Accounts of Dominican Republic by a missionary newbie - Part 1 of several

I was in the Dominican Republic (DR) for the past 2.5 weeks, completing the practical portion of my ministry training at Mercy Ships, putting what we learnt in the classroom into practice. Since this is my first mission trip, and the first time to the Caribbean, I was both excited and nervous.

I’ll give an overview of the trip in this post. Descriptions of our work and my reflections will be given in future posts.

DR is a developing country in the Caribbean, sharing the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. As soon as I stepped out of the airport terminal, I was greeted by the humid tropical air. During the drive to our hotel, I enjoyed watching the lush green countryside and endless sugar cane fields go by. Over the next 18 days, I experienced many facets of this fascinating country. We were blessed with hot and sunny weather most days, while that was good for our work outdoors, it also meant I had to get used to the constant whiff of garbage and open sewer, slowly decomposing under the tropical sun. I had the opportunity to savour many local food, including avocados the size of cantaloupes and sugar canes that I chopped, shaved, chewed, and spit with sweet delight.

As with most developing countries, traffic rules and safety regulations are highly optional. It’s normal to pass on double solid lines with oncoming traffic. A family of four fits comfortably on a scooter. My favourite image was a guy on the back of a motocycle taxi, holding onto a birthday cake big enough to feed 30 people, uncovered, with candles inserted, wavering in and out of traffic en route to the party. I wonder if the white buttercream will turn a shade of grey.

During the weekends, we attended services at different churches, and I enjoyed the very lively and spirited worship. Just have to remember to bring a bottle of water as the service usually last 3-4 hours. We also went the beach, hiked a nearby mountain, and enjoyed God’s beautiful creations.

Despite liberal application of bug spray, I still got a lot of bug bites. By the end of the trip, you almost could play connect the dots on my back and legs. I must have left behind a lot of fat and happy bugs in the DR.

I’ll write about the work we did at the village in future posts. Stay tuned.

More tales from the Lone Star State - outside of class

As my time here in Texas draws to a close, I want to share with you a few interesting things I’ve done/seen/experienced:

• When I first arrived at the Mercy Ships HQ, in the orientation package, there are 2 pages of warnings about the natural hazards in the area. These include various venomous and otherwise snakes and spiders, poison ivy, fire ants, and scorpions. Welcome to Texas! After the initial urge of grabbing my bags and going home subsided, I figured that since it’s winter, I probably won’t see any snakes. I’ll wear jeans and boots and stay on the paths to avoid poison ivy. I’ll steer clear of any mounds of red dirt as they’re fire ant hills. I’m not afraid of spiders, but I’m not sure how I’ll react to scorpions, as I have never seen a real one before. Then one day, I found this right outside my room. It’s a fairly small scorpion, but it still got a mean looking sting. If the baby scorpion was hanging around my room, I dread to speculate where the mama scorpion might be!

• First Monday Trade Day – the world’s biggest flea market. It takes place in the weekend before the first Monday of every month, about 15 minutes from the Mercy Ships HQ. It is GINORMOUS! You can find everything under the Texan sun there – food, clothes, furniture, artworks, cosmetics, pets, farm animal, farm equipment, and even farm equipment manufacture paraphernalia!
• Cross Brand Cowboy Church – a bona-fide cowboy church attended by cowboys, wranglers and ranchers, where 80% of the vehicles in the parking lot are pickup trucks, where kids practice calf roping in front of the church, where the pastor uses saddle horns and jeans and pickup trucks in his analogies, and where even the toilet paper holders are made of horseshoes!
• Texas longhorns – a breed of cattle with really long horns (duh!), and is a symbol of Texas. I had the good fortune to see two type of said animal on the same day, one made of bronze, and the other made of flesh and bone.

• Southern words such as y’all, big old, fixin’

That’s all for now from Texas. I’ll be in the Dominican Republics for field service for the rest of this month. I will update this blog and post more pictures upon my return, so check back in March for more of Eddie’s adventures.

Tales from the Lone Star State - in class

I just completed my extremely intensive 5 weeks classroom training at the Mercy Ships HQ in Texas.

We covered a great variety of topics that are relevant to ship life, missionary work, and life in general.

Some of the topics covered include:

• Mercy Ships – its history, mission, values, approaches
• Personal and interpersonal development
• Conflict resolution
• Prayer life and the nature of God
• Spiritual warfare
• World view and the root of poverty
• Relief vs development
• First aid and CPR
• Fire fighting (that's me in the fire suit!)
  
• Survival at sea

I'll be off to the Dominican Republic in a few hours (early Sunday morning), where we'll have the opportunity to put what we’ve learnt into practice. I'll return to Texas on Feb 28, and fly out to Liberia to (finally) join the ship on March 1st.

Perfect Strangers, New Best Friends

It’s hard to believe I’ve been in Texas for 3 weeks already. Sometimes, when I recall the terror of that Greyhound bus ride, I feel like I have just arrived. However, when I look around at all the friends I’ve made and how comfortable I am in my new surroundings, I feel like I’ve been here for months.

I’m having a great time at training. I learnt a lot about Mercy Ships as an organization, the God we serve, various aspects of missions, life skills, conflict resolution, cross-cultural communications, etc. We had a silent retreat last weekend. It was very refreshing just spending a day with God in silence. I will definitely do that again.

Even though our class of 32 started as strangers, due to the open and safe environment fostered by the instructors, there has been a lot of deep and meaningful sharing of personal experiences, and a lot of tears have been shed. It is very inspiring and encouraging to hear others’ stories. I learnt that many people are facing the same kind of challenges I am. Together we can encourage each other, and grow to be the kind of person God intends us to be. I think by the end of February, we will become a very tightly bonded group.

A few notes about living in East Texas:

• It can get cold! 2 days ago, the temperature was around -10C with windchill! I am totally not prepared for this kind of weather.
• Unlike the weather, the people are very warm and hospitable. They ask how your day has been, and they actually care about your response.
• My stomach is adjusting to a new schedule. Dinner is served from 5 - 5:45pm. I can't even remember the last time I finished dinner before 6pm.

Riding on a Greyhound, praying all the way

After a very eventful bus ride, I finally made it to the Lone Star state!

In an attempt to save $150, I decided to take a 16 hours Greyhound bus from Atlanta to Tyler, Texas. Since I have taken many long bus rides in Africa, I figured this wouldn't be too bad. Afterall, the Greyhound bus seats are big and comfy. It would be like flying longhaul in business class, right?

Some lowlights of my trip:

• The bus terminal was in a shady part of town, with lots of people loitering around outside, reminded me of East Hastings in Vancouver. It was around 11pm.
  
• At soon as I saw the inside of the bus station, my heart sank and wished I had flown instead. The place was totally packed, lineups everywhere. Total mayhem.
  
• I stood in one line to check my first bag, and was told I need to be in another line to check my second bag. That line wasn't moving, and they were already calling for my bus number to prepare for boarding. Yikes!
  
• 2 hours later, I finally got on the bus. It was a full bus, and my seat wouldn't recline.
• I was trying to get some sleep, but was wakened up at about 3am by some noise and a sudden jerk of the bus. The bus has drifted over the right lane onto the grooves on the side of the road, driver woke up, and jerked the bus back into the lane. That was scary. However, whoever came up with the idea of cutting grooves into the side of roads was a genius.
  
• I was really tired, so was trying to put that incident behind me, and get back to sleep.
• 5 minutes later, it happened again. Sound of tires on grooves, and a sharp jerk to the left.
• I was wide awake for the rest of the trip, praying all the way.
• On the way into Jackson Mississippi, an ambulance with sirens on was behind us. Bus driver moved over to right lane, let ambulance pass, and immediately moved right back over to suck the wheels of the ambulance. Cyclists would appreciate how smooth that pacelining maneuver was. We were passing EVERYONE on the interstate. A Greyhound bus tailgating an ambulance, can you picture that in your mind? I prayed even harder.
• Fortunately, the bus just couldn't keep up and the ambulance finally dropped us. Whew!
• They changed drivers at Jackson. I was happy to be rid of the sleepy crazy speeding driver. Unfortunately the second driver didn't show up for 2 hours! At least I hope he had plenty of sleep.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. I arrived 2 hours behind schedule, safe and sound, with all my luggage. What a crazy beginning to my trip!

I want to thank my adopted family in Atlanta for staying with me at the bus station, helping me navigate through all the madness. If I were there by myself, I would have freaked out for sure.

I'm now comfortably settled in the Mercy Ships campus, meeting a lot of interesting people, and enjoying my training.

Mission, Baking, Liberia, Ship

I'll be going on a mission trip, baking on a floating hospital in Liberia!

Mercy Ships is a Christian medical charity that runs the world's largest civilian hospital ship and offers free medical operations to people in 3rd world countries. They'll be in Liberia, West Africa, in 2008, following the example of Jesus in bringing hope and healing to the forgotten poor. I will be serving as the baker on board, baking bread and making desserts for the crew of almost 500.

I am extremely excited about this opportunity. I feel clearly this is the direction God is leading me. I am privileged to be able to use my passion and skills to serve others and to glorify God.

Please keep me in your prayers. Please pray that I will continue to strengthen my faith and trust in God, that I will obey Him and continue to do His will. Please also pray for my health and safety while travelling and in Africa.

I am amazed at what God has done in my life in the past year, and I am excited to see what He has in store for me this year as I serve in Africa.

Stay tuned!

My first kitchen job

One of my biggest concern about this career change was finding my first job fresh out of pastry school. Fortunately, with the recommendations of my chef instructor, I landed a job as a pastry cook at Watermark on Kits Beach, an upscale casual restaurant serving West Coast cuisine. Coming from a corporate environment, working in a kitchen is a completely novel experience for me. For starter, it's physically demanding. I'm on my feet for 8 or 12 hours a day. There are no chairs in a kitchen. It's inherently dangerous. There are sharp stuff, hot stuff, heavy stuff that can cause serious injuries. I must be alert 100% of the time. It's an honest day's work. There's no slacking in a kitchen. :)

In retrospect over the past 9 months, I went from someone who's greener than a steamed broccoli to someone who's much calmer, faster, and more experienced. I learnt a great deal about dessert making, presentation, became better at dealing with stress, curve balls, working with others, and being flexible. Even though there are days that are filled with chaos, stress and a few heated conflicts, at the end of the day, I know that my work brings a delicious and memorable conclusion, an exclamation mark, to many people's evenings, and that makes it all worthwhile. It is a very satisfying and rewarding feeling. I feel very blessed that I am able to do this. I am having fun and getting paid (albeit not much, but still) for it! I am truly happy.

So, how do I know if I made the right career choice? I don't. I'll never find out what my life will be like had I stayed with my old job. Life is about choices and the journey. The destination is the same for everyone. It's how we live the days we have that counts. For now, I sure am enjoying the journey!

The happiest 15 weeks of my life

Pastry school was a blast. It was the best 15 weeks of my life. Every morning as I was walking to school, I thanked God for giving me this opportunity to do something I truly love. The program was fast paced, and I was blessed to have Chef Marco as my instructor. He is truly awesome! We made over 20 types of bread, 10 types of cookies, countless cakes, tarts, torts, pies, and entremets. We also spent a lot time working with chocolate, making showpieces with chocolate and sugar, and had a lot of fun with plated desserts. You can check out the pictures here. In addition to learning about pastry, I also gained other insights. I learnt how I work, how to work with others even if I don't get along with them, how to communicate with others, how to maintain my composure, and how to stay calm under pressure.

Throughout the course, I've had smooth days when everything worked well, and I felt mightily pleased with myself, and I've had disastrous days when I managed to screw up every recipe, and I felt incompetent and deflated. Nevertheless, at the beginning of each day, I was just happy that I had this opportunity to do something I love. Even the worst day at school was better and more meaningful than the best day I've had at my previous work. Regardless of what kind of day I've had yesterday, each day is a new start, and I promised myself that I will make the most out of each day. This mentality really helped me focus on what's to come, instead of dwelling on past failures.

I thoroughly enjoyed my pastry school experience. I'm so happy and relieved I made this career change. I'm truly living my dreams now!

From Cubicles to Custards - in Pursuit of my Passion

'I don't know what I want to do, but I know it's not this'. I struggled with that thought for over two years. I was increasingly dissatisfied with my job as an Information Technology consultant, but I had no idea what I wanted to do in life either.

One thing I do know is that I love baking. What started as a casual suggestion from a friend turned into one of my life's passions. I love the sense of achievement of creating something with my hands, the heavenly smell of freshly baked goods that lingers in my apartment, and the satisfaction I derive from watching people's faces light up when they sink their teeth into something I created.

I don't know why it took me so long, but one day it dawned on me that I should pursue baking as my career. Coming from an engineering and IT background, this is a dramatic change. However, I'm relatively young and single, and now's the best time to be bold and take risks. After much prayers, discussions, debates, and cost-benefit analysis, I quit my job, and three days later, on January 2, 2007, started pastry school.

White Vancouver

Usually when it snows in Vancouver, it only last a few days, before the rain washes it away. This year, however, we're hit by an Arctic front that brought 20cm of snow in 24 hours, and sub-zero temperature for a week. The snow you see in these photos is still here, eight days later ...

The night of the storm


The day after





Me chilling w/ a snowman