long overdue post!

I would like to share with you some cool things that I’ve found in my reading and studying. I should say outright that I realized that these last few months in India could quite possibly be my last chunk of time where I can read and study whatever I want in depth and I’m resolved that I won’t waste it. I’m determined that I will use the next (approximately) 3 months to develop my mind, my character and my relationship with God. This has resulted in a list of 20+ books recommended from the MA classes that I’ve been auditing in addition to books that I just want to read ☺ currently I’m reading a good one on different types of counseling. I would like to share with you a few things that I’ve found interesting.

The first one is on our guiding values that give meaning to our lives:
1) Do my values and priorities and the life-style they produce, allow me to maintain robust physical-emotional health?
2) Do my values and life-style allow me time to develop my midyears potential intellectually and spiritually?
3) Do my values and life-style allow me time to enjoy the good things of life and to do the creative, worthwhile and fulfilling things I could do?
4) Do my present values and life-style leave me enough time with the person or persons I care most about?
5) Does my life-style reflect the most significant and life-giving values—truth, goodness, beauty, wholeness, aliveness, justice, order, simplicity, playfulness, autonomy?
6) Do my values and life-style allow me time for a significant cause, a challenge beyond my inner circle, that will help others and improve our community?




There was also this great passage that I am going to include on developmental crises. These are the normal changes that come into our lives—the ones the come from moving away from home, starting college, getting married, retiring. There is like a 100 item list that is NOT all inclusive of things that cause us developmental stress—the things that just happen in life and we need to work through. I love this quote:

“When one puts on the glasses of hope and growth, each life stage from birth to death, offers a fresh set of emerging strengths and possibilities that did not exist in previous stages. This awareness is the source of an unfolding hope. Each stage also has within it a new set of problems, limitations, frustrations, and losses… The strategy is to help people deal with the problems and losses by developing the new strengths and possibilities of their particular life stage.”



Now those of you who made it through that long portion: Over the next few months, I’ll be working again on the Village Healthworkers Program. We have a nutrition public health presentation next week, then a lot of preparation and writing for a new aspect of the project—pretty exciting stuff!

We (and by we I mean my friend Annika and I) have been auditing MA classes here the last three weeks. It has been phenomenal! We’ve gotten to make friends with Indians and internationals from all over the world and learn from great professors. Although I took four classes, there were 3 that made a great impact on me: systematic theology, philosophical foundations of m*inis*try and leadership, and counseling systems. It will take me a long time to process and thoroughly grasp what I’ve been learning! Truly it was an opportunity I never expected to have, and I feel quite privileged that I got to learn just for fun—no tests, no required assignments.