well, its been a long time and seems virtually impossible to be able to recap all i would like in this blog post. we’ve been really busy lately. much of the group heads out monday morning and a few of us tuesday or wednesday. in the past days, therefore, we’ve been doing a lot of goodbye stuff, wrapping things up, talking about how we work together as a team from all around the country now, etc. it has been really busy. i’m actually writing this on a word document to be posted later at the mcc office (when we meet together for the last time before we all leave…to talk to the director of international programming from mcc akron and talk about the seed program) really quickly because i don’t have time to get online really. but right now im waiting for the meatloaf to cook before i head to church. we have a goodbye potluck today for leady, alejo and i, and i was asked to bring meatloaf. i guess they’ve heard about it and all want to try it. J
yesterday left early on a bus to the very northern part of bogota, to an English school. i don’t actually know much about the school, but we had some connection to it and it is also the school that glenn and Glenda moyer work at…some of you will know those names. J so anyway, it was a cheap place to go for the day and have rooms and outdoors, etc. it was a wonderful day together. we played a number of games, shared food, relaxed, and spent a number of hours in the evening around communion sharing some intense stuff, which i think was a good note to end on and head out with. as i think about it, this is probably the most intense 3 months of group time i’ve ever had in my life. as we sat around yesterday i was thinking about how i have literally seen each of these faces pretty much every day straight for about 100 days. its just a lot of time together. in some ways, it is sad to say goodbyes, but i’m also really excited to get out and head to the coast.
oh, and on the way home on the bus, i was dared, so i whipped out my guitar and started singing patty griffin to all those on the bus. it was hilarious and absolutely ridiculous. everyone in the bus was whistling and such. it was a dare, i couldn’t not do it.
we leave tuesday morning – we being doda, torin, erin, johan, esquivia and i. erin and johan (co-facilitators) are joining us for a week to do some work with the coastal region, and because johan has not met our partners on the coast yet. Ricardo esquivia has some meetings in bogota today and tomorrow, so we’re waiting for him to all fly out together. sounds like for the first week we’ll all be living in a house together that mcc has purchased for a family that is joining the mcc team in june or july….in sincelejo that is. we’ll be visiting all three of our communities, and there will kind of figure out the time line for when and how we move out from sincelejo to our communities. we met with bonnie last week to talk about placements and heard some more about cultural differences and context on the coast. safety issues, etc. didn’t really get a better picture of much specifics about zambrano or job stuff, but that will all come in the next week or two once i’m actually on the coast.
last week we talked about political advocacy. i really enjoyed the week and we had a lot of great conversations about the church in the political scene, read some jhy and talked about the politics of jesus – which is way more complicated in Spanish, since no one could find a copy of it in English. we, as always, had a lot of very different opinions on the topic and how the church relates to it. i personally find myself more and more convinced that following jesus necessarily calls us to political participation. i don’t know how to understand jesus’ death if not because of the way he worked and lived and spoke against the political powers that existed. how does the church do that, though? what is the best way? we had one pastor tell us this week that political advocacy does have a place in the church, but it is the work of some people…that people have different gifts and political advocacy is one that some people have. i had a hard time with it…mostly feeling like it is part of discipleship. they are difficult questions, though. and when i start thinking about them, i begin to wonder where the end is. there is always more to do. always something else to fight for. how does one authentically participate without becoming totally overwhelmed and helpless and depressed? questions i’m still trying to figure out.
we also talked about the cycle of violence from our own lives, which is always a hard and helpful reminder to me…talking about how i participate in structures that oppress the world, then i donate or work toward causes to alleviate world oppression, which makes me feel like i am helping make progress, but then i’m still participating in the structures that oppress. so the cycle just keeps going. how do you get out of it? anyway, food for thought…
as part of the advocacy week we went to the main plaza, which is surrounded by government buildings, where congress meets, etc…and talked to a group of displaced people who were doing a sit-in. they had been there 45 days, demanding acknowledgement and rights. it was really interesting to talk to them about it, and in a few weeks, we’ll have a group response up on the seed website with our reflections. i would give you that website, but i don’t know it off the top of my head. hm…later.
i know this is getting really long. i’ll wrap it up. its way hard to try to say everything i’d like to say. i gotta get moving anyway. it is now monday morning and i have a lot of packing and errands to do today.
finishing with events of yesterday, we had a really wonderful church service at ver aguas. they talked about community and what it means to be part of community, then used matthew 9 (harvest is plenty, workers few) to talk about the leaving of leady and alejo and i. talking about it in terms of taking peace to places of pain. it was a refreshing interpretation because i feel that passage is so much bigger than evangilazation. pretty much the whole service was about leady and alejo leaving. the church community is so small, and they have been there since the church began 10 years ago. it was really special to be part of it. it made me miss my walnut hill congregation a lot. and reminded me, again, that the more you love the harder it is to leave people, but my vote continues to be to love as much an as deeply as possible. Arturo (one of the pastors, and leadys older brother) ended talking about the community exploding outward…that often the church names success in terms of its size and membership, how much it grows, etc. but he was talking about how really authentic communities and true communities explode out as they are called to work toward peace and justice in the world.
last night then, we all met together for the last time and talked to the director of international programs or something like that from akron. trying to convince mcc akron that the seed program is worth their money and work. since this is a pilot program, they have all kinds of questions about how its going and such, to determine if it should continue. all our votes are yes, but we’ll see what the big shots say. i think it will be an ongoing conversation in these two years.
alas, i must go. lots of packing, goodbyes, and more tears. surprised, i know. but i love you all. thank you for listening. i’m off to the coast! finally!!!
jes
ps. for those of you who know i have a small skin tag on the corner of my eye that i play with frequently, you should know that i’ve been messing with it for weeks and the other day i pulled it off. ha. it is gone. just thought you should know. when i look in the mirror now, my eye feels naked. ridiculous i am.
yesterday left early on a bus to the very northern part of bogota, to an English school. i don’t actually know much about the school, but we had some connection to it and it is also the school that glenn and Glenda moyer work at…some of you will know those names. J so anyway, it was a cheap place to go for the day and have rooms and outdoors, etc. it was a wonderful day together. we played a number of games, shared food, relaxed, and spent a number of hours in the evening around communion sharing some intense stuff, which i think was a good note to end on and head out with. as i think about it, this is probably the most intense 3 months of group time i’ve ever had in my life. as we sat around yesterday i was thinking about how i have literally seen each of these faces pretty much every day straight for about 100 days. its just a lot of time together. in some ways, it is sad to say goodbyes, but i’m also really excited to get out and head to the coast.
oh, and on the way home on the bus, i was dared, so i whipped out my guitar and started singing patty griffin to all those on the bus. it was hilarious and absolutely ridiculous. everyone in the bus was whistling and such. it was a dare, i couldn’t not do it.
we leave tuesday morning – we being doda, torin, erin, johan, esquivia and i. erin and johan (co-facilitators) are joining us for a week to do some work with the coastal region, and because johan has not met our partners on the coast yet. Ricardo esquivia has some meetings in bogota today and tomorrow, so we’re waiting for him to all fly out together. sounds like for the first week we’ll all be living in a house together that mcc has purchased for a family that is joining the mcc team in june or july….in sincelejo that is. we’ll be visiting all three of our communities, and there will kind of figure out the time line for when and how we move out from sincelejo to our communities. we met with bonnie last week to talk about placements and heard some more about cultural differences and context on the coast. safety issues, etc. didn’t really get a better picture of much specifics about zambrano or job stuff, but that will all come in the next week or two once i’m actually on the coast.
last week we talked about political advocacy. i really enjoyed the week and we had a lot of great conversations about the church in the political scene, read some jhy and talked about the politics of jesus – which is way more complicated in Spanish, since no one could find a copy of it in English. we, as always, had a lot of very different opinions on the topic and how the church relates to it. i personally find myself more and more convinced that following jesus necessarily calls us to political participation. i don’t know how to understand jesus’ death if not because of the way he worked and lived and spoke against the political powers that existed. how does the church do that, though? what is the best way? we had one pastor tell us this week that political advocacy does have a place in the church, but it is the work of some people…that people have different gifts and political advocacy is one that some people have. i had a hard time with it…mostly feeling like it is part of discipleship. they are difficult questions, though. and when i start thinking about them, i begin to wonder where the end is. there is always more to do. always something else to fight for. how does one authentically participate without becoming totally overwhelmed and helpless and depressed? questions i’m still trying to figure out.
we also talked about the cycle of violence from our own lives, which is always a hard and helpful reminder to me…talking about how i participate in structures that oppress the world, then i donate or work toward causes to alleviate world oppression, which makes me feel like i am helping make progress, but then i’m still participating in the structures that oppress. so the cycle just keeps going. how do you get out of it? anyway, food for thought…
as part of the advocacy week we went to the main plaza, which is surrounded by government buildings, where congress meets, etc…and talked to a group of displaced people who were doing a sit-in. they had been there 45 days, demanding acknowledgement and rights. it was really interesting to talk to them about it, and in a few weeks, we’ll have a group response up on the seed website with our reflections. i would give you that website, but i don’t know it off the top of my head. hm…later.
i know this is getting really long. i’ll wrap it up. its way hard to try to say everything i’d like to say. i gotta get moving anyway. it is now monday morning and i have a lot of packing and errands to do today.
finishing with events of yesterday, we had a really wonderful church service at ver aguas. they talked about community and what it means to be part of community, then used matthew 9 (harvest is plenty, workers few) to talk about the leaving of leady and alejo and i. talking about it in terms of taking peace to places of pain. it was a refreshing interpretation because i feel that passage is so much bigger than evangilazation. pretty much the whole service was about leady and alejo leaving. the church community is so small, and they have been there since the church began 10 years ago. it was really special to be part of it. it made me miss my walnut hill congregation a lot. and reminded me, again, that the more you love the harder it is to leave people, but my vote continues to be to love as much an as deeply as possible. Arturo (one of the pastors, and leadys older brother) ended talking about the community exploding outward…that often the church names success in terms of its size and membership, how much it grows, etc. but he was talking about how really authentic communities and true communities explode out as they are called to work toward peace and justice in the world.
last night then, we all met together for the last time and talked to the director of international programs or something like that from akron. trying to convince mcc akron that the seed program is worth their money and work. since this is a pilot program, they have all kinds of questions about how its going and such, to determine if it should continue. all our votes are yes, but we’ll see what the big shots say. i think it will be an ongoing conversation in these two years.
alas, i must go. lots of packing, goodbyes, and more tears. surprised, i know. but i love you all. thank you for listening. i’m off to the coast! finally!!!
jes
ps. for those of you who know i have a small skin tag on the corner of my eye that i play with frequently, you should know that i’ve been messing with it for weeks and the other day i pulled it off. ha. it is gone. just thought you should know. when i look in the mirror now, my eye feels naked. ridiculous i am.
ps. 2. if you have facebook, erin has been uploading pictures, so you can see a few more of our recent happenings.
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