recapping week one

I have been in Canada for a week now, and have spent most of my time so far meeting lots of people and getting acclimated to the new surroundings. Everyone I've met has been very hospitable and supportive and willing to help and give me an opportunity to serve. I gave a devotional at a house church meeting last week and will be giving another tomorrow night, in addition to attending a wide variety of meetings, doing some heavy lifting at the WorldTeam office in preparation for renovations, and tagging along for a farewell party and a baby dedication ceremony at two different family's houses. In the coming weeks I'll be working mostly with a church body called Church in the One, which has its Sunday gatherings in a local mall.

The biggest adjustment I'm having to make so far is getting used to the Filipino sense of time. I am a very time-oriented person, meaning that I tend to take deadlines seriously, show up on time if not early to events, and get stressed out if I feel like I'm late or taking too long. This is pretty typical for most white Americans. Filipinos, on the other hand, tend to be event-oriented, meaning that deadlines and timeframes are flexible and that personal interactions take precedent over any schedule. (In Malaysia they call this "rubber band time," meaning time can be stretched as far as one needs.) For most of this week I have had to rely on others to give me rides, provide opportunities to serve, and so on, and my own ideas of when these things should happen or how long they should take don't fit into the equation. Overall, I think this is a healthy thing for me, but I'm definitely still in the state of adjusting and probably will be for a while.

Also, I'm definitely going to be well fed this summer - I think the biggest fear of the average Filipino is that someone somewhere is currently not eating. Every conversation is punctuated by the refrain of, "Have you eaten yet? You should eat something. Are you sure you're not hungry?" Filipino food is good though, so I'm OK with that.