I thought I had something...

So I´m sitting here at the Monte Sinai cyber (which just got internet), and I remember sitting down with an idea for a blog entry but now I have forgotten what it is. I think that´s one of my ultimate problems: forgetting ideas. I´m a very absent minded person and I always have been, but I just wish sometimes I would remember why I open up my blog and decide to write in it.

Perhaps it was about my community´s ongoing conversation concerning faith and God. I don´t quite know how to go into that in this public of a forum, but suffice to say that it´s been a very enriching and "life-giving" (a phrase used a lot down here) conversation. Maybe that´s something I can just go on. I am a very absent minded person unless I constantly remind myself of important things, like, for example, my family´s constant support, or my three year anniversary with Christine is this Wednesday, or her phone number, or her address, or her constant loyalty and feelings for me, or the fact that I have all sorts of friends in the states that care for me. Every day I wake up thanking God for these things in my life, and they become a larger part of my reality while I´m down here so that, as I immerse myself in the culture down here, I can explain better to people (and to myself) who I am and why I do what I do.

The ¨life giving¨part of this conversation about faith here in Monte Sinai has been that I am constantly reminding myself of the aspects of my faith that I can loose. Being in Ecuador and worrying about getting on the correct bus, making sure I´m being safe, keep in touch with the Dúran volunteers, setting up visits with neighbors, etc., can tend to take up most of my time, to the point where I am so focused on those things my faith gets lost in the shuffle. It´s not like at SJU where I was always surrounded by it with statues and chapel choir and sju weekly service. Here, faith is a little more abstract because there isn´t a controlled space where I can express it like in Wolfington or in the Chapel.

The value in this, though, is that I can begin to formulate a vocabulary for expressing my faith outside of these controlled venues. The opportunity for faith discourse here is much; we have daily night prayer and weekly spirituality night. But these things are intentional choices we all take to make faith discourse happen. I have to make that choice every single night to make sure that I am being open and honest about my faith so that I can constantly remind myself about my whole faith. It´s not just about jusice, it´s about faith. It´s not just about faith, it´s about justice. And if I don´t take that step to remind myself by sharing my faith with others, I am missing the opportunity to really build on my foundation of faith.

It may be Aristotelean of me, but repetition seems to work well when building faith. I keep on reminding myself of the depth of Christ´s love for me and for the world that I become less absent minded and become more open minded to those around me and the faith that leads me to justice as well as the justice that leads to my faith. Huh, this turned out to be a better blog entry than I thought. Maybe I should start making lists...or maybe I should just always forget about my blog entry ideas. Especially because it allows me to be more vulnerable on here. Here´s to faith, justice, and word vomit, I suppose.

Community Living 101

For those of you who may not have realized this initially by reading this blog, I am living with four other people in the house at Monte Sinai. We all come from different life experiences, different geographical locations, and most importantly, different musical tastes. Well, maybe not all of us have different musical tastes - I have a music buddy in one of my community members, but that´s beside the point. In community, there has to be exchange between the people partaking in it, whether it be with music, or with something deeper. In Christian community, it usually happens in the exchange between faith journies and also prayer. Speaking generally, this can cause tension in whatever Christian community because of the fact that some may be at different points in their spirituality than others. This tension, in community, must be addressed post haste because it can become a toxic part of the community. But this is also the challenge of community: how to bring up tensions and problems within the community in a way that´s constructive and non-accusitory.

One of the most difficult exchanges between people is the exchange of ego. Living in community entails making sure that those people around you in community has a space to be open about their feelings. This, with certitude, takes the form of renouncing some of your own comforts for that of your community. Maybe you don´t like listening to broadway musical´s of the 1940s, but when Sandy decides that this is her favorite type of music you perhaps let her know the discomfort you feel when she puts it on, but you also realize that you have to pick your battles, and just because she´s playing Pal Joey or Kiss me Kate doesn´t mean you can be all snuffy and lock yourself in your room.

This leads to the next point about community living: participation. When you exchange (and even renounce) ego, you have to participate in your other community member´s realities! Sharing faith jornies and other things can´t be done with a grain of salt. These are people´s lives and interestes that they may find dear, and this means that when Sandy has Pal Joey on, you stay in the kitchen and help her make dinner while she´s dancing around to that famous broadway song of Pal Joey that she loves. This not only expands your own boundary of comfort, but it also shows her that you´re willing to participate in her interests and realities, which will, in turn, make her desire to participate in yours - an exchange. Granted, music isn´t the biggest thing, but this applies to everything: sharing faith journies, feelings of happiness or pain, tough conversations about community dynamics, etc.

These are just a few things that I´ve picked up from living in community the past two summers. I´m trying to apply this to my four other community members, and I hope I´m doing a good job. Community is not an easy thing, but all great things are not easy things to work towards. If you ever get the opportunity to live in community, take the chance. And hey, if you´re thinking about getting married at some point, living in community is good practice! At least that´s what married people tell me.

Bastion Popular, Bloque Uno - Never Take the 83

So this week has been my first week of work. I´ve been working in a barrio called Bastion Popular, which is right across the Via Daule in Guayaquil, a busy commercial road. There are twelve blocks there, and I work on Bloque uno, which is quite the sight. There are no paved roads but it is rather urban: Bastion is sprawling with buildings, hogars and tiendas scattered all over the hills. It´s like most other neighborhoods I´ve seen here in Ecuador, except whenever anyone talks about it, I always hear the same thing. "¿Bastion? Sí, esta muy peligroso."

But when I go to my worksite there, I don´t see it. There are about 80 kids, ranging from ages 6 to 15, all of whom do their homework loudly and aren´t afraid to ask for help. They´re all very energetic and seem excited about what their doing. Then again, there are a few who act up in the middle of their homework. I usually just give them a stare and firmly ask "¿que?" like my mom would do to me if anything was acting up. Usually the just freeze and return to their homework. They always call me "Profe" (short for profesor), and seem to like my company, even though they speak Spanish 10 (maybe 20) times better than I do. Now, granted, I haven´t ever walked on the streets of Bastion because my boss informs me that I´m not safe there, but I always walk with one of the young adult volunteers who works there. All four of them are really chévere (cool), and they seem to like me even though my command of the language isn´t there yet.

The only thing I will say is that no one should EVER take the 83 unless they really want to get to the other side of Bastion. I won´t disclose the details of my engagement with that bus line, but I promise you it´s best not to take it, especially if you´re trying to get to bloque uno. It takes you to the other side of Bastion, and if you´re a gringo, definitely do go to the other side of bastion. Or bloque dos, even.

So, I suppose for all my talk about the kids in Bloque Uno, it´s important to take the advice of people who say that a place is muy peligroso. At the same time, assuming every place in Ecuador is that isn´t the best thing to do. So, to conclude this suprisingly advising blog entry, if you enter a place you don´t know, don´t always assume that it is dangerous, even if people say it is. Odds are, where you go may be, but that doesn´t mean you should be afraid of it because good people do live there. Don´t be afraid of the unknown because sometimes you´ll find life even in the most mysterious places.

Maybe more thought out...

So I realize that the past few posts may have been a bit rushed. I was trying to cut my time down here at the cyber and live simply with my community. Today we are all here updating blogs and talking with friends, so I feel less fevered to finish. I´m gonna try and relate all that I´ve been feeling the past few days, so I´m not really sure how long this will go for. We´ll just see. I´m a better extemporaneous writer than planned out writer, so this should be pretty easy for me. Let´s just hope it´s easy to ready for you.

So the past few days have been a little difficult for me. I opened my photo album of pictures and saw all of my friends and Christine. I began to miss home a lot. Then, on top of that, I started to feel a little out of place among our community mates. It was weird. I felt like I was trying to make a great comment or trying to do something so people would know who I am and nobody was really paying attention. That´s all fine, though, after the fact. But during last week I was feeling a little bit out of place. It was hard going to Diana´s father´s wake because it reminded me of my mom´s, which exacerbated my feelings, and I sort of hit a low around monday or sunday? I´m not really sure, time has a funny way of slipping past you down here. Well, either way I hit a low.

And then I started journaling one afternoon at Arbolito. Why was I feeling like this? Was I really out of place down here or was I just feeling this way for no reason at all? Am I cut out for this stuff? And I struggled a bit relating to people up till that point. I don´t know what happened after that journal entry, but writing out my feelings helped me and so I got up and began talking with people. I felt a ton better about it and felt like I was becoming a part of the community again. We had prayer that night and the communtiy seemed to really come together. After we returned to AJS I finally had a huge realization.

What I was doing was being a little proud. I came down here with all of these thoughts about myself. I thought I was really awesome at relating to people, really awesome at music, really confident, and all this stuff. And I still believe that I am all of those things. I just express it differently than others, and on top of that, there are people who are a little better socially than I am. This doesn´t mean i´m awful at meeting people or relating to them, and it doesn´t mean that I am an awful person as I felt. I just have to be humble about it. I´m not the best thing to happen to Ecuador since sliced bread. I´m not going to come down here and make a huge difference. I´m not going to make best friends who I will always count on for the rest of my life.

What I realized was that I am valuable to Ecuador. I am going to make some difference, somewhere here. And I am going to build community using everybody´s best and worst parts, even mine. And I have to accept that people will have to get used to the way I am, and I have to get used to the way people are here. That´s what building community´s all about. We must be humble and decrease so others can increase. As John the Baptist said, ¨He must increase, I must decrease.¨In the same way, when we build community, we all must decrease, and Christ must increase so that we base our community around Christ and not our own desires.

Other than that, we had an earthquake today that was only minor. I wouldn´t worry about it too much because we just had a slight tremor. That was really cool to wake up to. I haven´t had any ghiardias or parasites yet, but I can´t wait to eat my neighbor´s food when they invite me to eat! I will update more as soon as I can. I wish all of you a happy week and a great weekend.

Death and Life

This past night the former volunteers left us, but we also had a loss of someone close to us. One of our Ecuadorian friends lost a family member last night. We all have been somber today, keeping this in our thoughts and prayers. It´s been a little difficult for me. I remember when I lost my mom. It was the hardest thing I´ve ever had to go through. I feel for our friend, and I want to be there for her as much as I can.

Death is a funny thing. Everyone talks about it and is slightly sensitized to it depending on the culture you´re from or whether you grew up watching R-rated movies. It seems like sometimes death is even a little bit of a joke: we don´t realize the gravity of what it means. It means someone has lost a parent, or a cousin, an uncle, or an aunt, a grandparent, for a friend. It´s also seen as a very individual thing: many songs are written with lyrics like everyone dies alone, etc. We don´t see what death really is, and in that way we lose ourselves and concentrate on living as an individual. One body is put into the ground, one casket, one vault to keep any lingering of that person from eminating.

Yet death can bring people together in ways that no one can understand. It can bring people foward who one knew never cared, or who are torn apart by selfish motives. It can strengthen a community of people and teach everyone what love really means. It can show the world around just how much life people can have in the face of adversity. In short, death is something that shows the world how much we can be alive, how much humanity can feel for each other and be one. It´s much like a Chirstian community, who are united by the death of Christ. We are all united by death, because death brings new life to us, wherever we are.

So say a prayer for our Ecuadorian friend, and please keep all of us in your prayers today. And remember how much life you have, even though death is still present in the world. It comes for all of us, but life can be eternal if you want it to be, even over death.

At the cyber at the moment...

How incredible.

Everything here is fantastic in Ecuador. I´m writing to you from a cyber in the neighborhood of Antonio Jose de Sucre. It´s pretty sweet, although it´s kind of hard having one of these characters (ç) be where the semicolon is supposed to be. I´m in the honeymoon period of my time here, which will hopefully last for a while. It´ll be an interesting time when i hit the culture shock part of my time here. I´m just waiting for it.

My volunteer community is awesome! We were able to hang out with the four former monte sinai volunteers who stayed for a second year. They showed us around our neighborhood and introduced us to the people they knew there so we would have a place to start when we got there. Amy, Tracy, Carolyn and Danny were a tremendous help to all five of us, and i cannot thank them enough. They made my first few visits to Monte Sinai awesome, and i can´t wait to return and continue building up the relationships they´ve made as well as making new ones with new neighbors.

It´s 530 here and we need to get going because some people will be coming to pick us up for dinner at the Arbolito retreat house. I will write in here as soon as i get another chance to, but we´ll be pretty busy for the next two weeks. All my love for all of you, and I hope that the States are going well!