Week 1

A week in the life...it's hard to know where to even begin, so I'll just list some happenings and highlights:

-chocolate. waffles. tea. European food. Need I say more?
-as a gross generalization, Belgians are extremely helpful and nice, and their English is fantastic.
-getting to know all the great people I'm living with- they're awesome, funny, and have so many stories.
-after a few days with those absolutely fantastic people I'm surrounded by/learning with, recovering from jet-lag and such, I needed some introvert time. Taking a morning alone to tour the Musical Instrument Museum, followed by leisurely wandering the streets of Brussels, was incredible!
-classes on: Belgium, team development, cultural measures/differences, a pastoral approach to evangelism, culture shock...
-writing my first ethnography (observe, make a hypotheses, analyze/"prove", repeat. This week I observed the Roma/Gypsy beggar women in downtown Brussels.)
-worshiping with St. Andrew's Scottish Church. (Want cross-cultural? Go to a Scottish church, in Brussels, full of everyone from Africa, to Ireland, to US, to Japan! 3 of us even got to spend a few hours eating/socializing with their 20s-30s group afterwards)

That's probably enough random tidbits for now...more pictures and stories to come!


Meanwhile...
Japan is, of course, very much on my heart and mind. Below, a video from my team in Japan. This is Ishinomaki: the city they are focusing on loving and serving, the people they know.

Then and Now from Paul Johannessen on Vimeo.