Teaching Prep--Titus-style

So, I've been in the blogging mood but haven't felt like I have too much that's interesting to talk about...then I found that quite ironic because I'm in the middle of a blitz of teaching prep just arriving back from India and just about to head out to C. Asia. There's lots to talk about, but teaching prep just doesn't feel all that, well social or sharable.

So, this is what I've been doing for the last week and a half and will continue to do for the next two weeks! Yeah for studying and teaching prep. It's been quite the shock to go from an intense, people-filled time to sitting at home, or in coffee shops or at a classroom, typing and praying and studying and thinking and writing and planning and well, introverting.

But, my time with Titus Project has really helped me grow as a teacher, I believe. For one, it's immensely helped me to understand how I best prepare to teach. Before I'd just type up bulleted teachings, sometimes word-for-word, because that's what I thought you did, then I'd print them out, scribble a bunch of notes from them, and then either never look at them when I teach or get completely lost while I teach.

I've discovered the art and joy of mind-mapping and have been experimenting with it to teach and also plan my schedules. I've realized color and space to add things freedom to draw pictures rather than write detailed points has helped me teach better and more creatively. Teaching prep has always been something I've done only because I had to, and half the time I ended up relying on my abilities to ad-lib and to think on my feet.

This is my teaching schedule for a D-school that I will be teaching in this
 next month. I was pretty proud of my "note pad" to write my to-do list on
 the right side. 

This is an example of mind-mapping my teaching for an overview of the
Inductive Method. This is a 45 minute teaching which fits nicely on
one sheet of paper. I taught from this one while in India. 

So, if you're reading this and not bored out of your mind yet, please do pray for me as I prepare. I have a number of different groups of people I'll be teaching over a period of about 5 weeks. I want to make sure I'm catching God's heart for each group as well as offering them what they need to be even better equipped and to have a deeper understanding of the word of God. So, pray that as I prepare, God would speak and lead and that I'd not be distracted but able to focus and follow through with all the preparation that needs to be done.

And....that there would be some space and time for some social activity. Otherwise, I just get weird if I spend too much time alone. 

YWAM Taipei

This video gives you a great look into what goes on here in Taiwan and what we are doing here to connect with things God is doing around the world. Please take a few minutes to watch, and also to pray for the ministry and the workers here. 

Return to Oz....or a look inside my emotional nostalgia

This might be a bit of a random post....and being that it's past my bed time and I've been a bit reflective and introspective lately, it doesn't seem so random after all, to me. But you, dear reader, may feel cast into my sea of nostalgia and contemplation. Don't worry...just keep swimming and hopefully you'll stay afloat and make it to shore.

So....confession time. The movie "Return to Oz" is one that I actually think about quite a bit. I was a huge Wizard of Oz fan...I watched it on TV every year when it came on, hiding my eyes from the flying monkey scenes, wondering what it really feels like to have to have my jaw oiled by a tin can, and wondering why Dorothy is often so moody about her family stuff when it really doesn't seem that bad.

But, Return to Oz is just weird. I loved the "real" movie so much and when I first saw this movie, I was a bit crushed. Crushed because the anticipation of being able to return to Oz compared to both the quality of the movie and the experience of the characters was just so dark, so dreary, so bizarre. And I think I often have a cynical look on things in the same way as this movie experience.

Let me elaborate....for example, my elementary school was just torn down this last year. I watched the pictures people posted on the Internet and felt a deep sadness in my heart. The memories I have were so alive in my mind and in my emotional connection to that place. There are stories that I still tell people about that time in my life that are all intertwined in that building. But the photos showed a place so drastically different. Dark, depressing, bizarre even. It didn't seem anywhere near as close.

I think sometimes I fear seeing places and even people grow and change, my experience of them the first time was so rich and I'm afraid that return is going to be as shocking to me as it was to the characters in the Return to Oz movie, and to the viewer experiencing the movie.

Where am I going with this??? I sound like I'm just running away from reality and living in an idealistic dream world.

Well, no....but I have been processing a few things lately and I'm letting you in some of it. First....let's talk about my own return to Oz. But my return was to the Taj Mahal.

 I came here seven years ago (wow...time flies!) at the beginning of a trip a friend and I took to India from Kyrgyzstan a few months after the tsunami in 2005. We came to help out a ministry in Chennai and stopped in Agra on the way. Through a series of naive decisions on our part, we ended up getting taken advantage of by a tour company and our guide for the day brought us here 45 minutes prior to its closing. We ran around (literally) snapping photos. We thought we'd be geniuses and trade cameras so all the photos I took had him in them and all the ones I took had me......then I was mugged the DAY I returned to Kyrgyzstan and all those photos, the ones with me all in them were gone. Forever. My friend only had the ones I took, of him, on his camera.

 So, here I am, with real documented proof that I was at the Taj Mahal again. The experience however, was quite the opposite of the frantic disappointment of the drama of the first time. This time I got to stare at and admire this incredible structure and dialogue with friends about the incredible waste of money this is on a dead woman, etc. etc. But, oddly, as I was walking around this place, I had a moment of connection with God.
I was looking at all this, remembering my previous experience and those last seven years of life flashed before me. I thought of how rich my experiences have been since this time....people pay money to come to this place as a once in a lifetime experience and here I am for the second time, and I've seen and done things that far surpass even this great experience. I thought of how much I've grown since I first arrived here. I had an emotional breakdown at the end of that day in 2005 feeling lost and helpless with all the events that happened, and I realized if the same thing happened again I would know exactly what to do and how to handle it....I even had friends I could call who could help me out.

This bench (in the photo to the right) is where I sat and had my break down the first time as our tour guide had abandoned us, only to return 2 hours after he said he would with alcohol on his breath. Life came full-circle. I am a better person because of all that transpired over these last seven years. I've matured, experienced things, grown, made mistakes, laughed and cried, been hurt and hurt others, been humbled and had joy in so many moments. God as truly been good in my life.

So my return to Oz, to the Taj Mahal, was not a disappointment, but a deeply rewarding experience. It made me overwhelmingly thankful for the journey of life God has set me upon and who he has molded me and shaped me into in the process.

And I have another upcoming "Return to Oz" encounter. It's been over two years since I moved away from Central Asia. I miss it deeply. I have fond memories and stories and stories that I tell others and people that I miss having a part of my every day life that really are like my family from our experiences together. I left a large chunk of my heart behind in this land and with the people there.

I didn't realize it until I started processing and focusing on this upcoming trip that I'm a bit nervous to return. I know things will be very different. For one the office as it was when I was there is pretty much gone. The team and the work has moved locations. People have come and gone and things have moved on.

I'm also a bit nervous about returning to one of the other "stans" I will be visiting because the last time I was there was when I received the phone call that my brother James had died. That place is intrinsically connected to that tragedy in my own life.

I know I can't be a cynic and neither can I be overly idealistic. I'm SOOOOO excited and so thankful for this upcoming trip and hoping that just as God opened my eyes to see all he's done in my life during my visit to the Taj Mahal, that this will be a deeply meaningful trip on so many levels as I return to my own Oz at the end of this month.

Stay tuned...