The Final Events

As Stephen Hawking’s anniversary events started to wind down, they did so with a bang-of-a-final-show. Last Saturday night hosted the closing events for this year’s anniversary season. The students have been preparing for a month now, each grade to present its own performance of cultural dance. The event started off with a parade through town to advertise the show, with yours truly front and center holding the school’s banner (I’m convinced this became my role when not enough teachers showed up on time). Once we all got to Tarma’s coliseum we put on the finishing touches to the decorations, sound and lighting and waited for the people to arrive. And boy did they arrive. A third of the coliseum was filled by 7:00 and the show began. Along with the students of Stephen Hawking a group of talented college kids from Cesar Vallejo University of Dance (from Lima) were also present to perform various cultural numbers. Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe the night.
I felt like the proud mother of a baby who is first learning how to crawl. My kids performing with grace and cultural pride brought me close to tears several times. The pride in the room was contagious, and I was more than proud of how hard my kids had worked to perform their dances that night. For someone who comes from a culture of mixed cultures, there is a subtle sense of sadness when you see the long-standing history and tradition of another culture. We don’t have these traditions and dances and stories in our history, but it’s nice to appreciate those of someone else’s.
So the night was a huge success and all my kids were happy with the outcome. In order for you to experience the longstanding tradition of dance in Peru, I’ve put the videos of my student’s performances on youtube for your viewing pleasure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PidKNxNywOU&feature=feedu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJQ2NUpIzgU&feature=feedu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A85unl9O1w&feature=feedu

The Great Pumpkin Carving

Well as promised, here are a few pictures of my first attempt carving zapallo with my kids at Stephen Hawking. Overall I would classify this year’s attempt as a complete success! I think that the kids had fun and I enjoyed watching them stick their hands inside the zapallo and dig out the pulp, draw on an original face design, and cut it out piece by piece. I’ve really enjoyed sharing parts of our culture with the kids as I’ve taught them English this year. The point of this lesson was to learn six new verbs: to carve, to scoop, to put, to remove, to draw, and to light; and to learn the form of giving directions. We practiced the six steps to carving a pumpkin (zapallo) and then we put those steps into practice. I also took a few minutes to share with the kids the fable behind the Jack-O-Lantern. If you’ve never heard it, here it is for your reading pleasure (courtesy of Wikipedia):

A History of the Pumpkin
An Irish Fabel: One story says that Jack tricked the Devil into climbing an apple tree, and once he was up there Jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved a cross into the bark, so that the Devil couldn't get down. In the myths, Jack only lets the Devil go when he agrees never to take his soul. After a while the thief died, as all living things do. Of course, his life had been too sinful for Jack to go to heaven; however, the Devil had promised not to take his soul, and so he was barred from hell as well. Jack now had nowhere to go. He asked how he would see where to go, as he had no light, and the Devil mockingly tossed him an ember that would never burn out from the flames of hell. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which was his favorite food), put the ember inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place. He became known as "Jack of the Lantern", or Jack-o'-Lantern.

In America, the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became an emblem of Halloween.[5] The poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in 1807, wrote "The Pumpkin" (1850):[6]

“Oh!—fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!”

Busy little bees

I’m getting busier and busier and this is a good thing. In the last 4-6 weeks life in Tarma has been pleasant and (as we say here)tranquilo, and I was content doing the day-to-day of team responsibilities and not having an overwhelming amount of lists on my plate. But as the seasons are changing, so is the amount on my plate – and I’m actually welcoming the coming weeks of busyness more than I thought I would. I’m in charge of planning the upcoming short-term team from WI that will be arriving in Nov, and it has been an exciting new responsibility. The team will be here in 4 short weeks, and there is still a lot of planning and organizing to do. In the midst of the planning we are having our “end-of-Bible-study-Celebration” event tomorrow night which we are hoping to change from marking the end of s study to a monthly unified celebration (or worship service) where all of our separate Bible study groups can come together as the body of Christ. This has been a challenge because people generally don’t like to mix circles here in Tarma, and in the past, we’ve had few people show up to our celebration events. We are hoping to promote the event as we are trying to move forward with the church plant and will be having celebrations both in Nov and Dec as well. If people can learn how to interact better with each other, then there might be hope of regular unified services at some point in the future. Beyond this we are still taking the work day-by-day, praying that the Spirit would move in people’s lives and change people’s priorities.

In other news, next week I will start my 4th quarter at Stephen Hawking high school, teaching English. And to kick off the quarter I will be repeating the cultural lesson I gave to my students last year at the Instituto Americano, and teach the North American tradition of carving pumpkins. Those of you who remember the fiasco last year will remember that I discovered the hard way that the pumpkins here in Peru are not hallow, and it was more work than it was worth. So this year I’ve decided to use the zapallo – a pumpkin shaped squash, with hopes of a smoother carving process. I’ll have stories and pictures and maybe even some video to post next week. Wish me luck!

Life as I know it

Today is another day in the “normal” life of me. Just kidding, I don’t think normal and me should go in the same sentence, nonetheless, today is about as normal as it gets here. I’ve spent the morning working on my to-do’s for the week, exercising, preparing for my class at Stephen Hawking etc. This afternoon consists of said class, and a Bible study with some neighbors. The only abnormal thing about today is that Meredith is leaving for Lima to attend the annual ADIEL leadership conference. Elsa is already in Lima because she’s taking a week of vacation that will end with the conference, and Julio will be leaving tomorrow to attend as well, which leaves me alone in Tarma for the next 5 days. Why you ask? Well here’s my new “Life as I know it” summed up in one thought:
Each day that passes brings me one day closer to the end of my commitment with ReachGlobal, and that affects every decision, every rationalization, every strategy from here on out.
This weekend is Stephen Hawking’s one-year anniversary as an institution, and the weekend and month in general are going to be filled with celebratory activities and exhibitions throughout town. At this point in my term, it made more sense for me to stay and participate in these events, to continue to spend time with my students and fellow teachers, rather than to attend a leadership conference where I will learn things I would only have a few months to put into practice. So my team is off to Lima and I am content to stay here and continue on with life and ministry.
I had a very encouraging conversation with my church-planting coach this week, and I confessed to him that I’ve felt guilt because I’ve not been 100% focused on Tarma in the past couple of weeks. I am an incurable planner, and with my time quickly coming to an end here, I find it hard not to think ahead and plan for the next stage/season of life. As a result, I haven’t been 100% here. My coach encouraged me not to try to be. I am now entering into a time of transition and having a divided focus at this point is fairly common. I can’t tell you all how relieved I was to hear this. Because these days I’m having a hard time not thinking about home and the future life that awaits there. Bit by bit I’m closing one season of life and I will soon be entering another. But until then, I will do my utmost best to remain as diligent to my call, to work hard to do all that I can before I’m gone. And for now, that includes spending time celebrating the one-year anniversary of Stephen Hawking High school.

Am I a bad missionary? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just human.

I caught myself thinking it last night, and my first reaction was guilt. My second reaction was justification, and my third reaction was defeat. We were sitting in our living room minutes before our neighbors were to show up for our weekly neighborhood Bible study, praying over the lesson and the time we would be spending with them. Out loud I prayed that God would bring the people, that He would move in their hearts to give them a desire to spend time studying His Word and grow in their understanding of who Jesus is. Inwardly I was hoping that nobody would show up so that I could go to bed early: guilt, justification, defeat. Does this mean that I am a bad missionary? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just human.
I find it interesting that we as Christians so often model our lives, our perspectives and our ideas of good and bad in the same way that the Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus’ day did. I mean, how many of our beliefs and standards and practices are really biblical, and how many do we just think are biblical? When it comes to attitude and contentment, is it biblically wrong to be dissatisfied with situation and circumstance? I think some would say yes and others would say no, and I am honestly unsure of the correct response. But I do know, or at least I have come to know, that God is bigger than my humanity, and he won’t leave me alone to struggle through it. You see, it was my turn to lead the study last night, to ask the questions, to guide the discussion, to suffer through awkward silences when no one had an answer or wanted to answer, and frankly, I was just tired of having to try so hard to pull a good discussion out of thin air. So inwardly I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to.
But then, the door bell rang, and in walked in two neighborhood moms and 5 neighborhood children. Sigh. Here we go. Plaster on the smile and do the job, because that is why I’m here after all isn’t it? To do the job. And what is the job exactly, to plaster on a smile and teach about Jesus’ love? To some extent yes, but lately I’ve been learning that the job is less about me and more about Him. Yes, I know that this would seem obvious to any mature Christian reading this post, but understanding it in theory and understanding it in practice are two different things. Why? Because who wants to come out and say that they don’t want to share the gospel anymore? Who wants to take the responsibility to admit that maybe they don’t like ministry? Didn’t Jesus ever get tired of dealing with people who couldn’t understand his message? Didn’t Paul ever get tired of being away from “home”? We don’t really see these things in the scriptures do we, so our tendency is to think that what we read is all there was. Paul, the soldier of the gospel, God’s man taking the good news to the nations, never tiring, never hesitating, never frustrated with culture, always content to be living out of his trailer . . . I mean tent, and never putting down roots anywhere. Is that really how it was? I hope not. Maybe I’m in the wrong here, but I’d like to think that Paul, while an extraordinary believer and a gifted evangelist, was human like any other missionary or ministry worker. I’d like to think that he got tired, that he got frustrated by cultural barriers, and that some days he just didn’t feel like preaching the gospel. And maybe I’d just like to think that so that I’ll feel better about myself when these thoughts and feelings creep into my being. Because admitting that you’re tired of being a missionary is unbiblical right? But you see, these are the moments, precious moments when I struggle against what I think to be true and what I know to be true, and at the end of the battle I rest in the grace of my Lord. Because then it becomes less about me and more about Him. Last night I would rather have watched TV and gone to bed early than teach a Bible study to my Peruvian neighbors. But then God stepped in. He worked in spite of my attitude and tiredness, and He used the power of His word to speak into the lives of these women and their children. And I walked away encouraged, because I was reminded yet again, that nowhere in the Word does it say that I am responsible for saving everybody I come into contact with in Peru. Nowhere does it say that I am not allowed to admit when I am tired or discouraged or feeling defeated. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 12 that God’s grace is sufficient, that His power is made perfect in our weakness. So we boast in our weakness, we delight in our weakness so that Christ’s power may rest on us. So does wanting to watch TV rather than teach a Bible study make me a bad missionary? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just human, human enough to be used by the Lord, yet human enough to need him.

The “Go” of Renunciation

“. . . someone said to Him, ‘Lord I will follow you wherever you go’” ( Luke 9:57

Luke 9:58 are words that destroy the argument of serving Jesus Christ because it is a pleasant thing to do. And the strictness of the rejection that He demands of me allows for nothing to remain in my life but my Lord, myself, and a sense of desperate hope. He says that I must let everyone else come or go, and that I must be guided solely by my relationship to Him.

-Oswald Chambers: My Utmost for His Highest

Stephen Hawking

So in the past few weeks I’ve had a few great opportunities to interact with my fellow teachers and the students of Stephen Hawking High School. Two weeks ago on Saturday the school hosted a “Family Day” at a park outside of town. There were games and relays all morning, picnic lunches and a kite flying contest in the afternoon. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to spend time with the kids and meet their parents, to spend time getting to know the other teachers outside of the classroom. I will confess that after six months of teaching, this was really one of the first moments that I felt part of the school and part of the staff. I helped organize games, judged contests and laughed a lot as I watched my kids enjoy a day with their families and friends. This was also one of the first times I have seen the family emphasized since being in Tarma, and I realized what a cool thing I have the opportunity to be a part of when I think about this school. In the first year of its existence, I have seen the teachers really care for the kids, both academically and personally. I have seen the administration emphasize values and healthy growth. And I’ve been impacted by being a part of it all.
Another opportunity I’ve had to spend time with my kids has been through a series of tea-parties that I’m hosting for the girls of the school. I’m inviting each grade over at a time (generally 8-10 girls) for food, games and a craft, to spend time getting to know them better and hopefully opening doors for future involvement in their lives, even after I go home. Last week I held the first tea-party with my first grade girls, and although only two showed up, we had a really good time. Maritza is one of the girls I’m trying to get to know and hopefully disciple at some point, and Noelia is one of the other first grade girls who has participated in a few of our team events. My next tea party is scheduled for this coming Friday, so I’d prayer for the evening and my conversation with the girls.