April began with a bang for me and I had quite a lot going on this past week ... sure I had some excitement thanks to the hospital trip last week, but that was probably the most exciting thing that happened all week. I take that back, having lunch with Lana (my transition mentor) at an "actual" 'Rainforest Cafe' was also pretty exciting.
Since it was the first week of the month, the Family Connection Foundation (FCF) had its monthly meeting with all the projects they support on Wednesday. It's a great time to worship, learn, and eat together, but it makes for a long morning. I spent Wednesday afternoon learning about what I'll be doing as a FCF staff member (apart from my Project:Restore work) and learning how the system works, well, how it's supposed to work or will eventually work.
Eventually, I'll become the Human Resources department for foreign volunteers ... from the time a potential volunteer first contacts us to the time they land in Chiang Mai, I will be the go-to person for incoming volunteers. This means briefly going over applications, partnering volunteers with organization placements, making sure all people involved have all necessary information, sending visa packets, confirming arrival dates, passing information between 'everyone,' answering questions (as I'm able), and maintaining the HR database/personnel folders. Thankfully I didn't start ALL of this on Wednesday, but was merely introduced to it all. I was given the 'simple' task of making sure that of the potential volunteer documents FCF has recently received (applications, references, spiritual gifts and Jung personality test results) has made it into the HR/personnel folders, organizing and uploading documents when needed. Even though there's a bit of a backlog and I received a dump-truck load of information, I was able to muddle through the rest of the afternoon and actually get 'caught up' on Friday afternoon.
Thursday morning I attended a wonderful Bible study with my housemate, then Lana picked us both up to take us to lunch and then shopping for house stuff that is too difficult to get back to our house on my housemate's motorcycle. Such a blessing and such a fun day. I finally have a set of sheets that actually fit my bed! (Though, I did have to wash them twice because a bird pooped on it the first time it was out drying ... stupid birds!)
To top off my week, Jonathan was in town for the first time in 2 weeks. He's been hosting study abroad students in one of the villages, so while we were able to occasionally communicate through emails and phone calls, it was nice to finally be able to catch up and work through some things together. Jonathan and I are both really excited because one of the students who was just with him in the village decided that he wanted to volunteer with us after the program ended (which happened to end earlier this week). This student attend Messiah College in the states, happens to be a good friend of mine from back in high school, and will be working with me here in Chiang Mai!
I'm really excited about this next week as Monday--Wednesday I'll be visiting some villages where Project:Restore is working with Jonathan. Then on Thursday morning I should get my work permit! Look for a blog post towards the end of this week, beginning of next to hear about my time in the village and pray that everything will process smoothly for receiving my work permit!
Grace and Peace!
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