Two summers ago, I was traveling on a team from Indiana Wesleyan to different summer camps. It was at a family camp in New York that He started working on my heart. There were some Ms from China talking about their work here. For some reason, I couldn't get China off my mind. I knew that someday, I had to go to China... He didn't care when or for how long. When I got to school that fall (2011), I got in touch with a contact that IWU has in China at the International Schools of China. I had talked to him my freshman year about the opportunities available for teachers. I shared my new calling with him, and asked about the possibility of doing my student teaching at one of the ISC schools. He asked me some more questions about it, and told me he would work at finding a placement for me if my application through IWU went through fine.
In November I applied to the student teaching program as well as the cross-cultural student teaching program. A few months later, I got emails from both IWU as well as people in China accepting me into the cross-cultural program. I found out that I would be student teaching in fifth grade here in Shenyang. My excitement at this point was crazy. But I was allowed to go to China!! The call from the summer was working out!
While I was still so excited, there was so much that could prevent me from going. It was always a fear that was in the back of my mind. Summer 2012 I traveled on a team again. It was from these camps that I worked out a lot of the details for the trip (with a ton of help from my mom... Well, let's be honest, Mom did most of it). I remember emailing Dave Evans (my co-op) from a camp in Iowa, so excited to finally start talking about details. Mom continued checking flight prices for me. After getting my itinerary approved, I got to purchase the ticket! I sat on a park bench in 114 degrees heat in Kansas to talk to Mom and pick out the seats I wanted on the plane! My teammates just smiled as they watched my giddiness the rest of the day.
In August I started student teaching in Marion in a fifth grade class. I absolutely loved it, even though there were some really rough days. People would as if I was ready for China and how excited I was... but it didn't seem real. My mind was still in Indiana, at Justice Intermediate School. I still had so much to do before I could go.
I pulled together all the information for my visa. I left school during my lunch break one day to go to FedEx and send away my application and passport. That was one scary moment. A week and a half later, I had my visa! I had a ticket and a visa... so if for whatever reason student teaching didn't work out, I could still go to China! It all started to become more real.
 |
| The picture I posted on Facebook the day my visa came! |
No comments:
Post a Comment