One day I went with José Luis and his family to the 1a. rancho where his madre and tios and tias grew up--and I got to ride this caballo!Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig
Can you believe that the first place I wanted to go when I got home (as in, back in the U.S. 1. temporalmente) was Taco Bell?? Actually, Taco Bell doesn´t exist down here, and most U.S. Mexican 2. restaurantes serve food that´s muy diferente from the real deal (like burritos!) Seriously though, I enjoyed my three weeks back in the US immensely--even though they went by really 3. rapido! I never realize until I go home how many small cosas I miss—hot water, carpeted floors, paper towels, driving…and sooooo much more! I must say I also got spoiled by the southern heat and humidity once again—which never actually feels like a 4. bendición until I head south (yes, south!) only to be welcomed by yucky 5. lluvia, cloudy days and chilly noches. My family just moved to Fayetteville, Georgia a little more than a month ago (about 30 miles south of Atlanta). It was the first time for me to see the new lugar, and everything but my furniture was still packed in heavy 6. cajas surrounding my 7. cama. But just being back in the United States for a few days to ¨refresh¨myself and spend time with my familia was good enough for me!
Geografia de la Biblia (Bible Geography)
Two semanas before I left on my viaje, Vladmir ?, from Lithuania, came to give a Bible Geography class at the school here in San Cristobal. Normally the only foreign teachers we have are Americans, but Vladimir had taught the same clase at the Global Missions preaching school in Russia, and he has close ties to J.C. Enlow. He also loves to travel, so he spent his time here sightseeing during the day and teaching at night. Lately we have had a low turnout for the classes at the San Cristobal school. So I thought that if Vladimir could give his class at church a few times, he could personally invite the members to attend his classes during the week and also give them a taste of what he was teaching. It worked! Between diez and 13. quince estudiantes arrived most nights (which may not seem like a lot to you all, but if you take into consideration how busy everyone is and how reluctant the Christians are here 14. participar in anything other than the Sunday culto, it´s actually pretty 15. bueno!) We had a good mix of mujeres and hombres, new converts and older ones. Vladimir spent much of his time summarizing key stories of the Old Testament. Many of his students have only been baptized cristianos a few years, so some were hearing the 16. historias for the first time. They were enthralled! We Americans really take for granted being able to send our kids to Sunday school or knowing the story of David and Goliath. Actually, many of us would probably find it hard to learn much from Vladimir´s class just because he did have to simplify it so much, but the Mexicans felt like they learned TONS!
Estudios Biblicos (Bible Studies)
Speaking of new converts, I have been a little concerned about Marisol lately. We still have Bible studies together on Thursday afternoons whenever we can, and she always tells me she enjoys the estudios and always has good 17. preguntas for me despues. But she has cut back considerably in her attendance, and while I was away in the U.S. she didn´t come to church at all. I have a feeling her family is sometimes a bad 18. influencia on her (i.e. they question her beliefs to the point of her doubting herself or try to talk her out of going to la iglesia.) Her husband had been coming with her on Sundays for a while, but he suddenly stopped coming, as well. The last time I met with her she told me that he didn´t like that there were no activitidades for him outside of church (hence one reason that I really want to start a young couples group!) and that he felt pressured to get baptized. Jesús, whom José Luis and I were studying with, has been somewhat unpredictable, as well. For a long time every time we wanted to study with him he either wasn´t home or we had other 19. obligaciónes (there is only one time we have found that we can study with him because he stays so busy with his job.) For several weeks we didn´t see him or hear from him at all. Then suddenly, a few days after we went to see him and he wasn´t home, he showed up at church one night with his whole familia. Then they came back two or three more times, always at night, and each time they were able to meet a few more of the miembros. Please pray that Marisol and Jesús and their families keep coming to church and that we may encourage them in any way 20. posible.
La Clase de Inglés
My English class ended just before I left for the 21. estados. I am happy to say that nearly all of my students stuck with the class this time and received 22. certificados. On an aside… my most advanced student wanted to know when past tense verbs end with a ¨d¨ sound, like ¨listened¨, and when they end with a ¨t¨sound, like ¨talked.¨ Well as an English major at Freed-Hardeman, one of the classes I had to take was Structure of the English Language. And one of the main things we had to learn in that class was how to pronounce all of the 23. letras in the International Phonetics Alphabet. I never understood at the time why we spent half of every class moving our tongues around pronouncing consonants or writing nouns phonetically on the board…but I must say that it paid off! Thanks to Dr. C´s persistence in teaching us the IPA, I was able to explain the answer to her! Yea!
La gente who came to the 24. fiesta sorpresa I gave José Luis after he passed his examen de tesis and 25. el pastel I made for him. The gas ran out while I was making the cake (meaning the oven wouldn´t work)...then I could find only thick, white frosting to write the words with. But luckily it turned out all right!
Grupo de Parejas Jovenes (Young Couples Group)
Chantel and I were visiting one day, and we got to talking about how much we miss spending time with people our edad. As I have mentioned before, our age group of twenty and thirty somethings rarely spends time together outside of church; in fact, most of us barely even know each other! If we talk to each other at church at all, it´s usually just to say ¨Dios le bendiga,¨nothing else. José Luis and I really enjoy spending time with los jovenes, but seeing as how neither of us are teens anymore, it´s just not the same. So we organized a get together for all of the young couples from church. I invited them all to mi casa/la escuela one night after church. There are about ten 26. parejas our age, but only five other people showed up. (Which is really not surprising since many of them rarely even show up for church.) But we explained to those who did come that we would like to start doing something together at least once a month, such as going to someone´s house, going to a coffee shop in el centro, etc. I also explained that as long as we continue getting together, our friendship will grow, our spirituality will grow, and little by little the other couples (the ones who weren´t there that night) will become more interested and start coming, as well. Then we played a 27. juego in which everyone had to write two factual statements about themselves and one false, and the rest of us then had to guess who wrote it and what the false statement was. José Luis had warned me that the Christians here aren´t used to playing any kind of games together (evidentamente they believe that Christians should not even play cards because it is a bad example.) But they really got into it, and one of the couples actually used the same game for a reunión they had the next day. After the game, we ended by eating 28. la cena together. Those who did come seemed to really enjoy themselves and really liked the idea of us forming a grupo. (Those who didn´t come seemed to like the idea, as well.) So I only hope that the others will take turns hosting the group each mes to make this idea come into fruition…
Hasta Luego!
1a. ranch
1. temporarily
2. restaurants
3. fast
4. blessing
5. rain
6. boxes
7. bed
8. world
9. big
10. small
11. the coast
12. How strange!
13. fifteen
14. to participate
15. good
16. stories
17. questions
18. influence
19. obligations
20. possible
21. states
22. certificates
23. letters
24. surprise party
25. the cake
26. couples
27. game
28. supper/dinner
