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!

Uruguay

I went to Montevideo on Tuesday before Thanksgiving and came back Friday night. It was great to spend the holiday with some ACU Study Abroad students as well of some of my friends from Brazil that were visiting the area.

Pretty much, I couldn't ask to have a better or more encouraging Thanksgiving (unless I could have shared it with my family too). Audrey and I contributed mashed potatoes to the humongous feast, and there was more than enough to go around to the students, travelers and Uruguayan guests. It was also nice to have a time off of work and away from the city for a little bit, but I'm excited to be back.

For free-flowing reflections on life in another country and what I got out of my trip, continue reading...

Audrey and I did not intend to share our Turkey with people from Brazil, but we somehow ended up in the same place at the same time. For me this was amazing because I accepted it as a divine gift. My time in Brazil in June really made an impact on me; and so, to share with those individuals again without planning to was more than I could have asked for or imagined happening. We went around the city together, looked at monuments together, told stories together, and laughed together. Together is so important. Without meaning too, they helped me realize how easy it is to be more focused on details and plans and ideas and learning and being perfect and on and on and on.... to be more focused (or should I say distracted?) on all of that that there is no room for appreciating each other or for true partnership. And I feel like by talking about it so much, I'm sort of ruining what a simple thing it truly is. So let me start over.

I feel reminded to be myself and love others as they eagerly work towards the same :-)

Viver Coisas Noivas (Living New Things)

See the men and women-
I'm living new things.
Here they work through and run
I'm living new things.
Don't worry with tomorrow,
I'm living new things.

They are hurting-try to fix-pray to help
I'm living new things.
Wanna go home
I'm living new things.
Went for it!
I'm living new things.

See the house
I'm living new things.
Receive some new things
I'm living new things.
Work outside
I'm living my new things.

I wrote this as a poem to think about specific things that happened the 2 months in Brazil. A vague line to you represented and symbolized something specifically in my minds-eye... After writing the poem, I read it again and let my mind imagine Argentina, and the poem worked perfectly to describe my feelings and what I've seen here as well. If you're into poetry, try reading it through your own eyes and context currently or from your memory. Read it through someone else's eyes too... What do you think?

Excerpts from a letter to my mommy and daddy :-)

I finally have a somewhat regular job as of about a couple of weeks ago. He knows about my trip to the states and everything, and I should be able to work for him substantially in March as well as working part-time (which I've already started doing) now. I don't get paid well by American standards... about minimum wage... but I've never made much more than that, and I've never worked much more than 20 hours a week either... So it seems like a normal amount of money to me. And compared to my peers, I'm living like a queen. I really like my job. My boss is in charge of receiving students that want all kinds of teachers, tutors, and classes. Every time someone needs an English class, I come ready and prepared. I'm not always super-well informed about the needs of my client before I show up at their house or office, so I'm always having to think on the fly and respond to the needs in front of me. It reminds me of social work. I take notes about what they already know and what they want to learn etc, and then I plan lessons. It's really fun.

I have two Korean kids as students in the 2nd and 4th grades. Whenever I enter the apartment, I have to take off my shoes and put on slippers. On the other hand, whenever I enter the business building down town I have to put my most professional attire on and speak with the most proper Spanish I can muster to arrange things with the receptionist to teach an employee there. My clients make more than all of my friends and I combined... ok I'm exaggerating. But it's interesting to see the difference. Someone the other day from church about my age said to me, "I make really good money at my new job: about 17 pesos an hour." This is a little more than U$S4 an hour, but my clients that I teach English to, each have cars. The disparity is really incredible...

Church has been fun. I got to show 2 ladies from Harpeth Hills around town the past two weeks, and now we're looking at wrapping up the Lets Start Talking (teaching English using the bible) season and trying to put various and different English students with mentors etc. It's exciting to be a part of this. I mostly just organize data and help it to pass hands, but I know this is a big help to everyone... and it's not boring to me either. (I kind of like it).

I'm still studying about the church of Christ and baptism and whatnot. As tedious as all of this is, it will be so helpful in the long-run if I will ever participate in or serve in or with a church. I'm so glad I'm in such a good position to learn how things work here even though it's hard at times.

I have lots of good friends, and I love spending time with them. Pray for my friends. Also pray for Lets Start Talking (the English program at church) and for the unity of the church.

We have a Tuesday group that is exploding with new people... and all from different faith backgrounds... several looking for a church community. Pray that we all grow up in the Lord together and don't exchange Spirit for truth or exchange truth for Spirit... as if they could be separate. I don't know... really I don't know what God wants to do with the group, but it seems significant to me the way that growth has exploded over the past month and a half. So may God be praised. Amen.

Nathan

One time David was hanging out in the Old Testament being King and whatnot and he did something really bad. He watched a man... er allowed a man to die knowing it was unnecessary. More specifically, he put a soldier in the front line and asked the rest of the troops to draw back. And that's how Bathsheba's husband died. David did this because he had the hotts for Bathsheba and had already slept with her and gotten her pregnant.

Next thing you know, a prophet named Nathan heads over to set some things straight for David. Here's the story he told.

2Sam12- ¹ The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. ² The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, ³ but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

⁴ “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

⁵ David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this must die! ⁶ He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

⁷ Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!..."

After this, David repents and writes the famous 51st psalm (Create in me a clean heart oh God and renew a right spirit within me) and many people look to that Psalm today to aid them in their own repentance when they see bad in something they have done or with the attitude they have done it with.

I repent a lot in general. I think it's one of my skills. Interestingly enough, being in another culture and a different religious context in some ways reveals problems in the institutions and people around me... I'm not saying that there are a lot of problems, but it's easier to notice them because I haven't become inoculated to whatever form of disease may be here. I'm in the water, but I'm not a fish; so, I can see that it is water that I am looking at.

Anyone who's done any world-view or cultural studies will tell you that we cannot see our own biases and world view as clearly as we can see those things from another society. It's easy for me as an outsider to be outraged at the flippancy with which people make racial or racist comments for example. It's also easy for me to be annoyed with the lack of promptness here in general.

But there are deeper problems as well... like the fact that sometimes amidst all the denominations and religions here there is a lot of focus on the flaws of other groups... but wait: What am I doing right now? Am I not adding to the mix and in this very blog post focusing on the flaws of others just as I am frustrated that they focus on mine? We are like David... I am like David, I mean. I can see clearly the truth when it is taken out of my context, and then BAM, apply it to my context and I am guilty as well (for all have fallen short).

I know this seems depressing, but if you know me at all you know that I'm not very depressed. It's kind of nice repenting... it seems to take a lot of pressure off. Thank you Argentina for being my Nathan! in so many ways... I can't even begin to explain here.

What's Your Name?

One time I was with my friend Tommy, and we got half-way through a conversation about something or about nothing and in my mind I got this eerie sense of Dejavu. But not fake or mystical dejavu, it was real. In this moment, I was telling Tommy a story over again that we had already talked about only a few days before. What an embarrassment. I hate to bore people, or someone with the same story twice. My mistake.

But you know what happened when I explained to him the problem? He said, “Yeah, you told me all this last Tuesday. I remember.”

“You remember? Then why didn’t you cut me off?”

Tommy said, “It’s about relationship.”

“Huh?”

“Conversation,” he said, “Conversation is less about information and more about relationship.”

He was right, in a way. Or at least the statement has been helpful to me lately. Living in South America and struggling to understand the words that people are saying to me, I try to remember what it meant to me to have a friend who listened.

When I listen, I know I won’t understand every word, but maybe I can get the main idea. And most importantly, I can form trusting relationships by showing that I care. Listening even late into the night when it costs me precious ounces of energy and brain cells that I’m trying to use just to remember which direction is up and to not forget my own name.

Today a lady sat next to me in my favorite coffee shop. We talked about something and nothing and I went my own way at the end of the conversation. She asked me for my name as I left. Why did she do that? Did she know or even think she might see me again? Probably not, because the only reason we talked was because her pizza to-go order was being prepared and I was the safe looking stranger with an open seat at my table.

My how we miss opportunities to ask questions and build connections. Social work calls it “Dignity and worth of the person,” but I call it… actually I don’t call it anything. I just believe it’s important to value people not as a means to an end as a sales man would do, but as the end in and of itself. Why else would she have asked for my name? I think it’s because relationship is more important than the information.

Later that day, thinking of her from the coffee shop/ pizza store, I went into the subway. There was a man there asking for money. Decidedly, I wanted to learn his name. With his daughter lying asleep in his lap I went to him and said, “Hi. What is your name?”

“Aylen,” he said.

“Ahh… y como se llama ella?” I said pointing to the girl.

“Oh no. Her name is Aylen,” he said.

A little flustered, I asked again…“And what is your name?” I repeated with emphasis on your so as to be more understood.

“Emanuel.”

2 pesos. 50 U.S. cents—Not a bad price to pay to learn pungently why I should listen. Emanuel is Hebrew for “God with us.”