldn't wait to begin this new journey in life. Then....I began to allow the world sink into my brain & to believe this was still completely impossible. I drove down the street in front of my condo that day & it seemed every house on the street was for sale or rent. I nearly started crying in my car, as I thought of all the things that were standing between me & pursuing a dream. Then, a sweet song came on the Christian radio station I listen to. A song that encouraged faith and perseverance, a song that reminded me, I have no control. I decided to pursue the opportunity & let God take care of the details, & that He did. About a week after my 1st interview, another interview/meeting with the director, & a contract, I accepted a position to be the newest 2nd grade teacher at Dar es Salaam International Academy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I didn't know how God was going to work out all the details, but I knew He would. Soon after my house went up for rent/sale, I had renters within a week. I sold all of my furniture & put the rest of my belongings in storage. I resigned from Southern Elementary & packed my classroom into a storage unit. As the crazy frenzy to get everything done ensued I had a complete sense of peace that God was in total control & had a perfect plan. Months ago, before really beginning my search for a job abroad I knew God was calling me to downsize. To realize that it's not "things" that make life worth living & to put those things aside & focus on what is really important in life. I did just that, as I watched each piece of furniture leave my home I felt yet another sense of relief, knowing that to the world my life & ideas were completely crazy but for me, God was just removing the obstacles that I had allowed to come between me and Him. I've known since my 1st trip to Africa in 2005 I wanted to go back, yet I kept allowing the world to get in the way. But now, God has the reigns for an amazing journey that lies ahead. Thank you for all the sweet well wishes & prayers for the journey ahead. I'm excited to see what God has planned & am happy to soon be serving Him in Tanzania.

Take my life and let it be

All for You & for Your glory . . .

Keepin' On

Wow! I obviously forget about this quite often. I never seem to update. Since my last update I have endured also a whole year as a full time 5th grade teacher. I went to Haiti for Christmas, returning 8 days before the earthquake. Wow! How God did a lot of work on my heart during that time and after returning when many of my friends were devastated by a national disaster.
In late February, my Mom and I flew to Charleston, South Carolina for my old roommates wedding. It was a fantastic weekend and so great to see all of my friends from there. I truly miss the wonderful people I met there.
Then in early March I went to Washington D.C. with 100 of our 5th grade students. We had a fantastic trip and all of our 5th graders learned a lot. Returning completely exhausted early Thursday morning, I then hosted a Civil War Living History Day for our 5th grade student's at ACE. Why not add a little more to the week, right? The student's really enjoyed the day and I truly appreciated all of the re-enactors that came to support our day. God was so faithful that day, as it was overcast all day but not a drop hit the ground until the last truck was pulling off the field that day.
Now, I'm sitting in Denver Colorado for Spring Break, visiting yet another old roommate. A roommate who is now married with a cute little 5 month old. It has been a great week and after them having 18 inces of snow last week the weather has been incredible! So thankful for no more snow.
Ohh and I am leaving again in 2 weeks to go back to South Carolina for another friend's wedding.
I have been in fervent prayer, as to what God wants me to pursue this summer. After an absolutely exhilerating summer in 2009, it is hard to think of just sitting and not traveling this summer. However, there are no plans, other than a quick trip back to Haiti on late July. So, I am praying for God's guidance on accepting some responsibilities at an Appalachian Ministry organization, we'll see where He leads.
Blessings!

Life is Spinning

Wow! I can't believe it has been over 2 months since I last posted, yet it seems like yesterday when I was sitting in Sonja and Peter's apartment leaving to go out for my birthday! Life is pretty much spinning. After returning from Denmark I left 4 days later for Austrlia. Upon arrival at the airport to leave for Australia my friend that I was going with and I realized we did not have visa's to get in to a country that required visa's. By the amazing grace of God and some changes in Delta flights, a wonderful Delta agent got our visas for us online and we made our flight. Australia was amazing but New Zealand was even better! I hate to say that since I had amazing time visiting my cousin Down Under but New Zealand it truly one of the most gorgeous places I have ever been! I recommend everyone go there! :) Both places were amazing and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to go. I wish I had the opportunity to spend time in the classroom while I was there but unfortunately that just did not work in to our schedule.

Upon arriving in the U.S. I had a voicemail from my old principal offering me a job back at the school I was working at! Hooray! Exactly where I wanted to be and prayed all summer God would provide and sure enough He did just that! I'm now teaching 5th grade at Athens-Chilesburg and I love it! I was a little nervous about having the "big kids" but really love them and the changes that I get to be a part of in their lives.

Since then it has been non-stop. Organizing my first official classroom, spending Labor Day weekend in Texas with a friend, completing some work for a grad school class from this summer and helping a friend through a family crisis, let's just say God has provided lots of energy!

I want to share with you a painful yet God-filled story that has occured in my life in the past week. Well, actually the past 18 years. I have had an amazing friend since elementary school who we have stayed in contact on and off for the past eighteen years through lots of life changes. In 4th grade she lost her father and for the past 7 years her Mom has endured a roller-coaster journey with cancer. The past 9 months have been exceptionally rough for her and then this past week she went into hospice. In the hospice care unit at St. Joe I had the amazing priviledge of visiting her numerous times. Her faith was simply amazing, I don't know how to describe it any other way. In the last few days and moments of her life she found the strength to praise God amid the most unbelivable physical pain. She spent priceless moments and memories with her children and expressing her love of the Lord to everyone she came in contact with. I'm amazed by her strength and faith. On September 11th she was called home, to spend her eternity with Jesus, and receive her mansion, which we believe for Momma K was definitely pink and purple! She will be missed, especially by her children but she instilled in both Angel and Seth a passion and faith in the Lord that is undeniable and that is what will see them through. Although, I do ask you to continue to pray for these two young people who are enduring pain that few can imagine.

Ohh and amid all this, I purchased my first house! Well, condo! So I'm also moving! :)

Blessings to you!

Birthday Madness

So, as I was sitting in Copenhagen on the 4th of July and my 24th birthday I realized it has been quite sometime since I have been in Kentucky on my birthday. Umm...yeah, like 5 years!! I was in Ghana, West Africa, Haiti, Haiti again, West Virginia and now Denmark! Crazy! And crazy it was here in Denmark.
On the 4th of July I went with Melissa McDonald (an American who teaches at Copenhagen International School) to another teacher's house (also an American) to celebrate. It was interesting that there were four American's (another guy visiting from New York was also there) and 1 Danish person, and yes, we were in Denmark!
The clock struck 12 during our time there and I was serenaded to a lovely Happy Birthday by everyone there. Then as if that wasn't enough, I was brought a plate with cookies on it and a decorative candle in the middle. Yay for random made up birthday cakes! They also provided me with one of my favorite drinks, Somersby Pear Cider, yum!
We then headed out for some time out on the top that evening, which was also all too interesting. Did I mention the gay bar?
The next day Melissa and I went to a Museum and walked through the Botanical Garden across the street from where I am staying. We then met up with Daniel (friend of Melissa's) and had some Mexican food for dinner! (At my request.) Melissa was also sweet enough to provide me with a phenomenal birthday cake from one of the best local bakeries. It was some kind of cream pie with chocolate covered crust and strawberries on top (and it's strawberry season in Denmark so they are fantastic!). It was super yum! I also got some organic tea from Melissa, and if you didn't know I absolutely love tea (especiall organic)!! On the way back to Sonja and Peter's (where I am staying) I did have a slight mishap. Daniel and I have just gotten off of the train and were walking down the street when I slid my hand across from right thigh. Ughhhh, bird poop!! That's right, walking down the street, carrying stuff in my hands, a bird pooped on my right thigh! It was quite lovely. The Danish however think this is a sign of good luck, we'll see!
Since then I have just been rummaging around Copenhagen. My stay here has been interesting, there was a water leak and we were without water at Sonja and Peter's for a day, then the electricity went out one evening, whoo hoo. We're campin' out now in Denmark. Just kidding, it's all back on! :) We're good.
Today I had the opportunity to go on another field trip with the Copenhagen International School students, they are tons of fun. We went to a museum that has a children's portion (although a not so appropriate children's portion), part of a jazz festival and then the botanical garden. However, the most fun part of the day was when we stopped at the ice cream shop on our way back to CIS. Let's just say some tiny cones with entirely too much ice cream on them for 9-11 year olds, made for one big melting mess!! We left a train of melted ice cream all the way from the ice cream shop back to school. The students had a great time with it though.
Tomorrow is my last day here in Copenhagen. I'm ready to go home because just one week from today I will be leaving with my best friend for Australia! Whoo hoo!

Copenhagen International School

So I guess I should really tell you about yesterday, but the insanity that ensued today is much more fun. But, as for yesterday anyway, Dr. Larison and I went to 2 places in Sweden, Lund and Malmo. Can I just say, I LOVE SWEDEN!! It is so amazing there. Dr. Larison and I did lots of tours of castles and churches, ohh and lots of walking but that's definitely the norm here, and I even got him to do some shopping! Of course we had to stop at his favorite bakery imbetween as well. It was tons of fun though, we had a great time.

Today I met Melissa at Copenhagen International School. She asked me if I'd like to join a field tirp she was taking 11 of her summer school students on. Of course, I obliged! I was super pumped about hanging out with these kids, they are from all over the world! First, all of the students made it to class and then we had to find all of the food we were taking along for the picnic. We made it with all 11 students to the train station and to the landing where our train was suppose to leave from! Melissa needed to buy clipper tickets so I had all of the students with me. The language difference was quite powerful and I kept having to say Stop in different ways to get the students not to get on the wrong train, thankfully, we all survived that. We were 1 minute from arrival and one student takes off running! Melissa and I yell WAITTTT!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?! He turns as he is running and says, THEY CHANGED IT!! We immediately knew then sent all of the students hurdeling through the train station. The train had switched platforms and was already at the station ready to leave. I'm not exactly sure how we rounded up 11 students who speak very little, if any, English ran them through the train station and made the train, but we did it!! When finally on the train I had the opportunity to talk with more students before busseling them out the door at the next stop. What a treat! We arrived at the beach, played with the parachute, splashed in the water, and ate cake, fruit salad and rolls that the students had prepared.

The fun part was returning. Unfortunately I did not convey the correct time to Melissa and we eneded up leaving the beach at the time we needed to be at the train station. I took off with a group of student who were ready and the rest followed along. Thankfully they knew their way around pretty well, or at least remembered how we got to the beach. When we arrived back at Hellerup station Melissa had to run with one student all the way back to school because she was suppose to be in a cheerleading presentation at the time we were stepping off of the bus. So, yet again, here I am with 10 students who don't speak English. Frantic handwaving, stop, no, and gestures work quite well if you ever happen to be in this situation. All of the students and myself made it successfully back to CIS! I was quite proud.

The best part though was along the way I got to talk with a few students. One especially, her name was Victoria. She was a very sweet girl and wanted to know all about my pets. However, it took a little disifering to really figure out what kind of pets each of us had, yet again, scattagories is great practice for this situation!

Just another day at the beach .....

Kobenhavn-Oslo-Kobenhavn-Stockholm-Kobenhavn

It has been a few days since I have last posted and WOW has a lot happened. We returned to Kobenhavn from Virborg last week. All of the girls were so excited for me to finally experience life in Kobenhavn since that is not where my trip began because I came late. When I arrived I was far more excited than most people would be upon seeing the place we were staying. Our home in Kobenhavn would be the basement of a school! This was going to be just like last summer in Bramwell, West Virginia. Unfortunately within a few short hours after our return from Oslo, Noway it turned out to be nothing like Bramwell. When we arrived I decided to download the pictures I had taken on to my jump drive because I was running out of space on one of my disks (because I never took pictures off from over 2 years ago!). I downloaded my pictures then when to find my camera. In my suitcase? Nope. Purse? Nope. Backpack? Nope. Ok, we had a long day of traveling and I am tired so I told another girl on the trip with us I was going to go take a shower and come back and look with a fresh perspective. I got in the shower and I was still contemplating all of the places I could have put it but couldn’t think of anywhere I hadn’t checked. Then as I kept thinking I realized when I checked my purse for my camera that my wallet was also not in my purse. I knew immediately what had happened, we had been robbed. I got out of the shower and went to another girl in my room and told her I think we have a problem. Well, as luck would have it we were officially robbed my first night in Kobenhavn. The thief found a few vulnerable Americans and made out with 2 wallets, 2 cameras, 1 iPhone, and iPod chargers. Not too shabby for raiding our room while everyone was having dinner. Although I was a little frustrated and it became a little hectic trying to figure out how to cancel credit cards from a foreign country, we were really lucky. As I sat at my computer trying to find numbers online to reach MasterCard I realized that another student in our group had just lost one of her best friends to brain cancer at the age of 20, what did I have to complain about? All I had to give up was a partially working camera and a wallet! That definitely put things in perspective for me.

Now, back to the great adventures of our trip! We took a cruise ship to Norway last weekend. Although this sounds like an amazing time, I didn’t have the best trip. I loved seeing Norway and I am sure there were pretty views along the way but unfortunately my stomach and my head don’t handle boats so well. I ended up spending pretty much the entire time on the cruise ship laying in bed, praying we’d be on solid ground soon! However, we did have a great time in Oslo. On the way there we decided to all dress up and enjoy dinner on the cruise ship. Then when we arrived the next morning in Oslo, we visited the Munch museum, which is the artist who painted “Scream”. We also went to the Kon-Tiki Museum and a Viking Ship Museum. We didn’t have much time in Oslo but we made the best of what we had.

Our week in Kobenhavn was scattered but full of interested times. I got to visit Copenhagen International School which was a real treat and now I am going to be teaching some summer school classes there my last 2 weeks here! I’m very excited because the students at this school are from all over the world. We also did lots of touring in Kobenhavn and even enjoyed the annual bonfire in the park for St. Hauns Eve. Originally witches were burned but now it’s just a fun bonfire that thousands of people crowd the park for. One day we spent time at the castle that is the setting for Hamlet. This was a beautiful place and it overlooks Sweden. Some of our time last week was spent wrapping up classwork, so we weren’t always able to go out and do fun things. We used our time the best we could and even when we were here at Niel Steensen (the school we are staying at) we had a great time!

This past weekend 3 students and 2 professors went to Stockholm, Sweden for the weekend. It was an amazing trip! We took the train to Stockholm (about a 5 hour trip), arrived there in the early evening, got some dinner then headed to bed to prepare for a long day on Saturday. We toured lots of museums yet again but one of our favorite was Jueniboxen! It was actually a childrens museum but you rode a ride that took you through a children’s book. It was an exceptional museum. We were able to see a lot of the city and I absolutely loved it! We decided to walk up to the Royal Palace on Saturday (a couple of us went to see it Friday night because it is beautiful at night) and we noticed people gathering around. We were able to watch the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace. This was a very interesting process and a lot of the guards were actually very kind, they were willing to take pictures and answer questions. However, they are not overly fond of dumb Americans who accidentally call them the Swiss Guard rather than the Swedish Guard (Thanks Erica!). I wish our trip had been to Stockholm with a weekend in Kobenhavn instead, it was a great city. The Swedish people are also very kind and helpful which made our trip even better. On our way home we had an interesting ride on the train. We made it all the way back to the bridge that leads from Sweden to Denmark when suddenly the brakes on the train were slammed on and we were at a complete stop in the middle of the bridge. Not many passengers were on board at this point but everyone began looking around. The train was having technical difficulties and had to stop. Perfect, right in the middle of a giant bridge. Thankfully, after a few minutes of waiting the train was ok to take us to Kobenhavn. However, we were not allowed to pick up any additional passengers along the way. At least we made it back!

The rest of the group left early this morning. I will be moving to Sonja and Petere’s house this afternoon for the rest of my trip. They are super excited about hosting an American for almost two weeks! I will be home in 11 days! Ready to head to Australia soon after that!

Denmark-Norway-Denmark

I can't even remember what I wrote the last time and I think it was only like a few days ago. I have been in Skagen, the very northern tip of Denmark. We were able to see where the two seas meet and stand on the tip top of Denmark, facing the oceans that lead to Norway and Sweden. It was really cool, of course, just getting to walk the beach was probably the best part. We spent a day and a half in Skagen and were soo excited to be able to rent bikes during that time, unfortunately our bottoms were telling us we had been riding after only a few hours. But we enjoyed the quicker mode of transportation and just fun.
We then traveled from Skagen to Viborg. Viborg is one of the oldest cities in Denmark, this was definitely my favorite city that we have visited so far. It was really beautiful there. We stayed at a school, it was for atheletes who have just completed high school but want to pursue one more year of school before going to college, sort of like a college preparatory school. There were lots of fun things for us to join, including rock climbing, pottery, and rhythmic gymnastics. It was a lot of fun and a really neat school to see. The students are given lots of options and were practicing while we were there for their Spring Performance. We got to see them practice but then had to leave before the big performance.
After leaving Viborg we came back to Kopenhavn (Copenhagen in English) for about an hour before getting on a ship to go to Norway. We sailed on the Pearl of Scandanavia to Oslo, Norway overnight. I did not have such a great time on this trip, as my stomach and head were making sure that I knew every second we were on a boat. I was sure thankful to be off, unfortunately the migraine that was caused by the boat did not immediately stop after getting off the boat! Ughh! But we still had a great day in Oslo visiting the Munch Museum (Munch is the artist who painted Scream), the Viking Ship Museum, and the Kon-Tiki Museum. They were all very different museums but very interesting. The best part is that to get to the Viking and Kon-Tiki museum we had to take a ferry! Yay for more boat rides! I survived though and enjoyed our time there.
After the day in Oslo, we then boarded the ship to sail back overnight. We returned to Kopenhavn late this morning and have had a day off. Well, a day off from school that we were suppose to be using for homework but instead found better things to do, like calling home, or goign to the Fakta and Super Best (Grocery Stores) 3 times!! Dr. Larison wants to make sure I know my way around Kopenhavn for when the group leaves so he made sure I went each time! Haha! I sure know my way to the grocery now, I won't get hungry!
Tomorrow I am going to visit and International School here in Kopenhavn, I have heard great things about it so I can't wait to experience it. Then tomorrow afternoon hopefully we are doing some shopping! Yay!
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