Sunday, August 8, 2010

Josh and I decided we would sponsor a child a while ago

and the opportunitiy came up yesterday at mission conference.

From Philippines, Born Thursday, 15 May 2003

Jamahlyn lives with her parents, brother and sister in the Philippines where 40 per cent of the people live below the poverty line. Her dutues at home include gathering firewood, helping in the kitchen and doing odd jobs.

Jamahlyn's father occasionally works as a farm labourer. For his demanding work he recieved a small allowance, and it is a struggle for him to provide the basic needs his family requires.

Playing house, art and playing with dolls are Jamahlyn's favourite activities. In pre-school she is finding learning difficult and she also regularly attends church activities.

Your love and support help Jamahlyn to receive the assitance she needs to develop her potential. Please pray for her.

You know, I think I've just realized that the past six months have been very self focussed.  It's been all about me studying for umat, or about me study for uni, and very much about me setting myself up for the future. Which I do believe is very important, and something I did  slightly lose grip of in year 12. But for now, I also believe that I've just missed that sense of actually doing something. It's so easy to get tied up in our own lives that we forget about all those people who need our help.

I believe this year has been a year of 'learning' for me, as I haven't had as much time to be actually 'doing' things. Yes, I've spent the last few months doing UMAT etc, but it's over now. And you know, I really just want to get back into it because, because I feel thats what I have a heart for.

I was having this conversation with Josh last night... and he saying that his way of doing something is by studying really hard because he wants to be the best doctor he can be. He wants to really set himself up for the future and that he's not just going to be a medical student who just passed all his units, but really wants to do well at uni so that he is a good doctor. He's a medical student who really sees that end goal and has that sort of motivation to keep at it so that he can reach there.

But I guess that's how we differ a little. I'm more someone who yes, has that end goal too, but I feel that there are also things that I could be doing now. Rather than just leaving it all for the later years of my life. The struggle for me would be to balance the 'doing now' and the 'preparing to do in future' aspect of things. Because I believe both are as equally important and I will always remember my mother telling me that if I do too much now, it might compromise my preparation for the future (she thinks that I did too much in year 12 that it affected my results - and maybe she's right, but maybe she's not and i would have ended up where i am now anyways)

I guess for me, it's striking that balance. and if I think of it as a spectrum, my boyfriend is more slightly to the preparation for the future side, and i'm more to the doing things now side. but we're not on total contrasts, he still does things now and i am still preparing for my future. 

I guess there's only so much time in a day. But my goal for the next six months would be to strike some sort of balance. Because I do need to get really good  grades for my GPA still. And I would still like to do some things that I think are important to me without having to feel guilty about not doing umat! lol. because it's over and I've done all I can and now it's time to move on to focusing on other things that are important too.