My Cold Shower

For all you Scrubs fans, the title is meant to resemble the title of a Scrubs episode… they are all ‘My [Something]’.

So! I guess I am kind of keeping with the goal of writing once a week! The work here in Wau has begun to pick up, and I am passed the stage of 1 week, or the length of missions I have done in the past! It is starting to feel more routine and like a home instead of a short term mission trip or vacation, where I know I will be going back to the US soon. I have been teaching a class of religion once a week, OT history. I will begin teaching 3 sections of math and 3 of English, in addition to 2 sections of Microsoft powerpoint. I also had my first adlib math class yesterday! They said the teacher was not there, so I went in, looked at their notebooks and went from there. I taught about area, volume and unit conversion. It went really well, considering the second official class I have taught in my life was a spur of the moment thing.

My favorite part about life in Wau is the schedule I have: The morning consists of daily mass and Morning Prayer before breakfast. Then there is a morning and afternoon work session with lunch in the middle, running from 8:00A to 5:00P. The afternoon has youth center from 5-7, where I usually go to play basketball, badminton or on the playground. After youth center I have about an hour to read before evening prayer, rosary and then dinner. I sleep soon after dinner! (One of the reasons the blog has been lacking is dinner is usually around 8:30P at the earliest, and finishes after 9:00P, so by the time I get ready for bed, it is 10:00 and I have to wake up in 8 hours! So there is not much time in the evenings, when I do my best writing!).

The biggest challenge is the language! There is so much I want to say, but I do not speak Sudanese Arabic… or any Arabic for that matter! I try charades, but that can only get a man so far. Many people speak English, but the kids I work with do not. The positive side of this is, everyone is always friendly about it, and patient with me… and watching the new guy attempt Arabic always brings a good laugh and a smile to peoples faces!

However, it is now time to discuss more important matters. My cold shower. I have very reliable running water that comes from a shower head, but it is not heated. It is common knowledge than we all do our best thinking in the shower… as is perfectly portrayed in the Hampton Inn commercials from a few years back. So here’s what I was-a-thinking: But first, let me paint 2 contrasting pictures for you: First- Dan comes home from a hot day of work, I was just playing basketball for the past hour, I made the 10 minute walk home from the youth center feeling great, loving the community, seeing all the kids out playing soccer on the field as I pass by. I have about two hours until evening prayer, so I decide to take a shower. I think to myself, “SCORE!! NO hot water. It will feel so refreshing to jump in the shower and clean up before reading, prayer and rosary!” Life is good. Second- Dan comes home from a day of work, I was out playing on the playground with the kids because it is raining, and no one is really playing any sports with balls. I head home in the car because, again, it is raining. I am loving life looking out at the houses and seeing some kids in uniform still coming home from school. I have my afternoon tea with the other volunteers and see that there is about an hour to read before evening prayer and rosary, so I do. After dinner, as the clock hits 9:00 I am thinking about bed… but wait! I have not showered yet! I look into the bathroom with a grimace on my face, and tell myself to ‘man up’. An internal battle rages within me… should I ever shower again in life? At that moment, the option of living without showering seems pretty good. But I know I have to shower and clean up. So I do. I silently ease into the shower as I am crying inside while asking ‘why?! WHY?!’ After a few minutes I get used to the water and it is not so bad.

After I am used to the water and on days when the shower gets the best of me I always think of this analogy: How incredibly similar is my relationship with the cold shower like my prayer life?! Hear me out: So, when I am feeling great, I want to do nothing else other than pray. I cannot wait to get home or go into the chapel and pray. It is truly the highlight of my day when I am in the right mood! However, I hit those days sometimes when I am having a hard time. I hit those days when my mood feels a little ‘colder’ and the thought of prayer makes me grimace and wonder if I should ever pray again! We all have those days when we do not want to pray, when other things are on our minds and we tell ourselves that we are too busy to take the time to pray. But in those times, we need the prayer even more! We have to take the time and make the effort to talk to God and tell him what is on your mind! I feel like in 5 minutes of quiet prayer and reflection, God can tell me more than I can concoct in my head in 5 hours! And that is precisely why it is in those times of distress or discomfort that we have to pray all the more! I think that is one of my greatest weaknesses when it comes to prayer… So during the good times, I have to pray that I will stay strong in the bad times! J

Once I have finished using my $1000 dollar bottle of baby shampoo (I didn’t bring shampoo, and all they had available here was baby shampoo for a ridiculous price… and I have to go to a pharmacy to get it, not just a regular store… Any readers who went to Ghana with me? This might seem like de ja vu to you!) I lay down to listen to my three songs (Country Roads, John Denver or Keep On Loving You, REO Speedwagon; Lord, I Need You, Chris Tomlin; and Hosanna, Hillsong) before I go to bed and realize life is pretty darn good if I am blessed enough to have access to consistent running water!

This was a bit longer… But I hope you made it through the whole thing! J

Love Always!

Now Time for a few pictures of my room and where I live! :)

 My room: Complete with an A+ mosquito net (no holes, and is very long to tuck under my bed with out having to worry about me kicking it out at night!)

My Building: You cna see some of the fruit trees that are growing. We have passion fruit, custard apples (my favorite), guava, papaya and limes. 

Putting the Dan In South Sudan

WOW! I finally made it… to WAU!

It was quite the journey. For a guy who has traveled quite a bit… I would have to say this was one of the most interesting and longest adventures I have been on! So, how does one get from Malvern PA to Wau, South Sudan (SS) you ask? I will summarize-

First, the logisticals:

Drive from Malvern to Philly airport. Fly from Philly to DC, layover in the airport for 3 hours, fly for 13.5 hours to Addis Ababa, layover in Addis Ababa for 3 more hours (fun side note: our ticket said departure time was 1050, but boarding at 14:45… this caused some confusion later! …our bags arrived 4 hours later on a different flight after sitting in the rain in Addis for that time). Then fly for 2 hours to Juba, SS. Once we were all in Juba, we stayed at the Salesian site in Gumbo for 2 nights while we had a little orientation and learned some basics about SS and the mission here. Then, Wednesday morning Steve and I woke up at 6 to make our way to Wau, but because they are redoing the run way in Wau, we flew into a town called Aweil. Once in Aweil, we got in a taxi with a supreme court justice and a nice lady and drove 3 hours to Wau where we were greeted by father, who drove just Steve and I to the Wau site! So, it was very tiring, and not the easiest to get to… but I am here! And I could not be more excited for what is to come! J Total time: 41 hours of physical journeying over 3 days. Luckily, although I was tired, I was not out of it, because I was able to share this journey with 5 amazing SLMs, who made even a layover in Addis after a 13 hour flight seem fabulous! J

Second, the REAL reason I am here:

This one is a lot shorter. It is because ‘I said I CAN because I trust in God’. If for even one second I would have doubted myself… I might as well not have even packed! Okay, so that was a bit dramatic. But really, when we say “I can’t” we will never get anything done. How many times do we just say, “I can’t do that”, “it’s not for me” or “I’m not able to”? All those things are just us hiding behind the reality that we are scared to try and put our trust in God. In scripture, we are told over and over again that we can do anything if we put our trust in the Lord! Example: Peter walking on water. He said ‘I can’, and then walked on the water… As soon as he started to say ‘I can’t’, he fell in! Of course, we all know the end of the story, The Lord saved him as He always does… but think about it, how often do we stop having faith and saying ‘I can’t’? Or, even worse, never take that step out onto the water because we never say I can to begin with!? The important thing is the trust in the Lord part… Just saying I can, and then jumping in will cause you to sink… so really, it is more of a faithful “We can!” not an “I can” (We being you and the Lord).

So, to sum up: Don’t ever tell yourself you can’t do something. It is a lie. If we have true faith and trust in God fully, we can do anything. If you hear the voice telling you that you cannot do something, quote the famous John Locke (the Lost character, NOT the historical character)… “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do!” It has been a very tiring 4 days of travel, but I am so blessed to be where I am here in Wau because the community has done so much to ensure that I feel at home and am able to catch up with myself after all this traveling!

I will be sure to update as soon as I start working, for now I have been acclimating myself to the different centers and projects they have before I fully begin working with them! 

I love you all!
~Dan

Contact Information

Sooooo.... I leave for South Sudan in less than 2 days. and I thought I would post my contact information:

email:
daniel.glass10@gmail.com


So. about the mail. There isn't really a mail service here. So, send stuff to my home in philly. Presents and gifts are encouraged still! haha Just, to me in philly, and nothing perishable because I wont get them until I come home. haha

mail:
Daniel Glass

Salesians of Don Bosco, don Bosco VTC, WAU Western bahr el Ghazal, Republic of South Sudan

I would email me instead of mail stuff at first, just until I can make sure that address will get mail to me!

Also- you  can comment on my blog posts! That would be fun to get feed back! :)

400+ miles, 3 amazing people, 1 amazing weekend!

So, today was my first day back at home after a fabulous trip to the DC/Baltimore area! The trip made me feel so incredibly blessed! As I was puttin' along through the state of Maryland it dawned on me how truly blessed I am to have friends and loved ones who will put me up for the night when I come to visit! And, not only give me a place to sleep, but give me a place to sleep when I didn't really have amazingly concrete plans, it was sort of planned within the week it happened! And, in addition to the short plans, they always went out of their way to ensure that I was comfortable and felt at home! J Before I go on, I want to say how much I love all of you and how thankful I am for all of the people God has put in my life! J

The highlight for me was being able to share time with close friends and family. Staying up late and just talking- having truly meaningful conversations about faith, love and life. Yes, my first ever MD crab cake was life changing… and swimming in that waterfall was a blast (even if it was only 60)… But being able to listen to a friend's deeper feelings and to share my life with friends makes the MD crab cake look like a microwavable crab cake. I would take time shared, like I had this weekend, over anything else, any day. J

The worst part of the whole trip was when I was driving home from DC, going through the Baltimore Bay Tunnel (BBT)… Many of you know that I like to hold my breath in tunnels, testing if I can hold it for that long. Well, typically in the BBT I need to keep an average speed of about 50mph to succeed (I have driven it A LOT of times and have tested the conditions for success). This time however, it started off great: going about 60 mph. Soon though, I caught up to other cars… I ended up going about 30 for the last portion. I failed. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel (literally) and I could not hold my breath any longer. I was extremely frustrated (I mean really, I was about 100 yards, could see the end, but failed! L) After I collected myself from the fit of rage I threw at the cars going too slow, I realized again how blessed I am to be able to say that the most upsetting/frustrating/angering moment since Thursday was failing at holding my breath. If that is the case, I am doing pretty darn good! J haha Similarly, today I saw a hole in my underwear and got frustrated making a rope rosary… Again, if that is the low point of my day, I am EXTREMELY BLESSED!!!

Then I thought, it is really weird how days can go by and we don’t even notice all the blessings, but as soon as you fail at holding your breath, or see a hole in your underwear you think it’s the end of the world! We can NOT let the good moments pass by, and we can NOT let the bad moments eclipse the all the blessings! As Brother Rob said in his good night at the pool on one of the last days in NY, 'In times of trial, you can either be bitter, or better'. We have to choose to be better in times of trial, so we can move on and always enjoy the blessings that are constantly surrounding us. Never forget how blessed you are. 

Anyhow, I ramble. So Ill just say thank you again to Christy, Albert and Kate for welcoming me into your day and homes! J I love you all!

Oriented

Wow! Orientation was the most blessed time of my life! If it is any indication of how the next year or two of my life will be going I am ecstatic to begin my work! :)

Before I go on about how orientation was such an amazing time... I guess ill fill everyone in on what I was being oriented for. My mission work that will bring me to Wau, South Sudan. Whats my mission you ask? My mission is to love the people of Wau as a teacher, on various street children projects, as a Sunday School teacher and in any other way that might come about! It is my mission to give selflessly to everyone I come in contact with and try my best to bring Christ's light to them! We depart September 2nd, so please always have me and all missionaries around the world in your prayers! :)

Basically, orientation served as a way to get to know my fellow Salesian Lay Missioners, go over guidelines, talk about what will help us on mission, some Salesian ways, there was a service week, a retreat. Most of all though, it was a time to grow in love... the most important tool for mission!

Anyhow, my thoughts on orientation. Two thoughts kept coming to mind throughout the orientation:

First- "Lord, it is good for us to be here" (Mt 17:4). Every place we went I was convinced that that was exactly where I was meant to be at that moment in my life. I felt such joy to be able to share the experiences with such amazing people and build some great friendships! Whether we were playing kickball, listening to a presentation or serving at the soup kitchen. At every moment I could look back and say, "Lord, It is good for us to be here". Fun addition to this. I didn't know this at the time, but about 4 days after this came to my mind, it was the feast of the transfiguration (where this line comes from)!

Second- Each night, I had the feeling that I never wanted the day to end! I could lay down at night and say, wow, today was the best day ever! I know a lot of people in the world today do not like bubbling happiness and enthusiasm... But if you find your calling and live it, even 6:00AM will be a delight! As Brother Rob said in one of his good night talks... In tough times, you can either be bitter, or you can be better. There is no reason you should choose to be bitter, no matter what the situation is! i.e. you can be bitter about waking up at 6:00A or, you can chose to be a better man for it, after all, you have that many more hours in your day to be better!

It was not all candy canes and lollipops though. Some nights I would get impatient or tired and maybe a bit testy. (Any SLMs reading this... I am sorry for those times!) I think that was the most trying time on orientation, the long days. They started to wear on me. I'm not a huge fan of mornings, and I do not drink coffee... so you can only guess how much of a delight I was at 6:00AM wake ups. (yes, i know i said even 6:00 will be a delight, but that is not to say it was not a struggle sometimes!)
Other times I would get nervous that maybe I was not going to be 'good enough' to do mission work, or, as my last post talked about, that my life would be too difficult if I chose to make Christ my life and work on missions.

Dont worry though, those times of fear were quickly squashed by God when I head Him say, "If you live for me today... I will have you in my hand tomorrow!"

In The Mountains

When I told people I was going to get hiking in the Smoky Mountains alone, people always asked if I would get bored, or what would I do? So, to answer anyone who was wondering what went on for four days alone in the mountains.

I am Alive!! J and when I say that, I mean more alive than just stating a fact that bears did not eat me. I feel like God really made me come alive last week while I was in the mountains. I know it sounds cliché to say I went to the mountains as a quiet reflection time and then felt Gods presence… but that is truly what happened!

First, It was amazing to see so many signs from God within a short 4 day span! From random small silly things like me praying for a headache to go away and it happening before I knew it, or the morning prayer psalm being about a raven crowing, and a raven literally started crowing to big things like constantly (well, almost) walking in a prayerful state or being so filled with love at every site I saw that I was filled with song (and anyone who knows me for more than about 5 mins, knows that is not typically who I am, to be filled with song! Haha).

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before I left I kind of fell hard, I heard Satan tell me I threw away any chance I had of a normal life by choosing to do mission work, he told me that by serving God I would be poor and lonely because I was not doing the logical next step after graduation. There were some long sad nights when that was all that would be in my head… Before I even got there, God told me. ‘You’re right Dan, you will not have a normal life. You may never be an engineer, and I can’t promise marriage, but what I also can promise you is that I did not call you to be ordinary, or just to take the next logical step. I called you to be my child and to love with all your heart and I will ALWAYs take care of you and fill you with joy and happiness’ Thus thwarting the lie the devil tried to pull me down with.

Then I was so focused on seeing bears, that’s all I thought about. So literally within 30 mins of arriving, God showed me bears. I was driving along, and Boom. Bears. 2 of them on the side of this scenic driving loop! God basically said, how foolish can you be to focus on bears when there is so much other glory to be seen here?! My mission was no longer to see bears, but it was to see God in the mountains, and others that I met. Had I not seen bears on the first day, I don’t know how the rest would have gone down!

So, to sum up, God spoke to me on so many levels, all the hard heartedness I felt in my past semester was smashed away by the awe and glory of Gods kingdom on earth!

 Another way to sum up is with this quote a friend reminded me of: 

“The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness” 

— Pope Benedict XVI

Words can’t really explain the relaxation and freedom I felt by getting away from the frustration and stress I used to feel… but this kind of explains why one would want to go on a solo retreat to the mountains! J

~Dan 

New To The Game

For the past few years, i never saw the point of blogging. I always felt like my life was too plain for people to be interested in what I have to say or what I did. However, after being accepted as a Salesian Lay Missioner I realized that not only would people be interested in hearing about where I am or how i am doing, but that God had made my life more than plain or dull. It was clear that the adventure I would be embarking on would, at the very least, be exciting. I began to see that EVERY human life is interesting, and NO human life is dull!

So, as I start my life after Georgia Tech and Elon, I would love it if you would pray with me along the way.. As I will keep all of you in my prayers, please keep me in yours! :)

Also- I am new to this game, so please bare with me through the mediocre grammar and potentially random posts!

~Dan