PFO- Days 1 and 2

The organization that I am going to Indonesia through is called the Network of International Christian Schools (NICS). They put together a training for all of their teachers that they call Pre-Field Orientation (PFO). I got here to Mississippi yesterday after a very long day. My flight was suppose to take off from LAX at 7:10 am. After boarding us all onto the plane, they announced that they were having maintainace problems with their back up system. After getting a new part, installing it, and 7 hours later we were finally in the air headed for Memphis. I was picked up from the airport along with another girl who was on my flight and driven about 15 minutes to Southaven, Mississippi. I finally got to PFO around 8:30 pm last night.

Today has been a very long day filled with training sessions and meeting new people. This morning we had a devotional time and then heard the founder of NICS tell his story of going into cross cultural ministry and starting NICS. During our next session we had a speaker present an introduction to culture along with an interactive activity where in small groups we decided on cultural norms and then visited people with vastly different cultures than our own. This afternoon we had several sessions on personality types and understanding personality differences. We got the results of the personality test we had taken online. I'm a ISFP... pretty right on I would say. Tomorrow we will get into groups based on school and share the strengths and weaknesses that come along with our personality type.

It is such an experience being here with 150 new teachers and their spouses who will be going all over the world. I am rooming with three girls, one teaching in Accra, Ghana, one teaching in Nairobi, Kenya, and one teaching in Kumming, China. This morning I had breakfast with people going to Venezuela, Korea, Brazil, and Afghanistan. No one here has looked at me in shock after I tell them I'm going to be teaching in Indonesia. It doesn't seem out of the ordinary at all. There are also many here who have just graduated and will be spending their first year of teaching overseas. Today I met my roommate who I will be living with in Indonesia. She's fun and so far we've gotten along great! I'm excited for that and think it will be a really positive living environment. I have also met all of the new staff going to Indonesia and parts of their families as well. I've met some of the other staff who work at the school in Bandung as they are here serving as advisors. The director/principle of the school will be coming with his family on Friday. I've also already met two of my future students who are here as well. One is going to be in 8th grade and one is going into 9th. Pray for rest as days are filled here and it will be easy to get to the point of people overload. Also for continued development of relationships with the staff I will be working with in the coming year.