Monthly Archives: April 2009

Bringing it Home

April 20, 2009 – 9:01 am
By Ariel Smith | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (0)

North American culture has worn me down again, and I am sinking back in to familiarities.  It hasn’t, however, covered up pieces of Southeast Asian culture that I have intentionally taken from my experience abroad.  It was difficult to vocalize and express what these aspects of my experience looked like when I returned back to Canada, but in our final few plane rides I began to understand what I really value from my time in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand.  I wrote this while sitting in the Bangkok airport, waiting for our flight home.

The clouded sky and broken trees have been on my mind,
and I’m stumbling for simplicity.
The mist and soil have imprinted my heart,
and I’m begging for peace in the eyes of war.

I’ve seen love here, and I can’t leave it behind.
I’m bringing hope with me and taking her home.

The trip to Southeast Asia was an extremely positive experience for me.  I found that the culture and people encouraged me to live in peace, and live a much simpler life than that which is promoted in the West.  My fear was that I would see this beauty and simplicity and not recognize it as I come back to a familiar place.  I find now, that I am often reminded of the heart that I encountered in Asia.  I am continuing to pray that this experience will connect with other aspects of my life, and that I can learn from it as I grow, spiritually and academically.

The Dangerous World of Politics

April 18, 2009 – 9:42 am
By Dan Snyder | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (0)

Politics has been an interest of mine for as long as I can remember. During my time here at SSU, although there are no outright political science courses per se, I have managed to weave the thread of politics into many of the papers I have written in the multiple disciplines. Whether it is contrasting Aristotelian and modern political theory in philosophy, or discussing the social and political ramifications of James Joyce’s literature, as much as possible I like to find the “political angle” within my studies.

This past term allowed me to gain a new angle: discovering the world of Southeast Asian politics. I was excited to learn about the way governments operated in a different part of the world and what involvement the citizens had with their political system. It was fascinating to see the different influences on each of the countries that we visited and how they had shaped the country’s political history. The current government of the Philippines has been modeled mainly upon that of the United States with some evidence remaining of the previous Spanish colonization and the effect of the Catholic Church in that country. In Malaysia, the Islamic religion plays an influential role in the governance but there are also clues that point to the British presence there. Thailand is unique among the Southeast Asian nations for having never been officially colonized; there the role of the Buddhist religion and the institution of the monarchy greatly influence the politics.

When looking into the politics of this region, the majority of the countries in Southeast Asia seem to be rife with corruption, bid-rigging, ethnic conflict and military intervention. From a Western perspective, it was all to easy to approach these issues with a bit of a superiority complex, thinking: “Wow, it’s a good thing we don’t have it this bad back in Canada/the U.S.” I’ll admit, before I went on the trip and at the beginning of my time there, this is how I felt. By the end of the trip though, and after being home for a few weeks, I have come to a different conclusion. We in the West should not be so smug about our system: it is not perfect. Although in theory it looks good when compared to the blatant corruption of officials in some of these other countries, we would be kidding ourselves if we thought that there was no corruption over here. The fact is that it’s more covert and sometimes more insidious.

This conclusion was confirmed for me after I read an article just the other day that I thought could have been a page from one of my Southeast Asian textbooks. The headline was: “7 Ottawa tech firms charged with bid-rigging”. Now the difference is that in Southeast Asia this would be front-page news whereas in Canada (where this supposedly doesn’t happen) it is buried in the news. (Type “bid-rigging” into Google News and there are 2 results for this story).

Although we should be thankful for the relative peace that we experience in the West, we should not allow that peace to let us to slip into complacency but to always be striving for better, at home and abroad.

living and breathing and moving

April 18, 2009 – 9:37 am
By Brianna Kocka | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (0)

Being back from Asia (or anywhere, really); it is a strange thing. It is not that being back is strange because I am not in The Philippines, Thailand or Malaysia in particular, it is just strange moving from one thing to the next.

I was just thinking to myself that I have been away from home at university for two years now.

Two years.

That time has flown by. It seems like just yesterday I was deciding to leave Minnesota and come to this far off land called St. Stephen. But, time passed as it does, and what seemed long while in the process became quick.

The time passes and all of a sudden we are changed and we barely notice it.

This “almost-time-travel” mentality applies to my time traveling through Asia with St. Stephen’s University. When you are in it, you are in it; time moved slow throughout my trip and suddenly, after a long (yet remarkably quick) two day trek I was back in Canada, back in St. Stephen. And it seemed as though I had never left.

Life keeps moving when you are moving, even when you expect it to stop.

And, the days passed. The school work began to build up, the trip, the being there lost focus and the being back took over. And now, weeks after resettling I am beginning to recall the times I had, the hard and marvelous times I spent traveling. Memories I had already forgotten have begun to float back into my mind, to prove that I am alive, that I am living and breathing and doing.

And the time, it keeps moving.

The Adventure

April 18, 2009 – 9:34 am
By Lucas Walters | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (0)

Returning home to Canada has been very bitter sweet, I found my self standing in the airport in Toronto and having everything feel foreign to me, seeing so many people of the same race as myself. After coming home from Southeast Asia I found it very strange to be back and slipping into a routine. No longer needing to negotiate prices when I am at the store, being surprised at just how expensive things are. Life in Canada seems very easy compared to being abroad. I no longer need to worry about the quality of the water that I am drinking or drinking massive amounts of it.  I am still finding my self wanting to remove my shoes when I enter a house am amazed me at the amount of clothing that I am able to chose from each morning; I am no longer confined to just whatever is in my backpack. Being able to comprehend that I have just come home from the longest trip that I have ever been on has been interesting, it is still hitting me that I have just spent eight weeks on the road flying across the world to experience Southeast Asia. Swimming in the South China Sea, climbing the second largest mountain in SEA, or riding bicycles through thousand year old temple ruins has been quite a reality check. I feel very privileged to have been able to go to Southeast Asia and travel with awesome people and just experience new and wild things. This was a trip that would not have been on the top of my list had I had a choice in the location, but the more that I was there, the more that I was thankful that I was there living in the moment and experiencing such wonderful things.

Being home and seeing my family and friends once again has been so wonderful, but at the same time I have found it hard to relate to someone that has not experienced a trip like this. Trying to integrate back into what is considered normal life by North American Standards has been challenging. You are able to experience so much on a trip like this, then you return and life is the same as when you left. It is strange to return and know that you will be staying in the same place for more then a week and you will have hot water for  a shower and that it will be clean. You are not faced with the task of always guarding your backpack, passport and camera or at least the fear of misplacing it is much less.

Finishing up school and getting ready to shift gears into summer has been an exciting time. The tedious taks of searching for a summer job, trying your best to convince someone two thousand kilometres away that you are worthy of a position, and yet really wanting not to work for the summer but go on new adventures presents a challange.  But then reality once again hits you and you realize that being in school is almost like a vacation in that I was able to travel this semester and spend time on the beach and see and do so many awesome things that working for  a few months does not seem as bad. Knowing that I will be able to travel again soon enough, I look forward to that, once again living out of a backpack, sleeping on airport floors, long bus rides and not really caring where you are sleeping as long as it is warm. This is my personal expericne with travel and being in the best undergraduate program in Canada! (That is in my personal opinion, of course).

My Birkenstocks Won’t Let Me Forget

April 16, 2009 – 9:15 pm
By Lindsay McKay | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (0)

Every once in a while, I have moments of intense forgetfulness. This forgetfulness that I speak of has to do with forgetting about the Asia trip. Perhaps forgetfulness is not the correct word choice because believe me, I will not soon forget this experience. Every once in a while, a memory appears in my mind’s eye and I realize that I have indeed been to Asia. Sometimes, I look down at my feet upon which one can often find my beloved Birkenstocks. My Birkenstocks are very good at helping me remember.

Now, you may be wondering how shoes can possibly help me remember anything. You see, I wore my Birkenstocks nearly everyday while in Asia; they were good to my feet. Unbeknownst to me when I packed them in my suitcase in preparation for the trip, they have become one of my principle reminders of my experiences. When I look at them, I remember the places that they have taken me. Places like Philippine church, Paoay Church built in the 16th century by slaves to the Spanish crown. They lead me past cows and stray cats to a small mosque in a Muslim village in the interior of East Malaysia. These reliable shoes steered me through the sacred grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok; and they help me remember.

Every religion has icons. Icons are meant to be vehicles through which people remember the significance of something such as religion in their lives. For Christians one such icon is the cross and for Buddhists the image of the Buddha. Similarly, in a desperate attempt not to forget the places that I have been and valuable lessons that I have learned, I rely on familiarity to bring remembrance. I suspect that as the days and weeks turn into months and years, as I slip my feet into my faithful Birkenstocks time and again, I will remember the places that they have taken me and the things that I learned in those places. That, my friends is how my Birkenstocks will be one of my favourite icons of my trip to Southeast Asia.

Bridging the Gap

April 16, 2009 – 4:29 pm
By Laura Copping | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (0)

Our trip to Asia has been a truly enlightening experience. Not only do I know all there is to know about Buddhist temples and Southeast Asian history (ok, so maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration), but I have also experienced cultures that have taught me extensively about humanity and have inspired me in my own passions through the various nuances of everyday life. I have learnt about sustainable living from one of our speakers, Jeff Rutherford, and about simplistic living from my Filipino and Malaysian host moms. While it is interesting to know about the many kings of Thailand and their history, it is the lessons on sustainable and simplistic living that will (hopefully) have a lasting impact on my life.
Asia has taught me a lot, but above all I have learnt about community. I know that our class certainly isn’t a perfect community but what my experiences in Asia have shown me is that we, as a class, are willing to strive for something deeper. We went into the Asia trip very divided, there were clear lines separating one group from another. As we travelled together, we learnt about each other; we discovered how to bridge the gap that divided our class into their two extremes and how to love (or understand, or have grace for, or be patient with) the individuals that just seemed so different from ourselves. It has been three weeks since we’ve been back and still I am amazed at the connectedness of our class.

My Asian Experience

April 16, 2009 – 1:59 pm
By Bethany Grieco | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (0)

As the past few weeks have gone by and I have had time to reflect on my Asian experience, I think about the struggles and the ability to overcome, I realized what community truly is. It was the people I went with, my classmates, professors and my faith that challenged me and encouraged me to experience more.

I was encouraged by my classmates to try new things. They were always trying to help me get the full experience of Asia, whether it was trying disgusting foods or seeing the city when I just didn’t want to. They made the trip, a trip of a life time.

The next best thing on the trip was the ability to travel with my professors and leaders. They were incredible, challenging us to make the best of the trip. They were our own personal tour guides who knew so much. They encouraged us to dig deep and learn big, recommending us to research further into the areas we were interested in on the trip. They were always ready to have intellectual conversations or ready to crack a joke. They made the atmosphere light and easy for traveling.

One of the best experiences on the Asia trip was the growth in my personal walk with Jesus. As we traveled and experienced difficult times I was encouraged by my friends and professors to turn to the lord in our times of need, this was a necessity. We found a verse which we tried to live by in Ephesians four:

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit- just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord as you were called to one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Together with classmates, profs and the lord, it made my trip one of the best I have ever been on. I learnt what a Christian community is, always being there for each other. It was a wonderful experience I would do again and again.

There and back again…

April 14, 2009 – 8:50 pm
By Lois Craswell | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (0)

Well I have been back in beautiful Canada for almost two weeks and sometimes it feels as if I haven’t actually left. But looking back at the past few weeks there is an obvious change that has happened in my life. Other than the fact that I am mufflerless, there are signifcant changes that have happened and to my surprise it is a spiritual change.  During our debriefings there was a sense of spiritual connectiveness as well as class connectiveness and even if we only had three Celtic prayer services there was a real spiritual community that was built while in Asia and when I came back there was that fear that I wouldn’t be able to find it. Brianna said it right that sometimes, or a lot of the time, the spiritual side of school gets pushed to the far corners of our mind which make us apathetic to the things around us and only caring for what goes on in our personal bubbles/circles. But I think one major thing that God taught me on the trip was to be open to other people that are outside of your normal circle and that as a traveling spiritual community you need to be open and willing to talk to “strangers” in the group. And I think that I did.  There are four beautiful girls, Crystal, Ariel, Cara, and Bethany that I have gotten the chance to get to know a lot better and see that they are beautiful, spiritual women and willing to be spiritually vulnerable. Also being home I have wanted to get to know the other people that weren’t on the trip that I have always been afraid to get to know because they were in a higher year or just not in my circle of friends, but there could be such great relationships made if only we step out of our comfort zone. Another fear is that while being home I will lose this “getting to know other people” attidude and fall back into the old way I meet people, which was take a long time and not even talk to certain people. But I think that there are enough people feeling the same way and our God is a good God and maybe it will be something that He places on the hearts of all of the students at SSU! Who knew it would take a trip to SE Asia to figure it out!

The Postscript

April 14, 2009 – 8:40 pm
By Katie Ironside | Posted in SE Asia 2009 Comments (0)

It’s been two and a half weeks now since our return to Canada after a long, but amazing, couple months abroad. There are times when I can hardly believe that I am no longer in Asia, and other times that I can hardly believe I was even there at all. In the span of seven weeks, my understanding of the world was challenged, my relationship with God reformed, my relationships with others deepened, and my memory-box of experiences filled to overflowing. I have learned so much about the peoples and cultures of Southeast Asia, but I have also learned a lot about myself. I always find that God does that- you know, teaching you something about yourself that you had never considered before, all-the-while you were expecting to learn something completely different. He’s sneaky like that.

Putting into words how I feel at this moment might prove difficult—mostly because I still am not sure myself—but I think I could be bold enough to make the blanket statement that my time in Asia has stretched me and enlightened me in more ways than one. I look forward to seeing how I will continue to grow and learn as the things I experienced really begin to sink in; however long that may take.

So, here’s to adventures with friends, old and new, and being brave enough to let myself learn in ways I would never have believed imaginable.