fence-crossing

Well, this will be the last post from the southern side of the border before the new year arrives in all its waxing glory. It will also be a little short, because I don't have a ton of time to expound the profundity of my finite mind.

We are leaving for El Paso today, hoping to cross the border in the evening time, find a hotel close to the airport, and fly out for home tomorrow morning. My thoughts about this change of place, routine, and rhythm are a little jumbled at the moment, still tied together with the logistics of what I have to do before getting on the airplane.

Nevertheless, I've been thinking about how this time of going home has finally come, and how unreal it seems right now. I've been dreaming of going home for months now, how I got more excited as the days passed from Thanksgiving-time into December's patient anticipation of all that is red and green. As my recent posts have indicated, I've missed (and am missing) my family a great amount, and the amount of anticipation I have to celebrate Christmas with them and be in a known, familiar place is building up rapidly.

I'm standing in what seems to me a dry, brown pasture, longing for the lush, verdant fields on the other side of the fence. Over the fence lies my home, warmth, familiarity, fellowship, a place where I am known and can speak my own language all the time, and all the comforts of my former life. This appeals to me greatly, for obvious reasons. Here, in this desert life, I am exposed to my weakness and removed from my familiar roots, forced to place my trust in God, who is not comfortable to my liking most of the time.

Tomorrow, I'll be crossing the fence to the other side, rejoicing in a reunion with my family and my home. I am greatly thankful for this, and am entirely ready to celebrate this happy homecoming with them. At the same time, I do not want to cultivate an attitude of "looking for greener grass" in my life. As a good friend wisely commented on a recent post of mine, the secret to contentment is to live in the "eternal now" of the living God, even in the marginal, dry-pasture times of life. To drink deep of each moment of the time we have been given is a pleasure when drunk in Yahweh's Light.

waiting...

To keep in step with the reflective theme of my blog, allow me to answer the question that sprawls across the top of your web browser: "here I am, but where am I?"

The obvious answer is this: I'm here Parral, doing the same thing I've been doing for four months, which is teaching and being a part of the body of Christ. The more complicated answer still evades certainty in my mind, which is preoccupied with things of a much less significant nature.

This is what I feel: I'm very ready to go home and be with my family. As I wrote a few weeks ago, I keep daydreaming of the moment I see my mom and dad when they pick me up at O'Hare International Airport. The joy of that reunion is something I long to experience. I can't wait to bear-hug my brother when we pick him up from O'Hare the next day. The longing I have in my heart to see my family and be in the same place with all of them nearly brings tears to my eyes as I anticipate it. I miss them tremendously. I also greatly look forward to being reunited with my close friends, whom I haven't seen for half a year, whose lives have changed dramatically since we last talked.

Although I enjoy my life here and know that this is my job/responsibility right now to be here, I'm finding it very difficult to keep a good attitude about being here when I would much rather be somewhere else. I want to experience the comfort of home and familiar people, with whom I can talk in my own language. I'm tired of teaching kids, the majority of whom don't care about my English lessons, and I want to be in a place where I am truly known. But this is what I feel.

This is what I know: God the Almighty sees my rotten attitude toward my life here, and the rest of my stinky, messy thought-life. And by mercy, He decided to punish Jesus Christ rather than me. Now, I know that wanting to go home is not a sin. But, my discontent and apathy toward the real problems that are in front of my face are definitely not the attitudes of those who have been rescued from God's wrath by grace. I am realizing more these days the importance of Paul's attitude of being content in every situation.

Jumbled thoughts of the future, hopes and desires of this world, and preoccupation with temporary comfort: these things occupy my mind most of the time, not the timeless, unexpiring promises of the Gospel. When I lose sight of the Cross, I begin to think that I deserve a good life and I start trying to acquire this "good life". What a deception, eh? Didn't Jesus say that I needed to lose my life in order to find life? Wasn't he telling the truth when he said that in him and him alone is true life found?

Thanks for reading my thoughts. If anything, it helped me sort out a little where I'm at, as I try to finish this race well before a wonderful holiday break. A week and three days before home! Pray that I put forth my whole effort into stewarding what I have been given.

mi casa es tu casa

Well, here's a short post just to let you know that we are successfully moved in to our new place. One Saturday morning/afternoon, one truck, and half a dozen faithful female friends placed us in our new apartment, safe and sound, albeit a little disorganized.

Although David invited half the church to come and help us move, only half a dozen young women showed up at our house at 7:30 am on Saturday to help us pack, move, and clean. Don't worry, we're in the midst of giving our guy friends a hard time about the quality of their friendship. These awesome girls pretty much worked a miracle by packing up our entire kitchen and most of our bedrooms, as well as cleaning practically every square inch of the empty house, all in half a day. Yeah, we pretty much owe our lives to them. I'll never say a bad thing about women for as long as I live.

Our new place is much smaller than our house before, which had two floors and a huge basement, but it fits us a LOT better than the old one. We hardly used any of the acres of space we had in the old house, and now it feels that the three bedroom, one bath wonder we have now is truly home. That, and it is partially carpeted, fully insulated, and has central heating, which are all rarities in Mexican residential construction. It was wonderful to get out of bed this morning and sink my toesies into soft, warm carpet and not freeze my buns off after getting out of the shower. Oh, what a creature of comfort I am!

I'll try to post a few pictures of our new abode here pretty soon. Fifteen days until home, and counting!

fire, vomit, and drastic change

In another attempt to write something more concrete in describing our gringo teacher life here in Mexico, I'd like to relate to you a few recent developments in our dramatic story of teaching, living, and learning.

I'll start off with a sad note. If you have read the last couple of entries on this wonderful blog, you probably read about the details of my housemates and the joys I have had living with them thus far. Well, only a few days after I posted that description of our bilingual brotherhood, Jorge abruptly decided to resign from the church and leave the congregation (and the city) for good, due to various personal reasons. This came suddenly to us, catching us completely off guard. Today, a week and a half after, we're still feeling the loss and the hurt of seeing a good friend go away.

This drastic change implied several things. First of all, the church is now without a youth pastor to shepherd its 150-200 young people. Secondly, we lost a housemate (who was not only a good friend, but paid 1/4 of the rent as well!). Thus, a lot of things have begun to change in the past week and a half. David, myself, and a group of about 15 of the older, more mature twenty-somethings in the congregation have started to take some of Jorge's responsibilities for the youth group and start doing a lot of planning to make the youth group a solid, functioning, edifying body. Also, David, Mica, and myself have been looking for another place to live! We think that we've found a good apartment, and it's possible that we will sign the lease very soon and hopefully start moving on Friday of this week (yikes!). So, please pray for us in this time of transition, that God would be glorified in our life together.

As a part of some of the changes in the youth group, we decided to put on a big bonfire (fogata, for you Spanish speakers) on Saturday to give the youth an edifying, group-identifying, and just plain FUN activity, as well as to lighten the heaviness of the news of Jorge's leaving. It turned out to be INCREDIBLE! The locos fotos above are from that smoky, zany evening. Just imagine a typical American kum-bay-yah youth group bonfire, only spice it up with the chile of Mexican culture and personality, and make it last much longer. Then you might have an idea what it was like.

One final story to close things off with a laugh and satisfy your curiosity which is probably dying to know why I included the word "vomit" in the title of this post. On Wednesday morning of last week, I was in the middle of teaching a brilliant English lesson to my 4th grade students, who were doing their best to pay attention (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt). Suddenly, a boy named Alejandro simultaneously placed his left hand over his mouth and raised his right hand to ask me an urgent question with pleading eyes. Not fully understanding his mumbled, high-pitched request (with the hand covering his mouth, it was a little difficult to make out what he said), I nodded a confused "yes", at which he jumped up and ran for the trash can.

Too late. A liquid substance slightly resembling strawberry milk spewed from between his fingers and generously covered the floor (and several backpacks to boot). The general reaction of the class was a disgusted groan, followed by several screams, indicating to whom the affected backpacks belonged, followed by one of the most alarming of sounds to any teacher: the dry (soon to be wet) heaves of the students who could not handle the sight or smell of fresh vomit. After a few moments of confusion, I saw the unmistakable telltales of pre-vomitation growing strong: pale faces, hands clutching at the stomach, and voices clamoring, "Oh Teeeacher...I'm seeeeeck!"

Raul, one of my best students, opened the door to the classroom (which leads out onto a concrete walkway/balcony through which the classrooms are accessed), ventured outside, and promptly lost his breakfast on the concrete. Fernanda, a sweet yet slightly clueless little girl, managed to climb up on one of the desks which was close to the outside window, open the window, lean halfway out, and puked about a foot away from Raul. I'm pretty sure another student threw up in the classroom before I was able (shouting in Spanish over the sustained disgusted roar) to evacuate the entire class to the bathroom.

After getting them to the bathroom, I valiantly tried to form them into stately lines of boys and girls and proceed orderly to the toilets, but the urgency of the moment provided that they ran as fast as they could to the stalls in order to throw up in the toilet rather than in front of their friends. Before it was all over, at least six more vomited in the bathroom.

I had sent one of the more responsible (and less sick) students to find the janitor to clean up the mess in the classroom, and in order to give her proper time to repair the damage, I took my class outside and forced them to sit down in the slightly warm, tree-shaded school courtyard to rest their little stomachs and get their easily-distracted minds off the strawberry-milk mess in the classroom. After about 10 minutes of hearing the constant complaint of, "Teeeacher, I have a estomagache!" (that's Mexican 4th grader Spanglish for "stomachache", which was a vocabulary word three weeks ago--aren't I a good teacher?), I herded them back into the classroom and told them to play games for the rest of the hour. There was no way I was going to capture their attention and resume my brilliant lesson after that fiasco.

home

De donde eres? (“Where are you from?”)

I am often asked this question when I meet a new person here in Parral. Total strangers in a neighborhood grocery store also ask me this question, when they (somehow) recognize that I am not a local. My usual answer? Soy de Chicago. Although I’m technically not really from Chicago, it’s close enough to my new hometown, and it’s also a somewhat-recognizable name for Mexicans. That way, I don’t have to try to pronounce or explain where Wisconsin is located in the United States.

But really, where do I come from? I’ve lived in Missouri most of my life, but my family recently acquired a second home in Wisconsin. I also spent four years of my life going to college in Arkansas. And for the past four months (almost), I’ve lived in Mexico. That’s geographically speaking, at least. But if we’re talking about all the people, experiences, and ideas that have molded and shaped me into who I am, the list of influences grows long. The caring and thoughtful upbringing of my parents, the constant companionship of my brother since I was a toddler, transition between high school and college life, church experiences, growing up in the middle of the United States, and that’s only to name a select few.

As I mentioned, it’s been about four months since I’ve seen my family. That’s the longest period of time that has elapsed without my having laid eyes on them. There are a lot of things that I miss about them: my dad’s consistency and strength, my mom’s warmth and sensitivity, my brother’s sharp wit and ability to send us all into stitches with a brilliant, expertly-timed one-liner.

I miss quiet evenings when I play my guitar to entertain my mom while she cooks her world-famous chocolate chip cookies and cheerfully sings along to my strumming. My brother and dad sit on the couch, Matt doing his best to pick my dad’s extensive brain about some topic he just read about in Time magazine. There’s probably an episode of the Andy Griffith Show playing on the TV in the background, and the teapot is whistling away, letting us know that the evening cup of tea is almost ready.

I love those times dearly: I am myself, I am at rest, and there is peace, familiarity, and warmth. My family knows me and I know them. It is a time and place of joy and love. But, is that the ideal of home which I should try to obtain? Is that the “ultimate” for which to strive?

For being a missionary-nomad type for most of his life as he was, the Apostle Paul had some pretty good thoughts about home:

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

God in us and we in God. Shared fellowship with the Being by whom and for whom we were created: is that not the meaning of home? Through thoughts of missing my family, being separated from familiarity, and adapting to new places and people, my steadfast anchor is the revealed knowledge of being in fellowship with God through the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remain there, my friends: whether you’re at home or far away from it, remain there.

bilingual brotherhood

I’m sitting here in our newly-created sala (living room), on furniture provided by our extremely generous pastors, chatting with my companeros (housemates) David, Mica, and Jorge about all sorts of things: the Gospel, our housecleaning schedule, getting wireless Internet in our house, giving Mica hard time about his girlfriend, and how our newly-purchased bottle of “purified” water smells a little suspicious. We’re laughing, talking seriously, reading, working on our computers, and just having a good time relaxing on a Saturday night. Most of the time, our conversation is in Spanish with blips of English thrown in between. This makes it much more interesting for me, to not only practice my Spanish, but to also coach Jorge along as he learns my language with stuttering ease: "Hey, man, I need to go myself to the bathroom, man."

Let me just give you a picture of the caliber of the guys to whom I wake up to every morning.

Jorge: When I told people in the U.S. that I was going to Mexico, they told me, “Oh, those Mexicans are going to have to look up to you.” Not so with my friend Jorge Franco. He has at least 3 inches on my precious 5 feet and 11 inches, and outweighs my slender frame by a good 75 pounds. The only true Parral native of the house, he’s about 26 years old, and although he went to university to be an engineer, he’s now the youth pastor at our church and the manager of our church’s coffeehouse. Needless to say, he has an abundance of energy (despite his size), and keeps much busier than me most of the time.

However, around the house, he’s a goofball. He makes a good youth pastor, because he loves to have fun like a little kid and yet is very concerned that los chavos (the young people) at the church come to know Jesus truly and personally. And his nickname around the house? “The Cereal Monster”, because his appetite for cereal is nothing less than voracious. Our poor boxes of “Honey Bunches of Oats” quickly disappear when Jorge is on the rampage.

Mica: Originally from Puebla, Mexico, this amiable and genuine Mexican is the rebuttal for any argument that might try to stereotype Mexicans as ignorant and non-intellectual. He actually puts me to shame on most things intellectual. Practically tri-lingual, Mica has studied in North Carolina and Germany, as well as in more than one university in Mexico. That, and he actually understands economics, which I think is really cool. We’ve definitely had more than one conversation about how economics and history are such cool things to study. He teaches economics at the local university here in Parral, which (I say) is the cause of his partially balding head, even though he’s still a mere 28 years old.

He’s also a big gamer, and we’ve had plenty of fun moments playing HALO together. Having lived on his own for quite a while before moving in with us, he’s quite a cook, and we’ve cooked some pretty good meals together for our other housemates, who don’t enjoy cooking quite as much as we do. He’s a solid guy in the Lord, and is constantly encouraging me (directly and indirectly) to know Jesus, our strength.

David: My longtime JBU friend, fellow J-Alviner, and nearly-constant companion David has been a huge source of strength and refreshment to me during my three months here in Parral. I have been so blessed to have him right next door the past three months. Not only does he speak English as a native language, but he is a guy who REALLY wants to know Jesus, and pushes me (through his example) to know Him as well.

He is a fellow teacher at the school, and he heads up the English Program there. We’re pretty much together a lot of the time. We go to school together, we teach together, we go home together, we eat lunch together, we talk a bunch in the evening, and wish each other good-night every evening. Okay, not the last part, but you get the picture. There are moments when we’ve gotten a little sick of each other, but God has been gracious to give us a chance to share life together and build each other up when times have been difficult.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how different my experience would have been without these guys in my life. A friend from JBU who is studying Spanish in Chihuahua (about two hours away) came to visit us this weekend, and she told me that she has really struggled with loneliness the past couple months. It wasn’t so much the lack of family or JBU friends, but the absence of anyone with whom she could personally relate and share life. And then it dawned on me: “I’ve been totally spoiled! I’m surrounded by people like that!”

It’s interesting how my transition was between my college life and this new life here in Parral. In many ways, they’re incredibly similar. At JBU, I had a community: solid, intimate friends with whom I worked, played, talked, and did crazy things. Although I work a lot more here (something about having a real job…), I still have a community, made up of good friends with whom I work, play, talk, and do semi-crazy things (the crazy things were a little more crazy in college, as it should be).

Human beings have an inherent and healthy need for community. To feel that one belongs. To feel at home in someplace and with someone. To know that your absence would affect the outcome of a joint venture. To be depended on and dependent upon. What a beautiful thing it is to belong, most especially and most profoundly in the Body of Jesus Christ, his Church. May we never be found without the bond of fellowship in the Lord pulling us tightly together.

the day off school!

Greetings, all!

Apologies for the lack of postable material lately. The past couple weeks have been a little crazy. Last week was exam week for all the elementary students, and this week was exam week for all of high school. Thus, I had about 60 tests to grade and 60 grades to configure. If any of my former teachers were here right now, I'd give them a big hug and say thank-you for how much work they put into my education, because let me tell you, teaching is not as easy as it looks!

Right now, I'm sitting down, resting my tired body from a hard day's "play". Today being a national Mexican holiday (The Day of the Dead), we didn't have school, and we teachers decided to make a day out of it. David, Kristen, four lovely Mexicanas, and myself all went to a nearby town called Matamoros to visit a few American friends who work in a home for kids who come from bad family backgrounds. These guys, Adam and Shawn, are going back to the States this week, and we thought that it would be good to visit them and wish them a good journey, as well as hang out with the kids, who definitely need as much love as can be given them.

Thus, after purchasing 8 kilos of meat for a big ol' barbecue, the seven of us boarded a bus and headed across the semi-desert of northern Mexico toward Matamoros. We arrived at the home, and promptly began tossing my frisbee (which never gets left behind on an adventure) with some of the boys. After getting slightly acquainted with the kids and the folks that work at the home, the twenty or so of us piled in a big Ford diesel and took off for the mountains.

There's something beautifully earthy and refreshing about riding in the back of a pickup with 8 chattery Mexican kids and 5 American twenty-somethings, bumping and ka-CHUNKing along on the desert roads. We arrived, dust-laden, at our camping site which was in the middle of a valley, shaded with occasional trees and overshadowed with towering rock mountains. We soon began playing frisbee, badminton, and soccer with the kids and I soon found that although I had more then ten years on them, they could nearly outmatch me in handling a soccerball. Regardless of this and the semi-sunburn that I received from the hot afternoon sun (in November!), I had a blast being with those kids.

Speaking my limited yet growing Spanish with them, pretending to tackle them while playing soccer, and watching them scarf down the meat and potatoes gave a warmth to my heart. It reminded me that kids are kids, whether they come from privileged families (like many of my students at the school), or whether their parents are barely present in their lives, they love attention and have never-ending appetites for new things to learn as well as new ways to get into mischief. I sometimes forget this as I get onto my 4th graders for flitting around the room, occupying themselves with anything and everything except their English teacher who is so desperately pleading that they pay attention to his foreign speech.

That's about all I have from here. Hopefully some more profound thoughts will come to me later and I can share them with you. I pray that you are all well and found in the grace of our Father. As this Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead comes to a close, I praise God that he has given us the life of Jesus Christ, and that his life is at work in and through us.

Remain in Him today, my friends!

update from the cold desert

After glancing back over some of my latest posts, I realized that they are lacking in the good, juicy details of everyday life here in Mexico. I suppose these posts simply reflect the tendency of my thoughts: high, floaty, idealistic, and pondering, not grounded in details whatsoever. So, for the benefit of readers that might be wondering a little more about what life looks, smells, tastes, sounds, and feels like for an English teacher here in Parral, I’ll try to put my observation and writing skills to work and describe it for you in part. Of course, I'll probably tack on some of my floaty ponderingness just to keep things realistic. :)

In case you didn’t know, I live a house with three other twenty-something guys: David, Jorge, and Mica. I’m in the process of writing an entry about the details of my fellowship and interaction with these great fellas, so anticipate more good stuff to come about them later. For right now, just know that they’re incredible brothers, and I love them.

Our house is pretty sweet. We’re still in the midst of trying to acquire more niceties to make our home more homey, but at the moment, we’re quite blessed with everything we could need and then some. Our pastor’s wife gave us a complete living room set to use, along with a hideaway couch, a coffeemaker, a coffee table, an end table, and a lamp. Yeah, she pretty much furnished our whole house. I’m still trying to decide whether I’m more excited about the living room set or the coffeemaker. :)

School is going well right now. I teach 4 classes a day on Monday and Wednesday, and 5 classes on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I confess that sometimes it’s still difficult to feel excited about teaching English (especially to my nutty 4th graders, chatty 9th graders, and apathetic 10th graders), but let me tell you, I find it hard not to be excited about teaching my 12th grade History class. This fact encourages me that I could still find a career in teaching someday.

We arrive at the school to teach at 7 am, and classes end at 2 pm, although we don’t really leave the school until close to 3, because all the students have to be picked up by the parents before we can leave. Thus, school is a large part of the day. This is my first real full-time job, and I’m finding it interesting how much I am falling into the “Well, this is just my job: I’ll do what I have to do, and then I’m outta here!” mentality. I enjoy coming home and relaxing, and then start dreading having to go teach the next morning. This basically means that I’m “just getting by” for 35-40 hours of the week, waiting until I can go home and not think about school.

Pretty lousy attitude, huh? God is using this mentality to show me how stinkin’ selfish and lazy I am. Towards the end of the school day, all I can think about is how David and I are going to get home (since we don’t have a car, and rely on friends for rides most of the time), and what we are going to eat for lunch. I only do the work that I have to do, I don’t think about how I can improve my teaching techniques, I resent my fellow teachers when I feel like they are “outperforming” me, and I although I teach my classes sufficiently, I usually only do it because I have to, not because I want my students to learn. Ugh. Lousy.

Seeing all this crap in myself makes me come to God feeling guilty, insufficient, and below the standard. So I read the Bible to feel better and try to “gain points” with God. Then I read verses like this:

He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Perfect truth and perfect life. Completely right and sufficient in the sight of God. Being made into the very nature of the holy Father Himself. His blameless life traded in exchange for my rotten core. All in the Son, Jesus Christ.

Paul’s right. That IS something to boast about.

search for significance

Why do I want to “count” so much?

I was just recently pouring out some frustration to God, lamenting about my desire to be consumed with living for his glory and not my stupid, selfish demands for comfort and a painless existence. I actually thought it was a rather holy lamenting (to be frank) and I figured God would probably like what I was saying, although I think I was saying in sincere humility, not just trying to impress myself with words spoken out loud. At the end of my “holy” complaint, I said, “My life just doesn’t count at all without you, God!”

And then I heard this small little whisper: Why are you so consumed with “counting”?

It suddenly dawned on me that when I think in terms of my life, I think about it “counting” for something. In fact, I think much of my life has been a constant pursuit for significance. Allow me to illustrate using some honest examples.

I think that a subliminal reason for my coming to Mexico was due to the fact that I wanted my life to seem more significant than it seemed when I was at home. In other words, I felt that my going to Mexico would be a way to gain points for “a life well lived”. By “sacrificing” the comforts and conveniences of home and living abroad for a year, I would receive greater kudos from God, my peers, and myself: “Good job, Billy: you sacrificed and did the good Christian thing. Enter into the ‘significant life'".

Perhaps another example is my need to feel significant is through my interests. Theology, Scripture, philosophy, history, music, and literature are good examples of what I usually think and read about day by day. Most of the reasons why I pursue these things is due to the fact that I think they lead to “the Ultimate”. I have often thought that by pursuing the “higher” disciplines, I would somehow attain to the “secret” of life, and not be bogged down by the stuff that is imbedded in real life. That way, once I understand and attain the “Ultimate secret”, then I’ll be significant, and my life will “count”.

Confusing, huh? I’m surprised I got all that out of my gray matter and into written words. If you understood all that, congratulations. If not, that’s ok. The important thing is, I’m consumed with being significant. I want everything to “count”. Actually, unless I’m way off, I think we all do to some degree.

So what do I do with this? We (or at least I) have a great desire to have significance in our lives. Therefore, we try to create the significance. For me, I study and read the “higher” things, trying to figure it out. Or, I try to seek the significance in relationships and find fulfillment through other people. I really like the good feeling that comes to me when a whole roomful of people laughs at my joke, or pays attention when I talk intelligently about some important matter. I’ve known some guys that found their significance in having the biggest biceps or nicest six-pack, or girls who feel like they “count” when boys turn their heads when they walk past. Or, closer to home, do we find our significance (to borrow my friend Ryan’s expression I just read on his blog) in being the first to top the spiritual mountain of “holiness” (or the appearance thereof)?

And if we do all these things, even if they are good things, is that the true significance that lies ahead of us in the Promised Land of our inheritance in Jesus Christ?

on my worst days

Last Tuesday was pretty terrible. I’m sure I’ve had worse days, like the day I had to put my dog to sleep, but last Tuesday was pretty rough. To begin with, I went to bed late the night before (at midnight) trying to finish some work that needed to be done before the morning, and was awoken by my housemate, David, who knocked on my bedroom door half an hour before we had to leave. Now, some of you might have been able to handle this well, but I don’t like being rushed in the morning. My mother can tell you that in order to be properly civil in the morning, I need to either have a shower, a cup of coffee, or have at least one solid hour elapse since I left the bed.

Therefore, low on sleep and in the confused haze of not feeling prepared for much of anything (let alone teaching classes to 4th graders that don't speak English), I arrived at school overwhelmed with being behind on a ton of work and upset that I didn’t have time to write a meaningful email to my dad on his birthday. I hastily began preparing for my classes, trying to figure out what to do with my 10th graders, most of whom had just failed the test I gave them the week before.

After my first set of classes, I returned to the office, where I hastily began to down a granola bar and some yogurt while simultaneously trying to put together a decent lecture for my history class. Then one of the teachers told me that I couldn’t eat in the office. Now, there was a simple reason for this request: some important people were in the office, talking to the Directors, and apparently my eating granola and yogurt in the office didn’t look professional. However, my reaction was far from this calm consideration: WHAT?! I can TOO eat in the office—I’ve been eating in this office for the first day I got here! What are you talking about?! It’s my right, this isn’t fair, I’mgonnaRRGH,BRYK,ACMSHNACKUM… and there I went off in my mind, just like Yosemite Sam when Bugs Bunny makes him blow his top. I managed to stay calm on the outside, grabbing my granola bar and yogurt and walking out of the office with a thunderstorm furiously raging inside my head.

Now, things began to get a little better after I cooled off and got out of the office. I began to think about what made me react so violently to a simple request. I realized that I desired my right to eat in the office (which is only a selfishly perceived “right”, at that) to be upheld more than I desired the cares of my fellow teachers to have a school that presented itself well.

Then a more profound thought entered my head (by the grace of God, from whence I’m convinced all profound thoughts originate): I follow Jesus the Christ, who gave up every right he had (all of which were TRUE rights, being the Creator of all existence) to come to dirty, rebellious human beings and bleed, suffer, and die on a Roman Cross so that nasty, self-consumed people like me could be saved from the wrath to come and be brought into the Kingdom of Light (see Philippians 2).

So, Jesus hung on a Cross so that selfish little fools like me who prize their “rights” so dearly could be shown that there’s something far greater to live for than my desire to eat my breakfast wherever I want. Ouch.

Cuauhtemoc--A Needed Getaway

Hello faithful readers! Last weekend, I had the astounding opportunity to go experience another part of Mexico, about 4 hours north of Parral. Cuauhtemoc is a sweet little town, right in the middle of a big Mennonite community. Yes, I said Mennonite. There are actually several thousand German Mennonites that live in Mexico, and are well-known for their agriculture genius and very orderly, prosperous farms that stretch for acres across the northern Mexican desert. The Mennonites in Cuauhtemoc are particularly famous for their delicious manzanas (apples): we passed tons of apple orchards as we drove along the highway. The crazy thing is that these Mennonite communities still speak German and maintain a lot of their customs, but they've acclimated quite well to their surrounding culture.

Cesar (the Director of my school), knows a Mennonite lady named Lena who directs a school in Cuauhtemoc. So, he invited David, Kristen, another teacher from the school named Claudia, and myself to go with him to visit her and enjoy the beauty of the area. Lena took us out in the boonies to a national park that is full of really beautiful hills and super-cool rock formations. And, boys being boys, David and I had a REALLY good time climbing, jumping, running, leaping, and pretending to chase orcs and/or be Spiderman jumping from building to building (that is, boulder to boulder).

As you can see in the first of the pictures above, we took a picture with some Mennonite friends of Lena's that joined us at the top of a big mountain (well, it was more like a big hill, but we'll call it a mountain). That was an incredible time. It was definitely the first time I'd ever been a part of a social event where three languages were being spoken. We sang "How Great Thou Art" at the top of that mountain in three languages, simulanteously (English, Spanish, and German). Uh, yeah...pretty darn sweet.

Along with soaking up the beautiful vistas, jumping around rocks with David, and enjoying the trilingual company, God graciously dealt with me in those mountains. I was tired and feeling at the end of myself when I left on that trip. I felt condemned, sinful, dirty, and unable to do anything right, because much of what happened the previous week revealed my utter sinfulness in the face of a righteous God. Selfish motivations, not having eyes to see grace when it's all around me, and being apathetic towards the needs of others--all these things are evidences of my utter incapacity to be good, to be right. As I sat in those high places, looking out at the great azure above and the rolling, stretching desert brown before, I confessed my failure to their Creator and mine. I confessed how I had trampled his glory, ignored his grace, took his forgiveness for granted, and worshipped anything and everything except He who is alone worthy of adoration. And what an answer I received! It wasn't some divine, booming voice, but the subtle whispering of assured forgiveness because of the crucified Beloved.

Brothers and sisters, find yourselves in the perfect righteousness of the person of Jesus Christ today! What a life-altering gift we have received in Him! Let us commend ourselves in our weakness and brokenness, and be found completely clothed in his person, in fellowship with the Father Himself.

the experience of faith

[This post was written a few days ago, when I was pretty frustrated at my inability to feel God, especially in relation to studying the Bible. For most of the past two months, I've felt somewhat spiritually dry and unable to hold onto (or be affected by) the truth of Jesus Christ. I'm continuing to rely on his faithfulness to glorify himself rather than my ability to see him with my own eyes].

I'm looking for Jesus.

Granted, I’m not looking very hard, if looking hard means poring through the books of the Bible, intensely studying its pages. I suppose I’m too lazy for that. Or, perhaps I’m just too discouraged. Or both lazy and discouraged. Lately, I’ve been really confused in my reading of the Bible. I haven’t felt fed or satisfied—only left wondering what the heck Jesus meant when he said such-and-such in Matthew. Maybe it’s because I think too much about the background, the cultural context, and the physical environment in which Jesus said such-and-such. I’m not sure why I feel confused—I guess I just really want to know Jesus, and I’m having a hard time with it right now.

If Jesus is who he said he was, then he ought to be unbelievably mind-blowing. And I know he is, but I just don’t see or feel it right now. Perhaps I’m too emotion-driven. I really want to EXPERIENCE Jesus, and live out of that unbelievable, life-altering experience. But right now, I’m not feeling or experiencing much of anything. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with my selfish, conceited nature and my exceptional talent for ignoring the truth for the sake of convenience. Perhaps I just want to conveniently experience Jesus, just like we zip through our convenience stations to fill up on gasoline in order to fuel our busy lives.

I recently read Psalms 145. The Psalms have been a source of consolation for me during the past few weeks, because they’re so direct. They certainly have their confusing parts as well (not the least of which deals with smashing infants’ heads against rocks), but especially the latter psalms (139-150 or so), the writers are profoundly direct in their praise to Yahweh. I like that. As I read this particular song of David, these words caught on the branches of my heart:

You satisfy the desire of every living thing.

I have to be honest with you: my true, deep-down, soul-level desire does not feel met right now. I feel far from having that desire being satisfied, because I honestly feel far from God. I’m not sure why. Maybe because this is one of those “desert experiences” that people talk about. Perhaps there’s some sin in my life that needs to be dealt with in order for me to be able to know Jesus on a different level. Regardless, I believe that David was right. I’ve experienced this penetrating longing for something true and substantial before, and that knowing Christ fully and eternally satisfies it.

I suppose I should continue to look for him. Perhaps that’s why he brought me here to Parral, away from familiarity, to learn how to look for him, to follow him. In my pursuit, I’m going to hang on to something else that David said in that great psalm:

The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.

i'm right, aren't i?

In church today, I was simultaneously convicted and overjoyed when God graciously gave me a glimpse into my sin-drenched heart.

Since I arrived in Parral, even from the very day of my arrival, I've been looking for ways to prove how my Christianity is better than that of my Mexican church family. I came here with a barely-sealed wound against anything that savored of Pentecostalism, and when I first walked into the church here, that wound opened wide once again. Since then, I've seen my new family through the eyes of suspicion, keeping them wide open for abuses of emotionalism, poor doctrine, an overemphasis on the individual, or whatever else has made me wary of Pentecostals in the past.

And thus far, I've been humbled and completely proven wrong by what I've seen. These people are real. Most of them have been saved out of ridiculous pre-conversion situations like drug or alcohol addiction, party-it-up lifestyles, and lifeless Roman Catholic rituals. I have a friend (we'll call him Hugo) who was so addicted to sniffing crack that his nose looks as if it has been broken several times over. And then Jesus found him. I love watching him worship the true King, because he's been through hell.

These people often face persecution. Being a Protestant in Mexico is slightly akin to being a penguin in the Saraha. They're definitely outsiders, since this country has been tightly controlled by the Catholic church for hundreds of years. The pastor of the church told me a story the other day about someone who is a drug addict. Apparently this guy's mother told him that she'd rather him be a drug addict than a Protestant. That's the kind of social atmosphere in which my new family lives.

These people, my new family, also truly live the Gospel. I've never been in a church like this before. They are dedicated to the expansion of the Kingdom. My brothers and sisters here really practice their faith, especially when it comes to sharing the truth of Jesus Christ with those that haven't yet been rescued.

Sometimes their style doesn't match my preferences, but what does that matter? Sometimes they emphasize one teaching more than I would like, but does that change the fact that God is radically working in and through them? Even if (on the extreme offchance) I'm 'right' and they're 'wrong', they are my brothers and sisters, and it is my greatest privilege to serve them in self-denying love.

Oh, dear friends...it's really hard to learn these lessons, especially when one's heart is hard with self-righteousness. Praise GOD for his grace, which soften the hearts of even the most brittle Pharisee (aka, myself).

geography lesson

Hey ya'll...

For your visual pleasure, I've attached a beautiful shot of Parral taken from the hill that is about 1/2 a kilometer from my house. I climbed it on Tuesday of this week in order to get a little solitude, adventure, and perspective (visually, mentally, and spiritually). I actually wound up getting a little more adventure than I bargained for, because, once I was almost at the top, I encountered a nice couple taking a walk with their 3 large, not-so-nice dogs. Being used to big dogs, I remained calm on the outside, and yet still couldn't help thinking about how bad their teeth would hurt as they circled around me, baring their mandibles and barking quite viciously. But thankfully, they eventually lost interest after their masters yelled at them sufficiently and apologized profusely.

If you have sharp eyes, you'll notice that I performed a little Photoshop magic and added a nice yellow arrow, which points to our casa. We live in a pretty nice part of town, and happen to be right across the street from the only park in the city. The big hill that you see on the left side of the picture is Antenna Hill (I'm sure you can guess why it's called this). If you can imagine that the picture extends to the right about another inch, then you would see the hill on which rests the famous Parral silver mine (now out of commission), and under the shadow of which lies the school/church at which we spend most of our waking hours.

Chido, bato! (which means "Cool, dude!")

Of Rainy Days and Narnian Thoughts

I returned to my room this afternoon in a state of “whatever”. Actually, I had been in this floaty, largely self-pleasing state the whole day. I didn’t really feel like teaching today. My heart wasn’t in it, I was unproductive during my non-teaching hours at work, and my attitude matched the dull, rainy weather outside. Nothing exciting: just wet, inconvenient, and blah.

As I do whenever I find myself in these pensive, floaty moods, I began to give myself permission to not think about work and just lay on my bed with thoughts of purpose and meaning meandering through my tired mind. I looked around at the pictures in my room, and began to realize that my life is changing. My family and most of my good friends are hundreds of miles away, and I’m here in Mexico, teaching kids who, when they see me approach the classroom, groan in anticipation of another boring English class. And then it dawned on me yet again that this is no mission trip: I get to do this for a whole year: during the autumn rains, the mountain cold in wintertime, spring’s newness, and summer’s heat.

Then I desperately turned my thoughts to God. “So, I’m here by your will, huh? It sure better be worth it, because I’m missing a lot back home, you know. What’s the point? I came here…I’ve been her for a month now, and I’m really starting to miss the nice life I had before. Are you going to give me some great revelations, fill me with profound experiences, lead me on great adventures? Because so far, my time with you has been pretty silent, frustrating, and…well…pretty dull. I keep reading the Bible like a good Christian and I’m not really understanding it. What’s the deal?” Although these weren’t exactly my words, they definitely summed up my attitude toward God at the moment.

I just recently finished reading The Horse and His Boy, the third book of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series. I started it on Sunday evening, and finished it last (Tuesday) night. Monday and Tuesday after school, I returned to my house with nothing on my mind except finding the book and devouring its juicy pages. It was a wonderful escape: in picking up the book, I lost track of my responsibility and entered into a foreign and exciting world of runaways, chases, deserts, high mountains, lush valleys, haughty dark lords, humbly noble princes, giants, fauns, centaurs, talking horses, and best of all, a sweet battle at the end where the good guys win and bad guys lose. I hadn’t read the book since I was 12, so although the story was vaguely familiar, all the details had to be gloriously rediscovered.

At one vital part of the story, the main character, a boy named Shasta, meets Aslan (the great Lion from whose creation-song Narnia came into being) for the first time, although he had unknowingly encountered him several times before. Shasta was lost, very discouraged and bemoaning his “unlucky” state, and suddenly Aslan appeared next to him, an immense and ominous presence, temporarily invisible, in the midst of a terrible fog high in the mountains. He asked Shasta to tell him all about his unfortunate situation. After telling his whole story (which was rather unfortunate from a human perspective), Shasta finally asked, “Who are you?” Aslan answered by saying, “Myself” three times, once deep and thundering, once very clear and loud, and once extraordinarily quiet and intimate. Then Aslan revealed to him that he had been with him before, especially in times of trial and important decision, even though Shasta didn’t know it. The fog suddenly cleared, and Shasta beheld the Lion. Boom. Wow. You ought to read it sometime soon.

For some reason, this came back into my thoughts today as I selfishly complained to God about my discomfort. God is Himself, in three glorious Persons. A deep and thunderous Father on his Throne; a loud, clear Son who is the manifested Word; a quiet and penetratingly omnipresent Spirit. Ok, my circumstances are uncomfortable, but I can’t contest with the reality of HIM. He who knows the beginning and the end, He who is capable of crushing the mountains into dust and speaking gentle peace into an unquiet soul, He IS. My weeny life-situation can’t change that eternal, abiding reality. And I am called HIS. Boom. Wow.

"Why did you come here?"

Last week, one of my students asked me this question when we were discussing their journal topic of the day. My answer was the obvious one: "To teach you English, of course!"

However, I've been thinking about this a little more deeply. Why did I come here? My decision to come here was calculated, thoughtful, and motivated by a deep desire for adventure (although those three reasons are a bit contradictory in nature). I prayed about it, felt confident that this was a good decision, mainly because it would be a good post-college experience. I was excited about the idea of teaching--it sounded so noble and so typical of what good, single Christian young adults should do.

How about now? I'll be honest. Right now, I feel like I'm surviving. Teaching is far more difficult than I imagined. Having to discipline apathetic high school boys with an "I could care less" attitude makes me really frustrated. Capturing the attention of squirmy, chattery 4th graders when you don't speak their language requires more creative thought and hard work than did my Honors Thesis on Sacramental Pneumatology. I used to think that being a teacher was akin to leading a glorious bayonet charge against the strongholds of Ignorance. Instead, I feel like I'm sitting in a muddy trench in a God-forsaken French battlefield, trying to restore order to my troops in the middle of an artillery shower. (Can you tell I just finished teaching my 12th graders about World War I?)

I also had the idea that coming to Mexico would give me a chance to grow into my dream of being a more reflective, balanced, informed, problem-solving, sin-overcoming, passionate follower of Jesus. To be frank once again, I feel as beset by sin, pride, and apathy as I did before I came, if not more. I keep dreaming of a time when I will be perceived by others to be a humble, established, strong believer who leads great battles against injustice for the glory of God. Instead, I feel like my ship just got torpedoed, and I'm floundering in the North Atlantic with only driftwood and an ever-receding hope of someday being rescued to keep me afloat. Darned reality.

This week, I had the privilege of witnessing two little girls with tears in their eyes. For some reason, I have a very soft spot in my heart for crying chicitas. Perhaps it's their precious innocence and their present lack of security that turns on the compassionate side of my heart. One of them was accidentally hurt in my 4th grade class, and the other, a rather troubled 1st grader with a troubled family, had to be "disciplined". Regardless of the reason, when I perceived their red, welling eyes, my heart melted for them. I took their hands in mine and told them that everything was going to be ok. When one of them ran up to me the next day at recess and wrapped her little arms around my legs, I nearly fell apart. I delighted in their well-being, and I don't hardly know them.

Today, I felt like a little girl with tears in her eyes. Or at least a little boy. And what a soft spot our Heavenly Father has in his heart for his children!

I'm not really one to wax mushy about God's love. In fact, I often avoid talking about God's love because we often speak of his love without mentioning his holiness, or the fact that we profane his holiness in many and diverse ways every day. I often avoid it because I feel like it's a message much overstated by well-meaning yet shallow "Christian" songs, greeting cards, t-shirts, and email forwards. But today, I can't get around the fact that the Creator of all that is, the One whom angels ceaselessly exalt, the God whom the entire universe glorifies in a great cosmic dance of galaxies trillions of light-years apart, that this God cares about my infinitively insignificant soul.

And this is no empty "I love you". It is backed up with hundreds of promises that are fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, the fullness of the Father's love. The credibility of this unearned, unmerited love is great: a bloodied, shamed, crucified divinity with the spittle of our spite still in his beard and the wrath of his Father bearing hot upon his head.

In view of this, my failure and weakness at the present time are naught but the tears of a little girl. And for some reason, the Creator delights in my well-being. He delights when I delight in him. Perhaps that is why I have come here. He is teaching me to delight in him as I never have before.

Lay hold on Christ with both your poor, empty hands.

This beguiling imperative comes from a quote that my indomitable mother sent me in an email this morning, and I've been contemplating it since. Although I gave my students quite a few imperatives today, such as "Do not talk when I am talking", "Get out your workbooks", and "Take your hankerchief off your head and beneath your desk. No, BENEATH YOUR DESK!", none of them have such a lingering authority than the one that I read this morning.

Each day of teaching thus far has revealed to me my insufficiency, which I wrote about in my first post. I have been encouraged by many friends and advisors since then that it is times like this that God uses to soften and sculpt us according to his will. This quote seems to encapsulate the position to which God is shepherding me (indeed, all of us). To have our hands emptied of our strengths, our riches, and our qualifications is truly an unspeakably merciful act of love. In beholding our emptiness, our eyes are no longer blind to the fullness that dwells in the person of Jesus Christ.

I recently read about Paul the Apostle's use of stating indicative truth and then commanding the imperative in his Epistles. Here's what I mean: it was his style to state an absolute fact, such as the mind-boggling truth that Christ, through the Cross, absolutely defeated sin's dominion over the lives of men. But, only a few verses later, he tells his audience to put sin to death in their daily lives. So, he "imperatives" the indicative by telling his flock to engage their will in that which is already accomplished for them.

The same applies here. The indicative of our faith tells us that Christ has laid hold of us without question. Colossians 3 states that we are "hidden with Christ in God", totally secure in the grace of the gospel. Additionally, the imperative tells us that our wills also need to be engaged to lay hold of that which has laid hold of us.

Isn't that the paradoxical nature of our faith? Rest in the indicative and simultaneously strive for the imperative. And this is all done in a state of humility, that is, with poor and empty hands. This reminds me of a Psalm (I forget which one, and I'm currently not around my Bible--I know, I'm a bad Christian:). I imagine the Psalmist, staring up at a starry Palestinian sky, whispering:

Whom have I in heaven but you?

Brothers and sisters, in our weakness and our strength, let us lay hold of Him who has powerfully and tenaciously laid hold of us.

Parral in pictures

Ok, so here's a few pictures to satisfy somebody's (*cough* MOM!) thirst for a visual stimulation of where I'm at. The first picture is that of the house which David, myself, Jorge, and Mika all call home. Our abode is the second garage door from the left. As you can see, we're not roughing it too much, aside from the fact that we're severely lacking on furniture. So if you have any extra couches laying around, go ahead and FedEx them to us:)

The second picture was taken in the same spot, just looking the other way, down the street and parallel to the house next to ours. Pretty cool stuff, huh?

The next picture is of Independencia street and a statue of some Mexican dude (not Pancho Villa). The church that we are involved with also owns a sweet coffeeshop right next to that "Hotel Turista" sign, which is an outreach to the community through the avenue of fellowship and positive environment. It also has free Internet, which I take advantage of quite often.

Finally, my humble "cuarto". God totally provided a full size bed for me through my housemate Jorge, and although I'm lacking in any other furniture (aside from my suitcase-night-table, that is), God has given us poor profesores so much to be thankful for, such as food in the pantry (well...some:), a stove, a refrigerator, and a washing machine that's so darn fancy that it can also make enchiladas. Just kidding. But seriously, we have a really cool washing machine.

I'll definitely post more later, but that's enough for now. Adios!

Of 4th grade English and fried fat

Well, here I am. But where the heck am I?

The title of my freshly-created blog is an old Irish saying that I learned from a dear Irish friend three summers ago. The meaning of the phrase is a call to reflection: it's easy to understand where you are physically, but often difficult to ascertain where you are in your soul, to know where you're at on this spiritual journey that we're all traveling. Right now, I'm sitting in a comfortable living room of a house belonging to the Elizalde family, whose food I just ate and whose Internet I'm now taking advantage of. But where exactly am I?

My mind is carried back to the day that just passed: it began at 5:30 am, when I pulled myself out of bed to shower and get ready for a Monday full of teaching. David (Okada, my housemate, constant companion, and guide in this new country) and I walked out of the house after a hurried breakfast and brief scanning of Matthew 10 at 6:47 am, and arrived at our designated waiting place in front of the Parral Cinema at 6:53 am. Hugo and his wife Carolina picked us up and drove us to the school, as it is every school morning, and we arrived there at 5 minutes after 7:00. My dear friend and fellow teacher Kristen Olson arrived 20 minutes later, and we hastily prepared for our classes before the morning devotional time that the teachers have at 7:30 (or thereabouts). After the prayer time, we packed up our books, grabbed our dry-erase markers and CD players, and headed to class.

My 4th graders were pretty good today, but talkative and a little clueless as usual. Keep in mind that these are 4th grade Mexican children, and I'm not supposed to speak Spanish to them during class. Thus, there's a lot of confusion and communication issues, because they only speak a little English, and my American college student English is certainly not what they're used to. After two classes of this and a 10th grade class (with a typical 10th grade attitude toward learning) in the morning, I'm about bushed. But, then follows my glorious history class. I love my 12th grade history students. They understand most everything I say and they ACTUALLY WANT TO LEARN! I just eat up their correct answers, thoughtful questions, and willingness to listen to and laugh at my stupid jokes. Then I go to my 9th graders, of whom the girls are excellent students and wonderful direction-followers, and the boys are generally pretty clueless and not interested in what's going on.

After my classes, I'm so glad that school ends at 2:00. I'm really tired of talking, explaining, and telling my students to be quiet and pay attention. Thankfully, I was invited to go eat with Kristen's host family, the Elizaldes. We ate a great meal, but I have to be honest...the chicharron (fried pig fat--like pork rinds, only cooked instead of fried) was almost too much for me. And this brings me to the present: sitting on their couch, thinking about how much work I have to do for tomorrow.

This is a great sampling of a random day that passes casually by during this new life in Mexico. Things are very different...details and schedules are never final until the last minute, grade books don't arrive until the second week of classes, new rules and policies are suddenly revealed when it's very inconvenient to begin following them, time is fluid, promises are sometimes kept, and the people like to eat fried pig fat. Worse of all, I haven't had an honest-to-goodness salad since I left home. In response to all this, I grow impatient and irritated, exclaiming to my American compadres, "What are they thinking??? Why can't they be more American??"

Well, this is where I am: frustrated, incompetent, weary, and very short on love. But, it is in our weakness that Christ is presented as very strong. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:9 that, in response to his weakness, the Lord pronounced that "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness". Thus, Paul boasted in his weakness. Honestly, I don't feel like boasting in my insufficiency right now. I want to fix it. But, that is not possible in this life. Onwards I walk in weakness, trusting in the ability and perfect righteousness of Christ Jesus.

Thanks for reading!