New Friends

Good morning,
Everything this week has been challenging and interesting. Sunday evening me and my friend Audrey went out to an old part of the city called "La Boca" to visit local coordinators of an international NGO called "Word-Made-Flesh" (WMF). Jen and Jeremiah invited us into their home where we met 3 kids ages 1.5, 3, and 6. Also, field coordinator David joined us at the grown-ups table to talk to us about WMF while the kiddos went swimming in a kiddie pool on the roof.
David explained that Word-Made-Flesh is an organization that tries to be the hands and feet of Jesus by reaching out to the poor--primarily relationally. One of their major areas of involvement is with street kids down by the Retiro train station.
They go down to the train station and in groups of two begin playing Uno, soccer, or just chatting with the kids. Over time everyone gets more and more comfortable opening doors for conversations on (I would assume) everything from hygiene to vocational possibilities to spiritual matters. Honestly I'm not sure if the mission of WMF is more evangelistic or social and physical... or if it is a tie between each. I still have more questions than answers, but I get the feeling its more about empowerment than hand-outs.
I was glad to have met them because it was an excellent start to getting to know the non-profit world in Buenos Aires... a major goal of mine right now.
By the end of the night, Audrey and I learned that WMF is not in a position to invite new volunteers because they are forming policies o how and when to do so and what would be the necessary steps and qualifications. I understand that.
On the other hand, after all the chit chat with the grown-ups Audrey and I really hit it off with the kids. They loved playing with English speakers... and so did we! At the end we set up a date to go back and baby-sit, and Audrey and I will be headed back out to do that tonight.
Just briefly, since I've already written so much, I met a new friend from the US in the mall this week who does work ministering on university campuses through an international organization called Cruzades for Christ. Yesterday Audrey and I spoke with her and their coordinator in their office to talk about the organization, its mission, strategies, and what information they had gathered through surveys and conversations with university students in Buenos Aires--hopefully what we learned will help us over the next few months.

See ya,
Ashley Musick

ps The night before I visited my new friends from WMF in the Boca, I got this drawing of the Boca via facebook from Shannon Morgan. She drew this for me about 2 years ago and just posted it on facebook last Saturday... and the picture is of the area of town that I met those people in the very next day. Cool right? To give you an idea of how cool it was to me, Sunday was only the 3rd time I ever saw that part of town and was the first time I ever spent time in the residential area or met anyone who lived there.

Long awaited updates and info on the future

Dear friends and others,

So nice of you to look at my blog and be reading right now. Of course I want to tell you about several things… But first let me preface by saying… Since it’s been so long I’ve posted several blogs right in a row so I could separate the long awaited post into topics. So there’s about 3 new posts here today and the one you are reading now covers the most recent. Clear? Ok.

Future:

Pray for this coming school-year. My teaching and the college students from church’s classes. Also, I’m open to new things as my Spanish is at a functional level. I’m trying to get to know and understand the non-profit organizations and community needs around the city. I hope to learn a great deal about volunteer opportunities and what Social Work looks like in Buenos Aires… this week even. In other news, I’ve been granted a form of temporary residency and have an appointment to get a National I.D. number and card in April. This i.d. will open up the door to any educational or job opportunity that would be available to an Argentine; so, be praying the process goes as planned / smoothly.

To whom it may concern… ha ha

My current plan is still to come home at the end of this year pumped and ready to go into the Social Work profession or grad school.

Well and I’m glad to be here. Aside from living in the moment and the adventure aspect, I feel the lessons (from Spanish to the humbling aspects of being a foreigner) I’m learning are without a doubt invaluable and preparing me for… the things that come next. Ha ha.

Hugs and kisses,

Ashley Musick

Confidence

In Spanish there is this word "confianza" that means trust or confidence... The sentence that will help you understand this word and its connotations would be "I trust that you will do the right thing" or "I'm confident that you will do the right thing"... Also you would say, "we have confidence/trust" which means that we trust one another... I like this concept. It brings out how you have to lean into people and without CONFIDENCE it can't work. One will not lean and the other will fall.

In my experience... and a lot of my contact with Argentines has been within religious circles...but in my experience it is a pain-stakingly slow process here to build CONFIDENCE. But look it's different here too. I mean when they LEAN into you, it's a real LEAN and not just with one arm orone leg, but back-to-back. It means a lot to be considered a friend here. This is the worst part of culture shock to me when I tend to open up after about 30 seconds anywhere. All it takes is the right questions and BAM! I'll tell you whatever you want to know.

But here, I was super up-tight at times. Took me a while to see why, but apparently its not easy being in a place where all your relationships are starting from ground 0.

Well, I passed through Brazil on my way home for Christmas looking to use the return portion of my 2 way ticket between Dallas and Sao Paulo.

Almost immediately, I began to relax. I let down my guard, said silly things, received compliments on my Portuguese (which is actually REALLY bad), entertained people with my laugh and worshipped with my life (including even the guitar at times).

What had happened to me? Why wasn't I living in Brazil? Was there a really strong reason to ever go back to Buenos Aires when I could find a room-mate to replace me, an English teacher to work in my place, and a special friend to take some of my church responsibilities over?

I went with friends to the Sao Paulo airport and took a shuttle to my airport a little outside the city. I slept all the way to Dallas and was greeted by 2 friends at the airport. One of them an expected visitor and the other a major surprise... I cried as Barbara embraced me and let me in... Well I didn't really cry. But I teared up a little. ha ha. A lot more things happened, but let me rush to the point. My friend Barbara will lean into you even if she doesn't know if you will lean back. I mean about the confidence thing... I give her credit for being a good friend after her heart pulled me in first. She probably doesn't make every one be her friend or anything like that but she does let a lot of people see that she's willing BAM confidence.

Enough about that because if I get too specific maybe it will embarrass her or someone else. But... ok, I'll give an example... take her friendship with her dog: She loves that dog like a son, and maybe the dog is unaware or overwhelmed, and creeped out... but she keeps on loving him anyway.

What about me and Argentina? Well maybe when I let down my guard they will lean back... And I'll love them anyway if they don't. But I'm bringing a helmet just in case.

January Blog

January is a month off from English teaching. Since I went home and many students cancel during the summer months (January-mid-march), it made sense to just take all of January off and start clean in February. My time off has been nice. I went with the youth group to church camp and shared with everyone my most favorite silly songs. Also, a group of us made some games for everyone one a daily basis. My favorite was definitely the game that mixed capture-the-flag with water balloons… and my team won by the way. Sometimes my co-planners would let me explain the game to everyone.This always made for a laugh. Without fail, in my eagerness to explain the game. I would almost always come to a word I didn’t know and would… without hesitating… act that word out. Sometimes my explanations became dancing sharades with sound-effects. To a listener it probably sounded more like, “So if the ball does splat make sure you zoink or else you’ll have to… ‘oh no I’m dead!’… understand?” Somehow everyone understood. That’s probably a miracle. Ha ha.

Ok. On a more profound note, the church I meet with has seen 5 baptisms in January. Pretty attention calling because the annual average is 10. I’m pleased to say we can’t much take the credit… When it’s the lives of other men and the work of God. But we tried to be there praying and some were teaching and all were listening. Nice!