Morning Class

Posted on July 17, 2013 by the VOICE journal

During morning class, I learn a lot about bitterness. There is some bitterness in my mind. Sometimes my friend hurts me and she didn’t know, but I would remember it for a long time. And as the time passes the bitterness in my heart grows stronger and stronger. But the class taught us to forgive them. I think I should try to forget what she did before because she did it just want to help me get better. For me, I think it is hard work, but I will try it. I hope I can forgive my enemies and people who hurt me before.

I like the design part, too. The class told us that although we are not perfect. God has a really good plan for each of us. So I think God will let me know what he wants we to do. I can learn more about what God said, so I like the class.

-Lily Chen

Oklahoma at First Glance

Posted on July 17, 2013 by the VOICE journal

Oklahoma’s rain is very clean. We don’t have to use umbrellas.
Oklahoma’s families are healthy. They jog together.
Oklahoma’s parks are beautiful and there are ducks swimming on the water.
Oklahoma’s people are friendly. They always say “Have a nice day!”
Oklahoma’s weather is comfortable. I saw a rainbow after it rained.
Oklahoma’s buildings are beautiful and amazing.
At nine o’clock, the sky is bight in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma’s clothes and shoes are cheaper than Taiwan’s.
The food in the shopping mall, like ice cream, is very delicious.
I think Oklahoma is like heaven. I want to live here.

– Joe Cheng

Early Training.

Posted on July 15, 2013 by the VOICE journal

So this is totally true.

This year I got a chance to be a V2, and found out that I have to lead half of students to OKC. What’s more, Dr. Chen will lead another group, which means he won’t be with us. Well in the past, most of the times Dr. Chen will lead all of the VOICE students to our destination, and he also has more experience of traveling abroad. However, because of the rule change of airlines, we have to divide the whole group into two.

To be frank, I was freaking out! I don’t have that much experience of traveling abroad and knowing all the process of security check, baggage check, custom…etc. As a reason, I did all the research of airport. I got the list of students, maps of airport, process of transit, and everything! So, at the beginning, everything went well, all the leaders are great and responsible, we didn’t lose anyone, we had plenty of time to transit after passing the custom… so eventually my group went with me and arrived the gate, guess what? Our plane was delayed!

“Delayed? Alright, it should be fine. That only means that we are going there late. That’s all.” I thought to myself. But then, from 19:00 to 21:45, it was delayed again to 22:30! “Oh man, we are going to be exhausted when we get there.” I thought.

But I was wrong. We didn’t get there eventually because the flight was then canceled! I tell you, when I heard “canceled” at that moment, my brain went blank. Such a strong feeling of helpless caught me and I called one of the staffs. “I don’t know what to do…” my tears rolling around my eyes while on the phone but never got chance to go out because I simply can’t do that. I don’t have time to cry and I don’t want to make students panic.

Then I talked to one of the staff at the airport. Thank God for her because she promised to give us hotel, food, shuttle bus, and boarding pass of the flight tomorrow morning at 9:00. I talked to the students, since we didn’t want to go the security check all over again; we decided to stay in airport.

That was probably the worst night ever. I woke every 5 mins, hiding all the fear inside. I can’t let them down. They got no one but me. Next morning around 4, I found out that our flight is delayed again.

“Is it going to be canceled too?” I asked the staff in airline customer center with my voice trembling. “Please, I have 20 students! And we have been waiting here at the airport since 15:00 yesterday…”

Thank God for His mercy and grace that this staff immediately helped us to make sure that the flight won’t be canceled. It’s usually not that easy to get nice treated by customer center staff, especially when your race is different.

So finally we got to the gate, the airplane we should be on, is not there. “Is it going to be delayed again? How can they do this?” one of the students asked me. “I don’t know, dear. I seriously don’t know why.” At that time, I can do nothing but pray. Also with my heart trembling and fluctuating inside like there’s a storm.

So we waited till 11:00, the airplane finally showed up. Thank God, we finally got to OKC. It’s all His grace. That’s the first time I fall asleep for 24 hours. Karen came to give me a hug. “God has your training early.” She said. I almost burst into tears. Till that time that I realized actually how scared I am inside, and how hard I tried to press it down. My fear is much way stronger than I thought.

“I will not leave you comfortless…” John 14:18

For God is our heavenly father. He promised us not to leave or forsake us. No matter how bad the situation may seem, no matter how many times your faith is shaking and your heart is sinking, no matter how fearful you are, that promise is never going to change no matter you believe it or not. Only through these hard times that we might be equipped and trained to be a servant that meet for the master’s use.

Well God, just one more lesson on my V2 lesson list. I am thankful for it teaches me about faith, fear, and courage.

-Joy Liao

The First Day of TESOL

Posted on July 13, 2013 by the VOICE journal

So we were supposed to have orientation this morning at 7:15 this morning. But my body decided that it would do anything to not hear the alarm I set for 6:40, even to the point of waking me up an hour early just to turn it off. So I lay there wide awake, wondering if anyone else was up. I got dressed and headed downstairs to find out. No one was in the lobby, so I played the piano to pass the time. Slowly the conference center woke up. A lady came and unlocked the gift shop, setting up a display next to the door when she was finished, others who live here were going off to work. Orientation started when Tina, Maria and Boba came downstairs. Spent about an hour sitting and talking in the lobby. After that we had breakfast.

Maria and I are the only TESOL students for this semester. We found this rather amusing. After breakfast we headed up to a small conference room across the hall from the staff office. Our teacher is Audra King, an extremely awesome teacher. She taught so well, that I thought only 20 minutes had gone by, Maria thought it was 5 minutes. Turns out it was almost two hours! We had a small break then and continued out class until 12:25 PM. From there, we headed back to the cafeteria and had lunch. There was a break of about an hour and 45 minutes in between that and the next class, so I went to the gift shop and got myself a Snickers and a Reese’s, then headed back up to the classroom to study.

When I entered the room, Audra was preparing the next lesson. We talked about her and the teaching she did in Taiwan. When class started and Maria came in, we share the candy to eat. There is nothing like candy to pep up a classroom! After class was dinner. We had chili dogs, except they weren’t dogs. They were nacho chips.

It was really boring after that. There was virtually nothing to do while waiting for the Taiwanese students to get here. Typically, VOICE and TESOL students have curfew at nine, but for that night, TESOL students got to stay up ‘till one to greet the VOICE students from Taiwan. I tried my hardest to stay up and study (Or should I say “Study?”) I fell asleep at maybe one twenty, one twenty five? Next thing I recall is James Tsay -my roommate- saying “Hello?” near me. I shook myself awake and greeted him.

He told me he wasn’t tired yet and pulled out his laptop and got on Facebook. I asked him to teach me Mandarin, so he proceeded to tell me how to say “what is this”, “knife” and “Good morning”. We stayed up all night talking about Taipei 101, the World Trade Centre and other famous buildings around the globe. Next thing we know, it was morning! Only half of the kids came on the airplane from LAX airport, the other half are still in Los Angeles, waiting for the next flight tomorrow. I wonder when my next roommate, Kai will get in.

-John Metzger