a trial of love

The gifts that we, as missionaries,receive are innumerable. At times I wonder what I could offer in the slightest to offset this seemingly imbalanced exchange. One enormous gift is having a job that, in the best case scenario, is to be in the presence of the risen Lord in every way and every day.  In this active presence of being we are offered transformation.  If we give in to God's beautifully work in love filled relationships, we will not return as we arrived. 

In the past couple of weeks the reality of relationships has swelled from a meer gesture of pleasantries to spirit and emotion shared responses.  

This past  Wednesday was an emotional rug swept from under my feet.  It was close to time that the kids be released to return to their homes, although no one was giving any sign of having intention of wanting to leave early.  Audra and I were singing and dancing with a group of the children as we were in the second round of English lessons.  Those who normally tend to resist the classes were off on one end of the room doing homework or chatting while the rest were hanging out around us.  

As I was jumping around, singing quite loudly 'Do the Hocky Pocky' I noticed Julio siting against the door.  He is 9 years old, a hansom boy with especially light hazel eyes, who has consistently been an eager participant in English classes.  I went to stir him up and get him into the game.  I tried a couple of time to get him on his feet with no reaction.  Something was up.  His head was bowed down with a somber expression on his face.  I sat down next to him and that is when I noticed his eyes were red. I asked a variety of questions to find out what had caused the change from his normally vivacious character. I asked how he was doing,  if he was alright, if something had occurred during class , was he hurt.  To each question he didn't respond.  I asked if someone in the class had hit him, he said no.  I asked if he was sad, he answered yes or maybe it was just his reaction to this question that answered yes for him as his eyes welled up and tears began to trickle down his cheek.  I sat next to him comforting him the only way I knew how to by stroking his hair and forehead.  I again asked if someone in the class had hit him, he said no, and then in a clip of speech he told me that his grandmother had hit him.  A child in the grips of tears is hard to understand, in Spanish it was even more difficult, but I got the gist.  I asked when, he said Monday...it was Wednesday, what had occurred in his home?  He had been holding onto this pain and hurt since Monday.  I said how very sorry I was and how no one has the right to  hit him (which had been the topic of discipline for the past two days with Dylan); the tears began to course down his cheek. His eyes are large and round and as his pain was brought to the surface those large hazel eyes stared off into the distance as tears streamed freely; but that was the extent of his emotional give.  I wanted to pick him up and hold him tightly, but he didn't want to be held, or wouldn't let himself.  This is a culture of a woman is a woman and a man is a man from childhood and one aspect of this is that men don't cry.  I was completely taken off guard. I asked if he was hurting, he said yes.  I was completely helpless, what can I do, what should I do? 

 In this land, abuse is apart of life and the equivalent of DHR doesn't seem to be an option in this part of the world, the world of the marginalized. All of these communities that spread up these hills  came as a result of being displaced by paramilitary or the FARC.  Now a community with some moderate infrastructure, including schools have been established for quite some time but are not given access to the same resources as are available to the urban Bogota.

 I can't make his grandmother stop hitting him.  I  could only keep saying how very sorry I was that he was sad and hurting. I was now trying to be present in the flood of emotions coming from this precious child.  I stayed close by his side stroking his hair and arm. Telling him that it was right and good to cry. As his tears began to abate he leaned forward to come closer to me as the closest  gesture of being held that he could bring himself to.  As the other children, who had also been taken off guard to see their friend was crying, had been coming up to us asking why he was crying.  I had to put thought into how to acknowledge their concern while keeping Julio's privacy guarded.  It turned into a variety of non-verbal ques that the children astutely  and thankfully picked up on.  Just as heart binding as it was to see him cry it was hurtful to see a since of shame cross his face as he wiped the tears from his face.  The tears continued to role until he couldn't cry anymore.  I dried the last of his tears from his cheek and made sure that he looked me in the eyes to share with him how very much I care for him.  He shook himself of the emotional wellspring that had just inundated his being to stand up and join with his classmates to prepare to leave. 

 Although today, as the doors were opened and the sugary lolly pops were distributed, no one was in a hurry to leave.  Most everyone tarried just outside the door.  Julio, his little brother and one of the girls had walked a bit farther down the hill, but had stopped.  Audra and I went around and gave one last hug to each of the children and sent them on their way promising to come back the next week.  I took the opportunity and I ran down the hill and caught hold of Edinson, Julio's little brother, I gave the girl a big hug and then went to Julio.  I gave him my hug and a departure cheek kiss, looked him in the eyes and told him that I loved him (te quiero), with the added question that if he knew that I love him (¿sabes?).  Looking me in the eyes he nodded his head in affirmation, with a smile I let him go on his way as I returned to the church.  My soul was brought to its knees. As for the rest the ride home, that evening and ever since I have been digesting the significance of what had passed.  

Another amazing related gift came on Sunday as we attended the service at the mission.  We saw a great part of our class room.  It was so nice to see them beyond our routine visit and their genuine pleasure to see us was more precious than gold.  And Julio's face brightened to a glow when he saw me and I am sure I glowed back at him as God was and issurly present in our relationship.  

After three months in Bogota I am just now beginning to see a glimmer of what it is that I am doing here.  I ambeginning to see the relationships that started on the surface work their way deeper and deeper into the flesh of Christ.  As I share the Spirit that the Lord has blessed me with they share their Spirit with me.  The soul is a beautiful place to reside with the other.  

Peace dear friends

Still catching up

Well, my heavens!  It is Holy Week and by the time you read this, it will be post Easter Sunday.    Monday through 

Wednesday afternoon Audra and I participated in a Comunication Workshop presented by an organization named YES.  Many of our diocesan pastoral friends attended.  Each time we meet it becomes a more enriching experience of friendship. 

This workshop was to teach us a new way o

f communicating to promote relationships.  The focus of discution was gender and orientation and how to negotiate this sinsitive topic within a world of different beliefs to bring safty, love and hope to those who are suffering.  We were taught a patern of comunication that begins with truley being present with and for the other person; in this mode the conversation becomes about the other person and what it is that they are saying.  The second of this three step patern is to re-create the person, meaning to be able to respond to and repeat what it is that they mean, not mearly parrot what they said and allow the person to be who 

they are at that moment, authentically.  This is a patern that does not allow the participants in the conversation to be the winer or loser.  If this method is to function, both sides must be alowed to remain who they are and no one may loes the discussion/fight.  It is a time to put aside that you know that you belive them to be wrong, and concentrate on who they are.  The third step is to respond with generosity.  In this you are opening up the posibility of an authentic relationship where both individuals are who they are and the relationship itself becomes the tranformative force.  - well, if that makes no sense it's because I am trying to concentrate a two day workshop into one paragraph. 

Just as much as I was greatly enriched by the workshop and the comunity participation I was reneud by the gardens and beautiful sights  where we were staying, it was a Catholic nunery, I guess you would call it.  I took as much advantage of this beautiful environment as I could.  We arrived Monday morning, early and had attended the workshop untill lunch, that afternoon we had free.  I spent a glorious hour and a half or so lying in the grass hiden from all eyes amongst beautifully kept gardens.  The following two morning I awoke with the sun to have plenty of time before breakfast.  It was time to be in silence, to be with God and scripture.  It is in nature that I can finally find my mind quiet.  The city has been draining me more than I realized.  I am making plans to spend a long weekend in Faca in a few weeks.  

I participated in the Holy Thursday service by reading the Epistle.  For Friday I was asked to be one of seven individuals to give a five minuet sermon on one of the last frases that Christ spoke durring the cruzifiction in the Gospel of John.  My frase was 'woman here is your son; and then he said to the other disciple, here is your mother'.  The night before my dad helped me negociate this text.  With some help from the internet to get a better understanding of John the disciple I wrote out some notes. Well, I didn't use the notes really at all and I spoke too quickly, but I was asured that the people were able to understand me.   I kind-of left it up to the Spirit to help me to negociate the language and scripture.  If another oportunity  aris

es I will be considerate to prepare more fully.  

Oh, Saturday evening service I had an emotional melt down.  Earlyer that day I had contended with the man who had been singing during each of the Holy Week services. It is him singing with a guy playing the keyboard, he has a lovley rich voice.  He has some amazing songs and I had been asking him since I arrived in Colombia to help me learn the songs so that I might sing with him or with the other group that sings at the 11am service, but he never came through.  So that Saturday was just too much after I had raised my hopes to sing durring holy week.  Before I went to the service I was studying psalm 63 which, in part, talks about David singing God's praises.  So while in the service I suddenly became overwhelmed with the desire to sing out thanks and praise, to sing the songs with this community, but I couldn't.  The man wasn't calling out page numbers for the song book and I didn't know them. I sudenly missed my church terribly.  A place where I know the prayers and the songs where I can share in this experience with my friends and loved ones.  I burst into tears and had to leave the service. It actually was a needed reliefe to cry it out for a bit.  Ironicly it was the singing man who 

came to check on me and I was able to tell him at that moment how frustrated I was and that singing is something that I need to do.  If he hadn't come to me I don't know if I would have had the strength to go to him.  So I was able to return to the service in time for the second half of the sermon.  Later that evening I got a wonderfull dady-like hug from Father Juan Carlos who had been very concerned.  Audra and I both decided he is probably our favorite  person here in Colombia.  

I have begun dance clases, and they are not exacly what I was hoping for.  The two times I have gon, there has been a dance teacher who has a baby and spends the great majority of the time on the phone.  Monday afternoon I was there for an hour and a half and was taught one dance step.  I am going to try to go tuesday and thursday mornings in hopes of finding the other of the two dance teachers less distracted.  I must say that it did take an hour and a half of dancing salsa by myself to become board.  It was a little bit of excersize, that is better than nothing.  My hair is still insisting on falling out more than I want, but as long as there are no bald spots I won't worry too much.  My stress level has totaly calmed down.  Yoga and prayers in the morning is a great way to start the day.  

Sorry about the long update, but hey a lot occured.

Blessings and Love.

What's the view like

So now it has been more than a few weeks since the convention has pased Audra and I have be

en concentrating on hamering down a concrete schedule with Father Carlos to work twice a week with the mission in the south of bogotá.  

A  blog can be a place where one can share what events have pased, not often do I remember to also share what it is like for me to be living these events. 

The longer I am here the more I realize I have to learn.  First in regards to language.  You know, sometimes I think I know my stuff and I am just rambling on in Spanish spiting out profound thought and making interesting points only to realize that either a) they didn't understand a word I was saying or more likely and even more frustrating b) my lack of grammer skills kills the poinancy of whatever I was talking about and the conversation turns into a Spanish lesson.  Ahhh!! 

 

Ok, so really, what I have to say isn't quite so profound, most of the time.  Latley my   experience with Spanish has been more of a challenge than the first couple of months.

  I spend a lot of time trying to pull together enough vocabulary  and grammer since to put my frases together sufficiently to be understood.  It seems as though most of my time is spent just trying to not trip over my own toung.

Second.  Robin, you were so right.  Robin is a Missionary who is currently in the Sudan. She was in Libiria as a missionary season before last;  she also attended and sincirley enriched our traning in New York.   During the training I expressed a concern that when I was in Ecuador my personality changed for the

 worse, by becoming terribly indisisive, self doubting and fearful about money and other things.  I asked what I could do to prevent this from hapening.  She said - you can't prevent it, the best thing you can do is to realize this is God calling you to be changed/transformed in Him; don't try to fight it, go to God and let Him transform you.  

Well, I havn't returned to being that same person I was in Ecuador, thanks be to God, however I am still realizing I am not the person God intends for me to be.  Over the past few weeks I have felt my stress level steadily escalate., I didn't even realize I was reaching my max stress level untill I realized how much hair I was losing on a daily bases (first noted by my hair stylest).  It is not caused by any one event / thing inparticular, but for general reasons I supose.  Traveling around is rich and rewarding, but it dosn't allow for a routine, which I thrive on, nor does it make regular excersize easy.  It hapens to be my third month in Colombia and there is a three month mark that we were warned about in mission training where things might go a bit awray in ones person while abroad.  I hit that date right on the head.  Latley I have been contending with analizing a future that I couldn't possibly come to a conclusion about (because it hasn't occured, a basic thought that seems to escape me at times).   But thanks to caring advice from Audra, and tender words from Dad I was encouraged to focuse on getting in some basic excersise each day and go from there. 

-What I am missing at the moment: Sunday morning breakfast with my dad at the bakery, wakeing up at Camp McDowel and weekend evenings with my Aunt and Uncle

Wow, where did March Go!?

Convention time:

Our time in the convention was rich and rewarding.  It was such a pleasure to meet up with the folks we had met durring our travels and to meet all new people.  I want to impart how loving these people are.  However 'loving' dosn't exactly express the full image.  In Spanish we say that these folks are 'cariñoso'.  It is a word that meens loving, considerate, carring, tender, thoughtfull, generous, welcoming, etc.  

So the best part of this weekend was getting to spend time with the people, which I think is a really good conclusion to any event.  Beyond this I enjoyed experiencing the whole event.  What a different world between the Colombian Episcopal Diocese and my Alabama Diocese.  The convention began friday night after dinner and concluded Saturday evening.  They planed for 75 people and that is including the guests that weren't going to be voting, like me and Audra, and that is the entire Colombian Diocese being represented.  Also here we have one Bishop for the whole of Colombia.  He was the president of the convention.     

Friday night there was an opening Eucharist service that was soo lovely.  The room was full of robed and adorned priests from all over the country; many we know, many we didn't.  It was an oportunity ripe for getting to know a lot more people.  

Saturday we began our day with a 7am breakfast.  By this point, to have to be dressed and ready at 7am is a bit of a struggle, but we made it happen for the sake of sustanance.  The first speaker of the conferance was our friend and local 9am priest Padre Juan Carlos.  He spoke of discovering and getting to know who you are beyond the context of where you work, what you do, your marital status, etc.  Basicaly who you are in God.  He is a very dinamic speaker, always conveying his ideas with passion.  

Later on we heard form Padre Antonis, from Cali, who spoke about the proposed relationship between the ERD and the Diocese of Colombia.  Man did this pirk my ears up.  It was wild.  I was hearing about this now working relationship when just a month or so before I was in Faca sitting with Matt St.John, the latin american contact for the ERD, and a group from the Diocese discussing the posibility of this relationship.  It seems like it will come to fruistion.  I have a lot of intrest in seeing if I could work with the ERD here in Colombia.  

I happen to get excited when there are discusions and debates, whether it is in a mock UN caucus or in a convention center with the Colombian Diocese. There is something energizing about being amongst so many strong individuals.  This segment of the convention occured Saturday evening.  People were on the edge of their seats at one point, with hands raising emphaticley, voices calling for the bishops attention, people talking all at the same time.  At this point I settled myself behind the right ear of a woman priest who I love!  She is spunky and funny.  So I used her to help me negociate the language chaos.  That made the experience more fullfiling, to not be totally lost in the conversation.  

All in all this conference gave me more energy to apply for the sake of the Episcopal Diocese of Colombia.  There is a lot of hope, growth and energy within those individuals participating with the church.  I am left releived that I still have so much time left to discover, more deeply, what the diocese is all about.