Saturday, February 24, 2007
Tonight in church we sang the Spanish version of “Count Your Many Blessings.” The chorus literally translated: “BLESSINGS! How much you already have! BLESSINGS! God sends you more! BLESSINGS! You will be surprised when you see what God will do for you.” Ben was leading the singing and asked us to think of three blessings in our life. Immediately I thought of my roommate Emi. It took us a few weeks of some tense times to figure things out, but now it is so nice to have a leisurely lunch together every day, and take turns praying before the meal and washing dishes, and compliment each other’s cooking. We are both equally neat and go to bed about the same time. One sacrifice I have to make for her sake is that instead of just stuffing all the used grocery bags into another plastic bag, I have to neatly fold all of them, which I think is a total waste of time… it’s not like they look nice or are even more organized, they’re just plastic bags! Yesterday I tried to explain to her that cutting raw chicken on a wood cutting board and then slicing up the vegetables on the same board is a really terrible idea. So besides the fact that her cooking habits may one day be the cause of my contracting salmonella, Emi is a really big blessing in my life.
The second blessing I thought of was intentionally getting lost on my walk home from the grocery store today and coming upon a huge green space that I had never seen before. I have a huge hankering to be in the country somewhere, because even though there are lots of trees, and a few parks not far from my house, everything in the city is fairly dirty and ugly.
The third was the book I am currently reading through a couple pages a day, The Politics of Jesus, by John Howard Yoder. His thesis is that Jesus was deeply concerned with the agenda of politics and related issues of power, status, and right relations, a topic which has been in the forefront of my mind as I interact with the people here. I feel uncomfortable saying that I am powerful, but it’s true. And sometimes annoying, because it puts me in a position where I need to be very careful and responsible with what I have. “Use your power not to oppress others, but to help them.”
Speaking of power, I feel I have developed a tremendous capacity to sit for hours on end doing absolutely nothing. Sunday was a special day at church because it was the annual meeting of six AC churches from Paraguay. There are actually two other AC churches in Asuncion, one of them is only a 10 minute bus ride. Anyways, I sat through the two-hour church service with a sermon I didn’t understand because the preacher was dithering between Spanish in an impossible accent and native language of Guarani. We had a 15 minute break then another meeting about what all the churches did this year and are planning to do in the next, which seems like it would be exciting for me to hear, except that every pastor and treasurer had to preach a mini-sermon and it lasted another two hours. My brain was so overwhelmed that I didn’t listen to a single word. When this meeting was over I burst out the doors and ran laps around the church yard. In some ways though I think listening in a language you don’t understand is better than a really boring sermon, because then you can sit and think and aren’t distracted at all by what the preacher is saying.
My main reason for writing this blog is to say that I am actually excited to go to school and teach tomorrow. That was a fast answer to my prayer for joy. I am still very frustrated with two second graders, and my voice still pains me by 4:30 each, but it is awesome to hear the kids yelling “I speak English!!” and to watch them dancing and clapping while we sing “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” or best of all is when I run into students on the street, which happens every single day and I greet them and they respond to me in English and Oh! the look on their parents’ faces! I need to use Spanish to say that I have tantas ganas to buy a bike so I can tear around the neighbourhood with the kids. I am very blessed, I recognized this after the response I received when I posted my worries/complaints, and every day here if I just open my eyes. You are too because you get to read my great blogs!
The second blessing I thought of was intentionally getting lost on my walk home from the grocery store today and coming upon a huge green space that I had never seen before. I have a huge hankering to be in the country somewhere, because even though there are lots of trees, and a few parks not far from my house, everything in the city is fairly dirty and ugly.
The third was the book I am currently reading through a couple pages a day, The Politics of Jesus, by John Howard Yoder. His thesis is that Jesus was deeply concerned with the agenda of politics and related issues of power, status, and right relations, a topic which has been in the forefront of my mind as I interact with the people here. I feel uncomfortable saying that I am powerful, but it’s true. And sometimes annoying, because it puts me in a position where I need to be very careful and responsible with what I have. “Use your power not to oppress others, but to help them.”
Speaking of power, I feel I have developed a tremendous capacity to sit for hours on end doing absolutely nothing. Sunday was a special day at church because it was the annual meeting of six AC churches from Paraguay. There are actually two other AC churches in Asuncion, one of them is only a 10 minute bus ride. Anyways, I sat through the two-hour church service with a sermon I didn’t understand because the preacher was dithering between Spanish in an impossible accent and native language of Guarani. We had a 15 minute break then another meeting about what all the churches did this year and are planning to do in the next, which seems like it would be exciting for me to hear, except that every pastor and treasurer had to preach a mini-sermon and it lasted another two hours. My brain was so overwhelmed that I didn’t listen to a single word. When this meeting was over I burst out the doors and ran laps around the church yard. In some ways though I think listening in a language you don’t understand is better than a really boring sermon, because then you can sit and think and aren’t distracted at all by what the preacher is saying.
My main reason for writing this blog is to say that I am actually excited to go to school and teach tomorrow. That was a fast answer to my prayer for joy. I am still very frustrated with two second graders, and my voice still pains me by 4:30 each, but it is awesome to hear the kids yelling “I speak English!!” and to watch them dancing and clapping while we sing “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” or best of all is when I run into students on the street, which happens every single day and I greet them and they respond to me in English and Oh! the look on their parents’ faces! I need to use Spanish to say that I have tantas ganas to buy a bike so I can tear around the neighbourhood with the kids. I am very blessed, I recognized this after the response I received when I posted my worries/complaints, and every day here if I just open my eyes. You are too because you get to read my great blogs!
# posted by Ellen @ 4:04 PM 
