"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!