Summer 2006 - Finding out where to buy shoes

ChinaJim

Well, a lot has happened since we signed off our last online journal. You may remember that we had just been accepted by the Scottish Council of OMF. Thus we ended up in the final stage of the application process: a two week candidate’s course in Sevenoaks, Kent.

The thrust of this course was to give us some orientation and training, while keeping an eye on us to make sure that we didn’t have any (too) undesirable traits. Apparently a guy was once sent home for trying to chat up all the girls on the course. Mrs chinajim made sure that this was not a problem for me! The course had just under twenty people on it from all over Europe. This was our first taste of OMF as a international organisation, and our observation was that the English people were the strangest by far.

In between lectures on OMF’s values and financial systems, we had plenty of time to eat good food, play Frisbee and swingball. The evenings were then full of testimonies from the candidates, each tailored to an imaginary audience. Our testimony was to be pitched to a youth group so we played “Who wants to be a professional in East Asia?” This included lifelines like phoning an OMF expert.

After the two weeks, and some more interviews, we found out that we had all been accepted and the champagne was cracked out. Hooray, we’re finally members of OMF! Er, not quite yet. We still have to go on an orientation course at the International Headquarters in Singapore in a few months time. In the meantime we begin a deputation program around Scotland. We will travel the land speaking at churches and prayer groups, trying to raise prayer support. More later…

ChinaJane

It was strange to set off for our two weeks’ course in Kent. We didn’t really know what to expect, or what the other people would be like. As it turned out, the candidate’s course was a really special time of meeting other folks who were going through the same process as us. We had lots of opportunity to ask questions (such as ‘Where does our money come from when we’re in Asia?’ and ‘What should we do if we’re useless at learning the language?’) and pick up tips from the other candidates.

Probably the best part for me was meeting a couple who’d just spent two years in East Asia and were upgrading to go long term. They’d stayed in a city not far from where we’ll be, so were able to give us lots of handy hints: all basic stationary items are readily available in the country we’re heading to, but that specialised card-making materials need to be taken with us. Baking equipment is hard to come by, but Tesco’s medium sized blue baking dish fits the average oven there exactly. Clothes are much cheaper there. Shoes are readily available up to size 6 for ladies and size 10 for men. Surprisingly useful little hints!

Coming home from candidate’s course, we are really grateful to God for giving us some peers – some other people who are going through the same strange process as us. It’s a real joy to know we’re not the only ones!