looking back on 2010

2010 didn’t turn out the way I planned. If you had asked me on Dec 31, 2009 to write out 2010 for you the story would have been pretty different from the one that played out. Not that different is a bad thing. It still amazes me how God can take my plans, shake them around and make them something new. Something better. And so today I give you my unexpected blessings of 2010:

•  I started the year of celebrating my first Holidays overseas with friends in the mountains a few hours from here. What a gift it was to spend that first season with a group of people who have become my family away from home.

•  January and part of February were spent in full-time language class. It was a challenge, but it has paid off so much this year. I’ve also been blessed with some great friendships with several of the married couples who study or have studied there this year.
• I made a lot of new friends as I began to explore this city and meet lots and lots of college students. It’s funny how we can be so much the same and so different at the same time.
• THE Josh Zylks came to visit in April and May. What a blessing to have a friend from my “old world” come experience a part of my new one.
•  I went trekking in the Himalayas and hiked to the top of the Ganges River’s glacier. Who gets to do that?!?!
• I experienced a real life monsoon for the first time… and lasted 2 ½ months! Okay, so this one was unexpected (it was the worst monsoon in 40 years), but I don’t know that I’d call it a blessing.
• EasyDay, the Indian Walmart opened up just down the road from my house.
• We got a KFC and a Subway.
•  I spent almost 2 months in Thailand. Who would have thought that’d happen?
• I got to meet up with old friends and make new ones. It amazes how living overseas can be such a connecting bond.
• I held a white tiger (and I have a picture to prove it).
• I went “flying” through the rain forest on a zip line.

Talk about an improvement over my plans. I think it’s easy for me to get discouraged sometimes when things don’t go the way I think they should, but if they had I wouldn’t have experienced a lot of things on this list.

I’ve got big plans for 2011, but I’m willing to bet that God shows me one more time that my plans are little compared to what He has in store.

- एरिक