3 September 2013. We’ve been really busy
the last few days. You wouldn’t know it
from reading this blog, of course. From
the blog it looks like we’ve been totally absent for a couple months—which we
were. For 8 weeks we visited family,
friends and our church in North America and generally took some time off. In that time we studied no Spanish, breaking
our self-made promises to do so. But, so
I told myself, I was letting all that Spanish I had learned earlier sink in. And that turned out to be quite true, as much
of it has sunk so deep that I can no longer dig it up.
Anyway, now we are back
in Leon. This past weekend 7 Dordt
students arrived. They are taking a
semester abroad to study in Nicaragua.
They’ll be living in Leon, and we’ll be somewhat involved in their
program. Part of our volunteer responsibilities is to offer them a place
to drop in from time-to-time (like the 3 sitting in our living room now), some mentoring, and a weekly time of pizza and spiritual
discussion using Geography of Grace
by Rocke and Van Dyke (a recommended read, for sure). But more than that, we (both Peggy and I) are
going to be attending their History and Culture of Nicaragua class and
assisting Professor Joel Huyser as discussion leaders. The plan is that we will take over full responsibility
for the class next year. This is going
to push us a bit.
For the last few days
the students have been involved in orientation and moving into their new
Nicaraguan host family homes. Now they
are finally settled in and starting classes today.
At the same time, a Missioner
Cohort arrived and is settling in to her host family home. This young woman is Nicaraguan, but has been
living in Costa Rica with her mother for the last 6 or 7 years. Our other Missioner Cohort is a young man
from Michigan. He arrived earlier and
has been studying Spanish since June.
You must be asking, What is a Missioner Cohort? This is a year-long volunteer position offered
by the Christian Reformed Church to folks who want to live in an intentional
community of spiritual study, prayer, work and play to support the community of
Christians in León as they (the Leones) seek to better engage their neighbors. The
Missioner Cohort opportunity is brand new, and we are charged with helping to
make it work well. It’s a good chance
for folks of all ages to experience what cross-cultural ministry is like in a developing world context while
growing in spiritual discernment. You can find out more about it here:
So our formal Spanish
study has ended, and now we are feeling our way forward not only in our Spanish
language and Nicaraguan culture adventures, but also in this new multi-faceted role
of walking alongside these 9 students and missioners. We are excited about the prospects and not a
little intimidated about the challenges, especially this future “professorship”
of Nicaraguan History and Culture. But,
we have already started reading. It’s
like going back to school ourselves, but with a much different perspective.
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