Oh God Your Creation is Beauuuuu-tifullll!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Since the day that I arrived in Virginia till now, I experienced summer, autumn, winter and spring. The seasons has come and gone but, do you know what, winter seem to be the longest season. It's a good welcome for me :-).  Now that winter has left and spring is here to stay, I'm so glad that I made it this far. I really enjoy the beauty of spring and how the flowers blossom, especially since I love flowers ;-). Everywhere the fresh and beautiful combination of colors: green, red, purple, yellow, white and pink.  And I think to myself, "Oh God, your creation is so beautiful and how I can't praise you enough for this. You are so awesome. You created this beautiful world for us." 

"Winter + Snow= No more :)" --------> "Spring+Rain= Flowers"

Cheery Blossom Festival at W.DC

This flower named Red-bud but I named  it Purple-bud

Double rainbows

Only two and half months left to enjoy my time here in this beautiful country. It's amazing how time flies and winter is over. I am so excited and looking forward to going back home. But at the same time, I'm sad to leave this beautiful country. I am so thankful that I could meet and connect to some wonderful people. Such as my host family, my east coast IVEP coordinator, supervisor at Gift and Thrift, coworkers, and my IVEP's friends. It's such a sweet community and sweet experience for me. They gave me joy, hear me in my happy and sad time, make me laugh and brought smiles to my face every day. I'm also thankful for all the circumstances that I faced. It has help me become stronger and put my faith in God. This year so far has been meaningful and a great highlight in my life.

February Midyear Conference

I attended the mid-year conference, which was held on 11-20th in February. It hosted in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. The drive was 4 hours from Virginia to Pennsylvania and the next day was 10 hours by bus from Pennsylvania to Ottawa. It sounds like a long trip but I didn't think that it was long at all because we had so much fun on the way there. I thanks God that we finally reached our destination in the evening.  I got to meet the IVEPers that are working in Canada that I've never met before. We had 52 IVEPers from 25 countries plus 3 of MCC service workers from Germany gathered together at the conference. I had an awesome experience and one of the greatest since being in the State. I have good memories in my small group discussion. The lessons have stuck in my head till now. The first discussion was about how we see God in different churches. My understanding is that, people have different styles of connecting with God by praying, reading the bible or singing. In term of myself, I could connect to God by singing songs of praise. But here in the State, the church I attend they sing Hymnal songs.  The songs are slow and it was hard for me to adapt with the style since I don't know how to sing the songs. However, in our discussion we were encouraged to stay strong and learn to be open minded to connect to God in different situation. People always want to hear something good as it could make them feel happy. But sometime hearing bad thing could also strengthen our life. I was encouraged to hear the IVEPers share their experiences and difficulties. Before I used to think, it's probably only me that experienced difficulty. But it that's not true. I was not the only one that experienced difficulties. There are other people that share the same experiences. Other people also experiences hard time as me and we were able to encourage one another. The mid-year conference has strengthen me to continue my journey and look forward to serving "GOD". My favorite verse encourages me to remember, "I can do all thing because of Christ who give me strength."

Maple farm in Canada

I am ready for Skiing hehehe

Cambodians and Laotians IVEP

(from the left, friends from: Indonesia, Paraguay, Lao)

Canada Park