It’s Friday already and what a week it has been! Mixed in with work on bathrooms, painting rooms and halls, working on the grounds (with a mixture of skilled and unskilled labor) has been major satisfaction in seeing smiles on the faces of children, hugs for no special reason, and much laughter. The greatest frustration has been our inability to communicate with the children. After “hola,” there isn’t much to say, even though it’s amazing how much can be communicated through sign language and facial expressions. For instance, Luis and Fernando were comparing muscles, when Joe wanted to show his own and said, “Mucho grande.” To this, Luis replied, “Mucho nada.” We are determined, however, that we’ll be more proficient in the language if we return.
Today we felt we were returning home since we were treated to oatmeal and croissants for breakfast. The children have a day off from school and the front lawn has turned into a pastel sea as they play with balloons.
Most of our work tasks have been completed and today offers the opportunity to be with the children in the morning and take a trip to town in the afternoon.
We’ve learned a lot this week. We’ve witnessed a large number of children living together in harmony, under the guidance of wonderful houseparents. Selene is the ultimate multi-tasker, braiding hair, talking with children, and giving instructions in the kitchen concurrently. We’ve seen how older children take responsibility for younger children. We are impressed with the degree of happiness we see in the children and the level of structure that makes the home function effectively. Tonight we will have dinner with the children and participate in their movie night. Then-- up early tomorrow and back to Louisville.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Greetings de Karen O. con San Luis Potosi
Today is Thursday and our 3rd big work day. My most valuable item has been a pair of work gloves, actually two pair.
I have worked almost exclusively on cleaning up the grounds. This project has given me a wonderful chance to get to know some knew people from the church.
I came prepared for rain, since I took my information from the internet weather channel, and am happy to report that the weather has been awesome. Its too bad we don’t have time to work on our tans.
Along with many other firsts, this is my first every blog. It sure seems like an awfully far distance to travel to learn a new computer skill, but the trip itself has been so full of firsts that it seems fitting. My first papaya, my first morning to use a rooster as an alarm clock, my first chance to see a day of hard work bring smiles and nods of appreciation from people I can’t otherwise communicate with and my first chance to enjoy the Ben and Ryan comedy routine. Everyone should look forward to the opportunity of having such rewarding and fun firsts in their future.
I have worked almost exclusively on cleaning up the grounds. This project has given me a wonderful chance to get to know some knew people from the church.
I came prepared for rain, since I took my information from the internet weather channel, and am happy to report that the weather has been awesome. Its too bad we don’t have time to work on our tans.
Along with many other firsts, this is my first every blog. It sure seems like an awfully far distance to travel to learn a new computer skill, but the trip itself has been so full of firsts that it seems fitting. My first papaya, my first morning to use a rooster as an alarm clock, my first chance to see a day of hard work bring smiles and nods of appreciation from people I can’t otherwise communicate with and my first chance to enjoy the Ben and Ryan comedy routine. Everyone should look forward to the opportunity of having such rewarding and fun firsts in their future.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
They Say They're Worth a Thousand Words...
You can click on each photo to view a larger version of the image.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Harriet’s Thoughts
Today is Monday! We were awakened as usual by the crow of the rosters (7:00 A.M.) and the patter of little girls’ feet up and down the hall getting ready for school in their red, pleated skirts and red tops. The young ones go to school in the morning and the older children go later in the day at 2:00 P.M.
After breakfast, our DBCC group met to decide on the projects for today, and another trip to Home Depot and Walmart was made by several to get supplies.
Upgrading the boys and girls bathrooms and setting up a new, larger girls’ clothing room with new shelving were begun.
Cleaning up the yard and play areas for the children was also started. When the little children came home from school at noon, they were “ right in there” with us wanting to participate or just see what was going on.
We have accomplished so much today already, and everyone in our DBCC group has jumped right in to do all they can in this mission of love and caring which we are now experiencing.
Casa Hogar is an amazing place!!! John and his wife Selene, who are their “mission parents”, have a wonderfully run home for these 18 girls and 13 boys. The children are beautifully behaved and get along with each other so well. Each one is responsible for certain chores, which they willingly do, and they have a daily routine that works very well for all.
The excitement of the children at having us here is unbelievable. They are curious about us, love to love on us, and they have enjoyed the games, candy, flashlights, and stickers, etc. that we brought to them. We, in turn, are so awed by these adorable, beautiful children and the love and hope they are given here at Casa Hagar. Each day we see “how God is working in this place”!!!
After breakfast, our DBCC group met to decide on the projects for today, and another trip to Home Depot and Walmart was made by several to get supplies.
Upgrading the boys and girls bathrooms and setting up a new, larger girls’ clothing room with new shelving were begun.
Cleaning up the yard and play areas for the children was also started. When the little children came home from school at noon, they were “ right in there” with us wanting to participate or just see what was going on.
We have accomplished so much today already, and everyone in our DBCC group has jumped right in to do all they can in this mission of love and caring which we are now experiencing.
Casa Hogar is an amazing place!!! John and his wife Selene, who are their “mission parents”, have a wonderfully run home for these 18 girls and 13 boys. The children are beautifully behaved and get along with each other so well. Each one is responsible for certain chores, which they willingly do, and they have a daily routine that works very well for all.
The excitement of the children at having us here is unbelievable. They are curious about us, love to love on us, and they have enjoyed the games, candy, flashlights, and stickers, etc. that we brought to them. We, in turn, are so awed by these adorable, beautiful children and the love and hope they are given here at Casa Hagar. Each day we see “how God is working in this place”!!!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Waiting for Something Big in San Luis Potosi
Here are some thoughts from Ben Carter:
I had never been to Mexico. I have lived, worked, studied and played in other countries for over three years of my life, but had never visited our friendly neighbors down south. I had little idea of what to expect, forgoing the usual research to finishing essential "to dos" at home so I could return home to a job and a wife. I knew many buildings would probably be constructed of the ubiquitous orange brick that pervades many developing countries. I knew many of those same buildings would have rebar sticking out the roof in anticipation of adding another floor when money permitted. I knew to expect the familiar pull of strangeness, the reaffirmation that the world is, indeed, quite large.
The magic of travel is in expectations. Though my expectations of this trip were poorly formed, deep down I expect the same thing every time: something big. And, I believe that expectation is not just hope, but prophesy. That is, expecting bigness alters the cosmos and brings bigness to me. (I say the same for other expectations: smallness, strife, magnanimity, compassion, etc. As a devout English major, I believe in words' abilities to alter our universe). So, I came expecting something big.
While waiting for the big--some revelation, connection, emotion--I was washing dishes. Thanks to Ticht Naht Hanh, washing dishes can never be for me just about washing dishes. Instead, washing dishes is, like every moment, an opportunity to live a fully present, miraculous moment. Ticht Naht Hanh transforms the mundane into the transcendent, with each moment a benediction. Don't misunderstand me. I don't live like this. For me, starting the car is usually just starting the car, sweeping the
floor merely an opportunity to zone out. But, when Ticht Naht Hanh articulated his worldview in which each moment is pregnant with the divine, he used the example of washing dishes. So, for me, washing dishes is more than just washing dishes.
And so I was washing dishes, thinking of Ticht Naht Hanh, and expecting something big.
Wait.
More precisely, I was washing dishes with Diana, cleaning up after our lunch of enchiladas suizas con pollo (with chicken). My Spanish is, as they would say in Mexico if they were frank, no esta bien (not good). But, nonetheless, Diana and I were struggling through some broken conversation. She was very patient. I learned who cut her hair (Selene, a former orphan herself and now matron of Casa Hogar) and what she likes studying (fashion and clothes-making). I learn she likes singing along to the radio playing in the kitchen.
As we scrap tortillas and scrape beans, I notice that many of the dishes are cracked, chipped, warped. I notice that Diana is wearing a Montgomery County Parks and Recreation t-shirt. I continued to disgrace past Spanish teachers with my blown noun-verb agreement, my inability to speak about anything but the present (Joni Mitchell actually glorifies this inability in "Chelsea Morning" when she promises to "talk in present tenses." In the kindest light, my Spanish is a kind of force-marched "being in the moment" simply because I cannot formulate past or future. In more reality-based light, it is an abomination.) But, as Diana and I weave a conversation together with ques? (whats?) and entiendes? (you understands?), I begin to think about these dishes we are washing.
These are not like the dishes in my house. In the United States, many have the luxury of "making a statement" with what we buy, what we wear, where and what we eat, what we drive. We believe--even as I know it's not so--that what flatware we use, what china pattern we choose "says something" about us. We fret about buying the wrong kind of computer, driving the wrong kind of car. These are not the worries of the children at
Casa Hogar. Their plastic bowls--scuffed as they may be--hold milk and cereal. Their cattle truck is sufficient to take them to and from church and school. Their clothes cover their bodies. Indeed, they were muy guapo (very handsome) and bonita (pretty) in church today. Their things are both enough and not enough in the same instant.
Their things don't say anything about these children. Not the way children's clothes speak in America. Not the way I have come to believe that my new glasses are "very me."
Wait.
What I just said--about things not speaking for these kids--is not entirely true. I want these kids to embody a richness of heart, to symbolize the indomitability of the human spirit. I want them to show us how, beyond essentials, all our striving is ego and fear. Maybe when I was (not much) younger, that's what these kids could have been, what they could have shown. But I know better. While things don't say everything, they do say something. And insofar as things speak for people, the hand-me-downs and leftovers, the chipped and scuffed, they speak loudly enough. They say simply, persistently, "These kids are poor." Their things speak and we must listen.
As a group, we are reading "Living Faith: How Faith Inspires Social Justice" by Curtiss DeYoung. It profiles social activists from around the world whose activism springs directly and inextricably from their faith. The first two chapters profile Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his "view from below." As a young German minister, Bonhoeffer traveled to the United States and spent time in the African-American faith community in New York City. Through his experiences there, he came to see not only the racism in America, but the corollary anti-Semitism in his native Germany. He came to understand, viscerally, the "view from below."
Bonhoeffer adopted "the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled--in short, [] the perspective of those who suffered." It is this empathy, this ability to see the world from multiple vantage points, from which Bonhoeffer's outrage and activism sprung. Without this understanding, Bonhoeffer is just another complicit German minister.
Being here, at the Casa Hogar, among kids who look up to me--literally--it occurs to me that children, always and forever, have a view from below.
Bonhoeffer understood kids' perspective, their standing as viewers from below, I think, when he offers this matrix for action: "The ultimate question, for a responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation is to live. It is only from this question, with its responsibility towards history, that fruitful solutions can come, even if for the time being they are very humiliating."
Asking ourselves how the coming generation is to live requires an understanding of who the next generation is--all of them. This understanding must be real, flowing from friendship, shared experience, mutual respect, and compassion. Will those conversations be difficult? Hell yes. Will those relationships be time-consuming? You bet. Will they be inconvenient, require compromise, challenge us? All of the above. Do we have a choice? Not if we want to survive.
As Diana and I finish drying the dishes, a particularly catchy song crackles on the radio. Diana and another girl sing loudly, con gusto (with feeling). Interrupting, because that's what I do, I ask what the song is about.
"Tito y Bambino."
"Tito and Bambino are boyfriend girlfriend?" I ask in Spanish.
"No," Diana says, wondering why I am compulsively stupid. "Tito y Bambino are a rock group."
"Ah," and I try again, "But what is the topic of the song?"
"Ah, I understand," she says. "The song is about love."
Isn't it always?
Wait.
I think something big just happened.
I had never been to Mexico. I have lived, worked, studied and played in other countries for over three years of my life, but had never visited our friendly neighbors down south. I had little idea of what to expect, forgoing the usual research to finishing essential "to dos" at home so I could return home to a job and a wife. I knew many buildings would probably be constructed of the ubiquitous orange brick that pervades many developing countries. I knew many of those same buildings would have rebar sticking out the roof in anticipation of adding another floor when money permitted. I knew to expect the familiar pull of strangeness, the reaffirmation that the world is, indeed, quite large.
The magic of travel is in expectations. Though my expectations of this trip were poorly formed, deep down I expect the same thing every time: something big. And, I believe that expectation is not just hope, but prophesy. That is, expecting bigness alters the cosmos and brings bigness to me. (I say the same for other expectations: smallness, strife, magnanimity, compassion, etc. As a devout English major, I believe in words' abilities to alter our universe). So, I came expecting something big.
While waiting for the big--some revelation, connection, emotion--I was washing dishes. Thanks to Ticht Naht Hanh, washing dishes can never be for me just about washing dishes. Instead, washing dishes is, like every moment, an opportunity to live a fully present, miraculous moment. Ticht Naht Hanh transforms the mundane into the transcendent, with each moment a benediction. Don't misunderstand me. I don't live like this. For me, starting the car is usually just starting the car, sweeping the
floor merely an opportunity to zone out. But, when Ticht Naht Hanh articulated his worldview in which each moment is pregnant with the divine, he used the example of washing dishes. So, for me, washing dishes is more than just washing dishes.And so I was washing dishes, thinking of Ticht Naht Hanh, and expecting something big.
Wait.
More precisely, I was washing dishes with Diana, cleaning up after our lunch of enchiladas suizas con pollo (with chicken). My Spanish is, as they would say in Mexico if they were frank, no esta bien (not good). But, nonetheless, Diana and I were struggling through some broken conversation. She was very patient. I learned who cut her hair (Selene, a former orphan herself and now matron of Casa Hogar) and what she likes studying (fashion and clothes-making). I learn she likes singing along to the radio playing in the kitchen.
As we scrap tortillas and scrape beans, I notice that many of the dishes are cracked, chipped, warped. I notice that Diana is wearing a Montgomery County Parks and Recreation t-shirt. I continued to disgrace past Spanish teachers with my blown noun-verb agreement, my inability to speak about anything but the present (Joni Mitchell actually glorifies this inability in "Chelsea Morning" when she promises to "talk in present tenses." In the kindest light, my Spanish is a kind of force-marched "being in the moment" simply because I cannot formulate past or future. In more reality-based light, it is an abomination.) But, as Diana and I weave a conversation together with ques? (whats?) and entiendes? (you understands?), I begin to think about these dishes we are washing.
These are not like the dishes in my house. In the United States, many have the luxury of "making a statement" with what we buy, what we wear, where and what we eat, what we drive. We believe--even as I know it's not so--that what flatware we use, what china pattern we choose "says something" about us. We fret about buying the wrong kind of computer, driving the wrong kind of car. These are not the worries of the children at
Casa Hogar. Their plastic bowls--scuffed as they may be--hold milk and cereal. Their cattle truck is sufficient to take them to and from church and school. Their clothes cover their bodies. Indeed, they were muy guapo (very handsome) and bonita (pretty) in church today. Their things are both enough and not enough in the same instant.Their things don't say anything about these children. Not the way children's clothes speak in America. Not the way I have come to believe that my new glasses are "very me."
Wait.
What I just said--about things not speaking for these kids--is not entirely true. I want these kids to embody a richness of heart, to symbolize the indomitability of the human spirit. I want them to show us how, beyond essentials, all our striving is ego and fear. Maybe when I was (not much) younger, that's what these kids could have been, what they could have shown. But I know better. While things don't say everything, they do say something. And insofar as things speak for people, the hand-me-downs and leftovers, the chipped and scuffed, they speak loudly enough. They say simply, persistently, "These kids are poor." Their things speak and we must listen.
As a group, we are reading "Living Faith: How Faith Inspires Social Justice" by Curtiss DeYoung. It profiles social activists from around the world whose activism springs directly and inextricably from their faith. The first two chapters profile Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his "view from below." As a young German minister, Bonhoeffer traveled to the United States and spent time in the African-American faith community in New York City. Through his experiences there, he came to see not only the racism in America, but the corollary anti-Semitism in his native Germany. He came to understand, viscerally, the "view from below."
Bonhoeffer adopted "the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled--in short, [] the perspective of those who suffered." It is this empathy, this ability to see the world from multiple vantage points, from which Bonhoeffer's outrage and activism sprung. Without this understanding, Bonhoeffer is just another complicit German minister.
Being here, at the Casa Hogar, among kids who look up to me--literally--it occurs to me that children, always and forever, have a view from below.
Bonhoeffer understood kids' perspective, their standing as viewers from below, I think, when he offers this matrix for action: "The ultimate question, for a responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation is to live. It is only from this question, with its responsibility towards history, that fruitful solutions can come, even if for the time being they are very humiliating."
Asking ourselves how the coming generation is to live requires an understanding of who the next generation is--all of them. This understanding must be real, flowing from friendship, shared experience, mutual respect, and compassion. Will those conversations be difficult? Hell yes. Will those relationships be time-consuming? You bet. Will they be inconvenient, require compromise, challenge us? All of the above. Do we have a choice? Not if we want to survive.
As Diana and I finish drying the dishes, a particularly catchy song crackles on the radio. Diana and another girl sing loudly, con gusto (with feeling). Interrupting, because that's what I do, I ask what the song is about.
"Tito y Bambino."
"Tito and Bambino are boyfriend girlfriend?" I ask in Spanish.
"No," Diana says, wondering why I am compulsively stupid. "Tito y Bambino are a rock group."
"Ah," and I try again, "But what is the topic of the song?"
"Ah, I understand," she says. "The song is about love."
Isn't it always?
Wait.
I think something big just happened.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Saturday! What a day.
This morning many of us arose to the giggles of curious children or the sniffing of equally curious dogs. This was preceded by the seemingly endless call of the roster to wake up. As we got ready for the day we were introduced to the children. We received countless hugs and a warm desire to be near each other.
Many of us gathered in the dining area to eat breakfast. As we did the children offered us stickers for our hands as decorations. The children even decorated the dogs with stickers. Never has there been a place filled with so much laughter and joy. These children lack nothing in the smiles department.
We ate breakfast at various tables with the children. Sharing what we could with the broken or absent Spanish. We got along pretty good. We gathered after the meal to discuss the specifics of our mission trip. Derek offered to us that this trip is more about relationships than it is about “doing” anything. That in Mexico it is more important to be with each other than it is to do business.
We will not be starting our “project” until Monday. So we filled our day with a trip into town and playing with the children. Some of us pushed children on swings or down slides. Some of us wrestled with the children, lifting them over our heads as they wiggled to mimic the stars of the WWF. Still others played board games, puzzles, and even a form of bingo. These children have boundless energy!
We will attend worship at a local church tomorrow. We are excited to worship with our Christian Sisters and Brothers here in San Luis Potosi. Thank you for praying with us as we venture forth into what God wills for us.
Blessings and peace…
Many of us gathered in the dining area to eat breakfast. As we did the children offered us stickers for our hands as decorations. The children even decorated the dogs with stickers. Never has there been a place filled with so much laughter and joy. These children lack nothing in the smiles department.
We ate breakfast at various tables with the children. Sharing what we could with the broken or absent Spanish. We got along pretty good. We gathered after the meal to discuss the specifics of our mission trip. Derek offered to us that this trip is more about relationships than it is about “doing” anything. That in Mexico it is more important to be with each other than it is to do business.
We will not be starting our “project” until Monday. So we filled our day with a trip into town and playing with the children. Some of us pushed children on swings or down slides. Some of us wrestled with the children, lifting them over our heads as they wiggled to mimic the stars of the WWF. Still others played board games, puzzles, and even a form of bingo. These children have boundless energy!
We will attend worship at a local church tomorrow. We are excited to worship with our Christian Sisters and Brothers here in San Luis Potosi. Thank you for praying with us as we venture forth into what God wills for us.
Blessings and peace…
Friday, October 9, 2009
We're here!
We arrived in San Luis Potosi around 11:00 p.m. local time. We were greeted with a chorus of exotic sounds. The most exotic being that of the airplane that we landed in. We were ushered towards customs and soon we were officially in Mexico!
We loaded our gear into two waiting vehicles. Two folks hopped into the back of a pick-up truck with Luis & Fernando [two of the children living at the home] and we motored on our way to Casa De Hogar. The darkness could not suppress the beauty of this city. We were entertained with the fluctuating scent of livestock and tacos. The lone beacons of light in the darkness were the ever ready tacos stands offered meals to the waiting truckers.
With the cool wind in our face we made way across the highway. Passing us to the left and right, people rode mopeds and large American trucks to home and what else the night shall bring. We stopped for a late dinner at “Los Volcanos” a popular late night taco stand. We ponied up to a few tables and broke bread.
On our way home the sky opened up and those brave souls in the back of the truck got soaked from head to toe. Luckily the luggage was safe from stormy weather. We arrived to a large iron gate and entered into the Casa ready to begin.
The most amazing part of the trip thus far is the diversity of hope and conviction we all bring to this mission. We hope to bring a good word from Douglass Blvd. Christian Church to our family here in Mexico. I would say so far so good.
We hope you follow us over the next few days as we seek to meet a loving, living God of abundance and transformation here in Mexico. I pray that our expectation of a divine encounter in the faces of these hopeful children bring new fruit to all of us.
Blessings and peace…
We loaded our gear into two waiting vehicles. Two folks hopped into the back of a pick-up truck with Luis & Fernando [two of the children living at the home] and we motored on our way to Casa De Hogar. The darkness could not suppress the beauty of this city. We were entertained with the fluctuating scent of livestock and tacos. The lone beacons of light in the darkness were the ever ready tacos stands offered meals to the waiting truckers.
With the cool wind in our face we made way across the highway. Passing us to the left and right, people rode mopeds and large American trucks to home and what else the night shall bring. We stopped for a late dinner at “Los Volcanos” a popular late night taco stand. We ponied up to a few tables and broke bread.
On our way home the sky opened up and those brave souls in the back of the truck got soaked from head to toe. Luckily the luggage was safe from stormy weather. We arrived to a large iron gate and entered into the Casa ready to begin.
The most amazing part of the trip thus far is the diversity of hope and conviction we all bring to this mission. We hope to bring a good word from Douglass Blvd. Christian Church to our family here in Mexico. I would say so far so good.
We hope you follow us over the next few days as we seek to meet a loving, living God of abundance and transformation here in Mexico. I pray that our expectation of a divine encounter in the faces of these hopeful children bring new fruit to all of us.
Blessings and peace…
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