Va a Ser Otra Boda

I have some very exciting noticias: José Luis and I are getting married!!! My time in Mexico has been full of ups and downs, but he has 1. constantemente supported me and made my long stay in a foreign country much more bearable. So many of the goals and proyectos I have been involved in we have been able to share in and do together, especially our work with the teens. I look forward to us sharing in many more spiritual works together in the years to come, both in the U.S. and in Mexico. And I can´t wait for everyone to meet him! So far the plan is for us to get married here in San Cristobal in diciembre and move to the U.S. in julio. Needless to say, I will be here a lot longer than I had 1a. originalmente planned ; )

MI CLASE DE INGLÉS

My English class is going 2. bien, despite the disappointing low turnout. On the first day, when I gave only introductory information, about 15 showed up, and many of them stayed to take the placement exam for me to see what their current 3. nivel of English is. But since then I have had only about seven or eight. I always explain to the estudiantes that the examen is not for a 4. calificación and that they only have to answer the qustions that they know, but nonetheless it seems that most who take it before the start of la clase never actually come to the class 5. después. Currently, half of my students are 6. principiantes and the other half 7. intermedios. The class meets only once a week for three hours, so I have to work with the beginners and intermediates at the same time. So normally while the principiantes are writing or working on something individually, I practice pronunciación and conversación with the intermedios, and vice versa. I have had to change my teaching 8. metodos a little bit by giving each group more written work and more tasks to do if they finish early; that way they´re never waiting for me for too long or getting bored while I´m busy with the other grupo.

Another challenge I have had is that it´s sometimes very 9. dificíl to teach niños and adultos at the same tiempo. It never fails that my high school aged students and adults finish everything super fast, while the younger ones sometimes take 20 minutos just to write two sentences. And los niños are such perfectionists! Even though they write just about everything in their own personal 10. cuaderno, if they write one letter wrong they cross out everything they have written so far and start over on a new page. Sometimes I feel like they are more focused on writing everything just right than on learning what I am teaching them. One of my girls, the youngest student, has precisely that problema, that she takes about three times as long to do everything and doesn´t pay attention to anything I teach. This week she finally got so 11. frustrada that she left the class in tears. She is only 8, and I made the minimum age for the class 11. I have known all along that the class is too hard for her, but I could not bear to tell her not to come since she is from la iglesia and her madre is so set on her learning.

On an aside…Many people (like this girl´s mom) seem to think that kids learn a lengua faster than adultos. But I can tell you from my own experiencias and classes I have taken that that´s just a 12. mito. First, kids usually do not have much 13. interes in learning a language yet, so there is no personal meaning for them; instead of making connections among what they learn and applying what is most useful to them, they tend to memorize bits and pieces and 14. a menudo can´t understand how what they re doing is even importante. Second, their thinking is not usually advanced enough to process all the different parts of the language at one time. Third, they cannot transfer información very easily from one language to the next if they have just barely learned what many words mean, how to read and write, etc. Three boys around age 11 stopped coming to the class after the first dos semanas. (But that may have actually been more of a blessing than a curse, as they came just to goof off and 15. frequentamente distracted the other students.) Anyway, I say all of this to explain why I don´t feel too surprised and don´t get down on myself when certain kids leave the class crying. But I promise that all of my other students really seem to be enjoying the class (as am I), and everything else is going really well.

VIAJES RECIENTES (RECENT TRIPS)

A few weeks ago I got to take a little trip with José Luis and his mom. I must say I was pretty excited about getting out of San Cristobal for a while. First we visited the ciudad of Pachuca, where José Luis studied for his Masters degree. The school he attended is actually called ¨Universidad de Futból¨ (¨Soccer University¨). But before you burst out laughing, allow me to explain… Well as you already know, soccer is HUGE in Mexico, and Pachuca has its own 16. equipo. A few years ago the 17. dueño of that team decided to invest a large part of his dinero in a university that specialized in sports. So the school offers many of the same majors as other schools, but all of them have to do with los deportes (especialmente soccer); sports journalism, sports broadcasting, sports publication, etc. José Luis received his Masters in intensive sports training (ok, so I don´t know the exact translation because I´m pretty sure it doesn´t exist in English, but that´s close enough).

I have mentioned that the education system is pretty diferente here, and colleges are no excepción. Every student must write and successfully defend a thesis in order to receive a Masters OR Bachelors degree. Well José Luis graduated two years ago, but he has been waiting all that time to receive an invitación to take his thesis exam—which basically consists of explaining the thesis in a twenty minute presentation, then being subjected to 10 minutes of intense questioning from a panel of judges—his former teachers and advisors. (That parte is actually similar to how most American universities conduct thesis exams, I think.) We listened to presentations all day long, and needless to say, the majority of them had something to do with soccer. But it was actually quite 18. interesante. José Luis did an excellent job and passed the exam without any problems. A week later, I threw him a surprise 19. fiesta. About 20 of his 20. familiares and amigos from la iglesia came. We ate a few snacks together and congratulated him. I´m pretty sure Mexicans don´t ever have surprise parties, so you could say that´s one way I have shared the American cultura with them. (By the way, he worked over a year on his thesis, and it was over 100 pages long. His Masters degree was not considered oficial until he finally received the grade from his thesis exam.)

Then we spent the next día in the cuidad of Puebla, about two hours away (or about 11 hours from San Cristobal). Puebla is one of the oldest cities in Mexico, so it is full of historic landmarks and beautiful catedrales. It is also where the famous 21. batalla was fought that Mexicans now commemorate every año on the ¨Cinco de Mayo¨ holiday. Just a few days after returning to San Cristobal, I travelled eight hours to Tapacula, Chiapas, where the newest preaching school is. We came back from Puebla/Pachuca on Wednesday night, I went to Tapacula on Friday night, and I returned from Tapachula on Saturday night. I must say I´m getting used to sleeping all night on a bus! As long as there´s not a squiggly or noisy person next to me, it´s actually not that difficult.

I arrived at the church in Tapachula about 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, just a few minutes before the first estudiantes. The new school in Tapachula held its first classes a few weeks ago. There are about 20 students, a good mix of ages and gender. And three or four men will take turns teaching the classes. To start out they are studying Intro to the Old Testament and Intro to the New Testament. One of the girls recently got baptized as a result of the classes. Humberto, the director, seems to be doing an excellent job encouraging the students and keeping good records (both of which we have had problems with in some of the other 22. directores).

LAS ESCUELAS BIBLICAS (THE BIBLE SCHOOLS)

Then, in la tarde, I visited the sister school in Cacahoatan, only about thirty minutes away. Unfortunately the attendace was very low that day, only seven. I did not get to talk to the director as he was out of town, but his wife told me that there are almost always about 15 students, but it just so happened that many of them had conflictos that day. One of the biggest challenges in this culture (both with church actividades and each of the preaching schools) is the lack of attendance. Many of the members just don´t seem to have the same steadfast encouragement yet as many Americans, and many factors inhibit them from being able to participate in anything on a regular basis. They also seem to get burnt out or bored a lot faster and seem to go through phases of attending a lot or not attending a lot. (Actually, the preaching school in San Cristobal started out with 15-20 students and eventually shribbled down to 3 or 4 for precisely that razón.) So I only hope that the students who attend the classes in Tapachula and Cacahoatan will still want to and be able to attend well into the futuro.

Please continue to pray for all of the preaching schools. Hasta luego!

RANDOM THOUGHTS

--Did you know that Mexicans do not actually eat burritos?? I fixed some for José Luis and I one day, and he had never even heard of them!! (He did think they were very 23. sabroso, though : )

--A few days ago when we were at 24. la pista, there was a 25. competencia going on for some of los niños from nearby Indiginous comunidades. I think I have mentioned before that most Indiginous communities have their own ¨uniform.¨ So a few of the boys had actual track uniforms, but most of the girls ran barefoot in their usual skirt and blouse. Most were only about 6-8 years old, and it was so cute watching them run with such pride and excitement!

Titulo: ¨There´s Going to Be Another Wedding¨

1. constantly

1a. originally

2. well

3. level

4. grade

5. afterwards

6. beginners

7. intermediates

8. methods

9. difficult

10. notebook

11. frustrated

12. myth

13. interest

14. often

15. frequently

16. team

17. owner

18. interesting

19. party

20. family members

21. battle

22. directors

23. tasty

24. the track

25. competition