What is the Around-the-World Semester?

The more I tell people what I'm doing, the more I realize that most people have no idea what I will be doing. So here is the break down as far as I understand it:

First of all, when I say I will be traveling around the world, that is literal. I will be actually circumnavigating the globe. This is also not semester at sea. I don't think we will be doing any real traveling by boat, just sightseeing. I will be flying to ten different countries in order: Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Ethiopia, our flight then lands in Austria where we will bus into Hungary, then we will fly into Peru, where we will land bus into Bolivia, then back to Peru for our finals. We will be leaving August 5th and returning December 16th. This will leave us with one to three weeks in each country. We will be seeing the sights and exploring all the nifty places. For instance, while in Peru, we will be visiting Machu Picchu, and in Ethiopia we will visit some Rock-Hewn churches.

Second, this is a full academic semester. I will gain sixteen elective credits from this trip, keeping me on schedule for my schooling. Most of the classes focus on delving deeply into the culture. Epic literature focuses on a certain book that is very important to the heritage of a nation, for instance, in India we will be reading the Qur'an. Post Modern novel is about the current culture of a nation. We will be reading Chronicle of a Blood Merchant in China to get a better understand of what the current Chinaman's life is like. Foundations of Language is exactly what it sounds like. We will be learning basics of each language so that we can at least blunder our way through a conversation. Service Learning Practicum is all about learning to serve the people we are with. It's all about how to properly serve people. Finally I have a Travel Writing class, where I will learn to become better at telling stories of my travels. Hopefully that means that as the semester progresses these blog posts will become better written.

Finally, as a part of our service practicum class, we will be participating in working with mission groups in all these countries. In India we will be serving in the Mother Teresa homes. In Ethiopia we will be working with E3, a ministry that tries to establish new churches which will eventually change the community. In every country we will be serving the people living there in hopes of bringing both our team and those served closer to Christ while meeting the needs here.

This may be dangerous for me to offer, but here goes: If you have any questions feel free to ask me any way possible (reply to the blog, facebook me, call me, etc.).