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!