I've been home for about a month and a half. I say home, and I really do mean home. Evidently it's suggested that people tell a former international volunteer "welcome back" instead of "welcome home," in case their definition of home has changed since their volunteer year. I really do feel like this is home because this is where I'm from, where I started before I went down to Ecuador. If I hadn't been home first, I wouldn't have been able to spend an entire year away from it, learning everything that it was through the people I lived with and my neighbors in the community. Their voices still ring in my ear and my heart.
I've been seeing an inordinate amount of friends and making new ones up here in Boston. I've spent time with my family and reconnected with them in a new way. I've been three weeks into a graduate school education that has been demanding, challenging, but exactly what I'm called to do. My job is a wonderful way to live out the values I learned in Ecuador by bringing first year students to weekly and community service. All in all I've been riding pretty high.
Yes, I do have my low points. I've been realizing just how different I am after the year in that I feel awkward in social situations of people from the United States. Sometimes I just don't know what to say or how to act. I feel like people look at me differently or think that I'm a little big unhinged after I tell them that I was down for a year in Ecuador, which is usually immediately followed by a short question and answer and then a small silence. I appreciate these questions, but I realize the difficulty I put on other people by telling them that I was out of this country for a year to live in a developing nation. I wouldn't know what else to ask, either.
It's been an up and down experience so far. I have the support of my wonderful girlfriend, Christine, who's been willing to listen to me and encourage me to be more open about everything. There's a great contingent of former volunteers here that has shown me that one can live a great life after Ecuador and meld those experiences to one's own life. The School of Theology and Ministry is giving me many lenses in which to see my experience, and opportunities to live that out through masses and choirs and other things. I suppose, as I write in this relic of the past year, looking back on everything, and looking at where I am now, I feel pretty good. God's grace and love is with me, and if I continue walking in God's path, I will not falter.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
The Name of this Blog
This blog´s name is "El Imagen del Rostro de Cristo," which translates to "The Image of the Face of Christ." I remember talking to a good friend of mine about the name of it, and telling this person that I was referencing the story when Veronica placed a cloth on Christ´s face. After she took the cloth off His face, an image of His face was present there, something that she probably looked at and venerated for the rest of her life and was recounted in the gospel that was written a time later. Looking back on the name, it seems to be a proper choice.
We have two weeks left here. Well, now a little less than two weeks. The new volunteers are almost finished with orientation, we are planning our despedida, and I am saying goodbye to my co-workers and my newly found friendships with my community and Ecuadorain neighbors. When I arrived here these days seemed so far away, but now that they are here, I am wondering where all the time seems to have gone.
As I prepare for my return to the United States, I look back on this year and realize the imprint of Christ´s face in my life. It is on my heart, for now I look at people and relationships with more care and joy than I did before. It is on my mind, for I now think about Christ in all of my actions and my words. It is on my spirit, for I now look at turmoil and suffering as part of something larger that I cannot understand, something that we are all working towards: the reign of God on this earth. We are all like Veronica, holding our lives in our hands and staring at Christ´s face right in front of us. It must be our choice to really look at it and venerate it, or just toss it to the ground and continue living.
After this year I hold on to this image of Christ that is indellibly marked in me forever: an image of a suffering Christ that knows the hope promised to Him from the foundation of the world, a image that is living and breathing through the life that I choose to live and make. It is an image that will forever be with me, and I will always live with it before me, greeting all those I meet in the imprint of Christ in my heart.
We have two weeks left here. Well, now a little less than two weeks. The new volunteers are almost finished with orientation, we are planning our despedida, and I am saying goodbye to my co-workers and my newly found friendships with my community and Ecuadorain neighbors. When I arrived here these days seemed so far away, but now that they are here, I am wondering where all the time seems to have gone.
As I prepare for my return to the United States, I look back on this year and realize the imprint of Christ´s face in my life. It is on my heart, for now I look at people and relationships with more care and joy than I did before. It is on my mind, for I now think about Christ in all of my actions and my words. It is on my spirit, for I now look at turmoil and suffering as part of something larger that I cannot understand, something that we are all working towards: the reign of God on this earth. We are all like Veronica, holding our lives in our hands and staring at Christ´s face right in front of us. It must be our choice to really look at it and venerate it, or just toss it to the ground and continue living.
After this year I hold on to this image of Christ that is indellibly marked in me forever: an image of a suffering Christ that knows the hope promised to Him from the foundation of the world, a image that is living and breathing through the life that I choose to live and make. It is an image that will forever be with me, and I will always live with it before me, greeting all those I meet in the imprint of Christ in my heart.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Numbered Days
It´s a month and 5 days away: what most current volunteers dread and say they want to miss . It´s only that far until the end of our time here.
I´m sitting in my worksite updating this, and as much as that number makes me nervous, I really don´t have a lot to worry about. I´m returning to a fully paid for graduate school education, a place to live, my family, friends, girlfriend, and a job. Returning to the States with all of this to fall into is a true blessing, one that a lot of the friends I´ve made here will never know.
Yet these friends are going to be the ones that get left behind, at least physically. I won´t be able to just pass by Monica´s house and hang out with her and Valeria, my goddaughter. I won´t be able to call up Luisana and see if I can pass by her house and hang out with Katy and Anthony. I won´t be able to go to mass in Parroquia Bautismo de Jesús every week, help play music and lead the youth ministry. I won´t be able to help out at the Oratorio Salesiano anymore and interact with the students I´ve learned to love. I will be returning to great things in the States, but I am going to be leaving a lot of great things, too.
What matters, though, is that these people who I´ve grown to love are going to be part of who I am. Their stories have now become part of my story, and I want to continue living them out in my life. So while our time together may be coming to an end, our time as friends and companions in this life is only just beginning. After this year I could start counting the days that I remember them in my life. It would probably last for a very long time, a lifetime, perhaps.
Writing about it makes me realize it could be a lot worse. I´m stuck between a flower patch and a soft place, looking forward to a future that is bound to be everything that I want it to be, but looking back at a past full of love in spite of challenges. Let´s hope that as the numbers decrease I can continue with this attitude.
I´m sitting in my worksite updating this, and as much as that number makes me nervous, I really don´t have a lot to worry about. I´m returning to a fully paid for graduate school education, a place to live, my family, friends, girlfriend, and a job. Returning to the States with all of this to fall into is a true blessing, one that a lot of the friends I´ve made here will never know.
Yet these friends are going to be the ones that get left behind, at least physically. I won´t be able to just pass by Monica´s house and hang out with her and Valeria, my goddaughter. I won´t be able to call up Luisana and see if I can pass by her house and hang out with Katy and Anthony. I won´t be able to go to mass in Parroquia Bautismo de Jesús every week, help play music and lead the youth ministry. I won´t be able to help out at the Oratorio Salesiano anymore and interact with the students I´ve learned to love. I will be returning to great things in the States, but I am going to be leaving a lot of great things, too.
What matters, though, is that these people who I´ve grown to love are going to be part of who I am. Their stories have now become part of my story, and I want to continue living them out in my life. So while our time together may be coming to an end, our time as friends and companions in this life is only just beginning. After this year I could start counting the days that I remember them in my life. It would probably last for a very long time, a lifetime, perhaps.
Writing about it makes me realize it could be a lot worse. I´m stuck between a flower patch and a soft place, looking forward to a future that is bound to be everything that I want it to be, but looking back at a past full of love in spite of challenges. Let´s hope that as the numbers decrease I can continue with this attitude.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Learning How to Live
For the past (almost) two months I've been working at an after school program in Bastión Popular as the coordinator. It has been the most trying and challenging part of my year and has stretched me to places I never though I would stretch. It sounds bad, and there are days that I come home and just plop down in my seat and say, "did that really happen today?" But overall, I feel like I am winning over and am being won over by the kids who attend the program. Although I'll only have one more month after this, I think we've been able to cement relationships that, of course, will stay with me when I return to the United States.
Also for the past few months I've been continuing on in my process for attending Grad School at BC. I've forgotten how interviews and deadlines work sometimes, but I've managed, especially because I've been able to acquire housing and financial aid for the upcoming year. It's been quite the dichotomy between working on things for grad school and working here, seeing the opportunities that I'm going to have and the opportunities that will fall to the wayside for those who live here just because of their social class or where they were born. It's quite the experience.
What I'm realizing, out of everything here, is that one day can start out a-ok, with not a bother in the world, and then can end up really falling on its face, sometimes leaving me in a sort of daze, questioning my own effectiveness with my position here. The stories I've heard here have been of people who have overcome obstacles almost unbelievable, yet I'm seeing that each day one may have to struggle just to get to the other end of it. This struggle isn't wrong or bad or not the way to live life well, but it is life itself. Everyone struggles, everyone feels suffering and pain, everyone will come home and plop down on a seat and ask themselves, "did that really happend today?"
The more inspring thing, the thing that I really need to remember, is that it's certainly not just me going through this. And if you're reading this, it's not just you going through this, either. We're going through this because we are human, and in this humanity we are united under the love of God. Call it what you will (solidarity, altruism, compassion), but all of these things reflect the love of something greater than ourselves, something that we cannot explain with definition. Perhaps this is what we need to learn about life: that we all are in the same human family, struggling to live in the love of God.
Also for the past few months I've been continuing on in my process for attending Grad School at BC. I've forgotten how interviews and deadlines work sometimes, but I've managed, especially because I've been able to acquire housing and financial aid for the upcoming year. It's been quite the dichotomy between working on things for grad school and working here, seeing the opportunities that I'm going to have and the opportunities that will fall to the wayside for those who live here just because of their social class or where they were born. It's quite the experience.
What I'm realizing, out of everything here, is that one day can start out a-ok, with not a bother in the world, and then can end up really falling on its face, sometimes leaving me in a sort of daze, questioning my own effectiveness with my position here. The stories I've heard here have been of people who have overcome obstacles almost unbelievable, yet I'm seeing that each day one may have to struggle just to get to the other end of it. This struggle isn't wrong or bad or not the way to live life well, but it is life itself. Everyone struggles, everyone feels suffering and pain, everyone will come home and plop down on a seat and ask themselves, "did that really happend today?"
The more inspring thing, the thing that I really need to remember, is that it's certainly not just me going through this. And if you're reading this, it's not just you going through this, either. We're going through this because we are human, and in this humanity we are united under the love of God. Call it what you will (solidarity, altruism, compassion), but all of these things reflect the love of something greater than ourselves, something that we cannot explain with definition. Perhaps this is what we need to learn about life: that we all are in the same human family, struggling to live in the love of God.
Friday, April 15, 2011
The Beginning and The End
I needed to get this out before I left AJS and got to a place where cyber access wasn´t as easy. Today we decidedon a day for us to return to the US. Now I have a date and a place that I´m going back to, and it is so bittersweet. This won´t be too long of a post, but it´s just to express that I´m now on a timeline for being here. It´s strange.
Perhaps it won´t bother me everyday. I´ll be able to focus on the coordinating position in Bastion Popular and I´ll able focus on Holy week ahead of me, being that us in sinai have such a big role in the parish there. I´ll be spending as much time as I can with the neighbors I´ve grown to know and love and continue being myself here in Ecuador. Yet, to be honest, I can feel it in the back of my mind already beginning to embed itself. I can hear the whispers saying, "You have this much time left and then it´ll be over." What type of undue pressure will I put on myself by doing this?
Yet it is a natural human tendency to do: we see the end and begin to allow it to happen to us. It creeps up like a wall that looks small from far away but grows as it gets closer. It´s a daunting thing to think about even with all of the support I know I will have when I go home. A year of my life that has challenged, formed, and made me into a better man and a stronger person is just going to end and I have to return to a life that I am no longer accustmed to.
but it isn´t going to be like that. i´m not giving up a new life for a new life or visa versa. I´m just living. I´m just becoming the person who God wants me to be and this is all part of the plan. It´s not a beginning or an end. It´s the beginning and the end. The Alpha and the Omega. God has known, knows, and will know where my next steps lie. I just have to put trust in that and be content with the fact that I am living in the cross of Christ, the One.
Monday, April 4, 2011
New Languages
After this year one might say I´ve learned a new language. If you were to ask me, though, I´d argue that I´ve learned at least five, or probably up to 16 new languages. No, it´s not because I learned a few dialects of Quechua (although I do know a few simple words). It´s not because I´ve been short of things to do here in Ecuador and so I´ve taken up learning all the romantic, germanic and asian languages (although that would be pretty sweet). It´s from the simple fact that I´ve been living with four people and have been learning to communicate better with Christine. Along with this group, one could probably say that I´ve learned how to communicate better with my Dad as well.
It´s a strange thing to think about: all the people I named speak English, all the people I named are from similar backgrounds and have similar ways of viewing the world. The thing is that each person has these similarities, but that´s all they are: similarities. The differences everyone has in the way that they are raised, their life experiences, or even something as small as the books that they have read affect the way in which someone communicates with another person. And not only that, but in every single interaction and conversation, I also bring in my own values and experiences as well. So in every interaction, I´ve had to learn about another person in such a way that I can not only relate to them, but allow myself to take in their values and experiences as they take in mine.
Even further, I´ve also learned how to better communicate with myself. It sounds crazy, but I bet each and every one of you reading this has an internal language that you use when you think and process events and experiences that happen in your life. A lot of you may think that your voice is very passive, and say your actions are what speak for you. Some of you may keep a lot inside and use that internal voice. But one question I´ve been constantly asking myself is how do I communicate with myself, and what language is that internal voice speaking in? Is it self pity and doubt? Confidence? Ignorance? Self-denial? Faithfulness? Compassion?
I can say that this year the languages I´ve learned have brought me a lot of life and hope. Being able to communicate in Spanish with my neighbors is one thing, but being able to connect with people in that language is something different entirely. I have the priveledge and opportunity to hear the stories of these people who have come to be my friends and family down here. Their stories constantly humble me and make me realize that no matter what language we speak, we all speak the common human language: love, pain, triumph, and struggle.
And of course, in all of these language is the language of God. Because we are images of God on this earth, when we communicate with each other, God is present. So perhaps we should take some time and listen to each other and hear the language we´re really speaking. "If today you hear God´s voice, hearden not your heart."
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Future
This past weekend I found out my plan for next year: I am going to be a full time student working towards a Masters of Divinity at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. I am also still working on getting my things together for the peer ministry program there. It's all so close and yet so far; I feel like i'm standing inbetween the past and the future, and right now the future is beginning to overtake me.
Next year I'm going to be on a college campus in Boston, Massachussetts. If all goes well I will also be ministering to first year students and living on campus as well. I will be closer to Christine and be able to see her as much as possible. I will be reading and studying and doing all of these things I've taken a break from for the past year. I took a break from these things and have been living here in Mount Sinai, an invasion community in the city of Guayaquil, where there are little to no services (irregular trash pickup, no running wate, etc.), and our house is the biggest house in the entire sector. And now I'm anticipating having to make that transition back into an academic and social life that I haven't had for the past year.
It's crazy to be in between all of these things now. But I think, as I think about it more, I have a better chance of being ok in my head than I was with coming down here. And if I'm living between the past and the future, that must mean I'm living in the present, right? The future will come, and the past has already happened, but now is what I need to focus on. In all honesty, that is a difficult thing to do. But anticipating something takes a lot more energy than just sitting in the present and being happy with it.
Next year I'm going to be on a college campus in Boston, Massachussetts. If all goes well I will also be ministering to first year students and living on campus as well. I will be closer to Christine and be able to see her as much as possible. I will be reading and studying and doing all of these things I've taken a break from for the past year. I took a break from these things and have been living here in Mount Sinai, an invasion community in the city of Guayaquil, where there are little to no services (irregular trash pickup, no running wate, etc.), and our house is the biggest house in the entire sector. And now I'm anticipating having to make that transition back into an academic and social life that I haven't had for the past year.
It's crazy to be in between all of these things now. But I think, as I think about it more, I have a better chance of being ok in my head than I was with coming down here. And if I'm living between the past and the future, that must mean I'm living in the present, right? The future will come, and the past has already happened, but now is what I need to focus on. In all honesty, that is a difficult thing to do. But anticipating something takes a lot more energy than just sitting in the present and being happy with it.
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