Much More than a Potato

I found this Asuncion fast-food chain french-fry carton on the side of the road. Translated, it says, ¨McCain: Much More than a Potato.¨


Just wait until the McCain presidential campaign gets ahold of it as a slogan-- they´ll hire me on as a campaign manager for sure, even all the way from Paraguay. Just think of it: ¨Vote for McCain, because he´s much more than a potato.¨Has a good ring to it, doesn´t it?


Stance on abortion? Doesn´t matter. The Iraq war? Ha- a non-issue. Surging energy prices? Out the door.

I´m just voting for McCain because he´s much more than a potato.

Big Anniversary

Saturday marked the ten-year anniversary of my baptism. If I were traditional Apostolic, I’d say ten years ago I was baptized into the flock of faith, accepted as a member of the church, and my rebirth through repentance sealed by the Holy Spirit in the laying-on of hands. If I were Baptist, I’d say ten years ago I was symbolically buried with Christ in the waters of baptism as an outward sign and public testimony of the work that God did in saving the inner-most parts of my soul at an earlier time. If I were Presbyterian, I’d say ten years ago I was baptized and welcomed into a New Covenant Christian community much like Old Testament Hebrew babies were circumcised as a sign of their membership in the People of God. If I were Eastern Orthodox, I’d say ten years ago baptism marked my passing from death to life, from darkness to light, from Canaan to the Promised Land, even as Joshua and the people of Israel crossed through the waters of the River Jordan. If I were Catholic, I’d say ten years ago my baptism sacramentally broke the chains of Original Sin and drove away the darkness of Adam’s curse from my soul, indelibly marking me as a Christian and ushering me into the newness of life in Christ.


Whatever one’s views of baptism, though, ten years is a long time. Think of it: I’ve officially been on the walk of faith for a full decade now. After so much time, it seems that I ought to be arriving already from my journey to the New Jerusalem. As I look around at the road signs, though, I realize I’m only a few steps outside of my door. My soul was changed when God first met me and I started out on a path of faith, but I still struggle with a whole lot of the same sins that I struggled with a decade ago. Lust didn’t get any better after being thirteen; many of the temptations that seemed innocent to me then have become much bigger, bolder, and uglier to me now. My pride and self-dependence don’t seem to have shrunken any, either; my higher education and greater achievements in the eyes of the world only seem to add kindling to an egotistical fire that was sparked in elementary school. Ironically enough, though, I’m still just as self-conscious as my thirteen-year-old self who did everything he could to please the people around him in a never-ending search for acceptance and success; with scores of friends recently making over a $100,000 a year, joining the ranks of the political elite, and starting their own families, the stakes have just become much higher and my vulnerability to criticism much greater.


In spite of all this, however, I wouldn’t trade a day’s walk with Jesus for anything else in world. I don’t ever regret a moment giving my life away to Him and being publicly identified with Him in the obedience of faith. I’m not perfect, I struggle with sin, and a lot of times I fall down flat on my face recognizing the poverty of my still-prone-to-be-spiritually-poor soul in the presence of His rich holiness and awesome grandeur of perfect righteousness. As the people here in Paraguay tell me, though, I’m “joven todavia,” still young. God-willing, I’ll have a few more decades on the road of faith and a whole lot more of sanctification to be had. I thank God for however long I have to live that He’s patient with me. I know He’s walking by my side, straightening out my course when I get sidetracked to the right or left by my sin and pulling me forward out of the pits when I get stuck in self pity, regret, and hopelessness.


Perhaps the greatest joy to me on this anniversary of my baptism is that God continues to lead and want to be with me. Although I stumble sometimes and don’t keep up with where I ought to be, by His love I continue to follow and He continues to change me and help me along. Time teaches me everyday to love my Lord more and more, and, by His grace, I really am being transformed.

Visit Wrapped-Up

Me and the family at Foz de Iguazu
Dad definately should have been a cowboy
The team and their lot of tile work

The past two weeks have been jam-packed with the excitement of winter vacations and a visit from Ohio family and friends. A work team came down from Vesper Lake Bible Fellowship, the church where I grew up, with my dad, brother Joey, sister Jennifer, youth pastor Brad, second-cousin Steve, and two other young friends, Chad and Matt. They came down with the intention to do some tiling and painting work for the school, visit with and get to know the Paraguayan Church and culture, and visit with and encourage me. Now that they’re finished, I can say with a big thankful smile that everything they wanted to do was accomplished, and accomplished well.

Although their trip started and ended rather roughly (coming down, a one-day delay in Atlanta because of Hurricane Bertha and nearly a half-day in Argentina because of a missed flight; going back, an extra day in Buenos Aires because of a missed connection to the States and an extra stop in Cincinnati because of their re-routed itinerary), everything they did while in Paraguay went along smoothly and basically without a hitch. The weather was in the mid-seventies and sunny every day, a real Paraguayan miracle in the middle of winter (Paraguayan folklore says that these two weeks of summer weather in the middle of winter usually come two weeks before the Feast of St. John on June 24^th. As Oscar joked, though, this year, when St. John asked permission from God for the good weather to be in the middle of June, God must have told him to wait until the middle of July when some Protestants would be visiting Paraguay). Although the team suffered a bit from runny noses, sore throats, one multi-day case of diarrhea, and a trip to the Paraguayan emergency room after Brad passed out from a badly-sprained ankle (an emergency room, by the way, where a visit with a doctor cost two dollars and x-rays with family and friends standing all around you in the x-ray room only cost $4.50), God was good and no one’s health was ever seriously in danger. The work was never hindered by sickness, and neither was the sightseeing.

Tourism perks of the trip for the team included a trip to Foz de Iguazu (the South American jungle Niagara Falls), a Paraguayan meatfest buffet, seeing Itapu Dam, boating on the River Paraguay, shopping at a Paraguayan bazaar, visiting the Center of Town and seeing historical monuments and sights twice, and climbing up a little mountain for a beautiful view of the Paraguayan countryside in Yaguaron. Visiting with the people from church, they had dinner prepared for them six times on a trip of only a week and a half, and every day ate an excellent Paraguayan lunch prepared by a sister from the church for only about $2.50. They received much good hospitality, which helped them work hard with determined purpose to lay and grout tile floors and clean and paint the church soccer field. They were able to bless the church in Lambaré as well as the church in Sajonia, where the team spent some visiting with church members in a rough area of Asunción and was able to purchase for the congregation badly-needed fans and lights.

For me, the trip was a huge blessing as well. I was kept very busy throughout my winter vacation with making plans and organizing details for the team, but I got to share a lot of time with my dear family and friends. I had the chance to see Paraguay through their eyes, once more as a new, foreign, and exotic place full of adventure and hospitality. They showed me how not to take small things for granted, and made me appreciate much more everything I’ve come to know and have in my missionary life in Paraguay. The snickerdoodles and small American necessities they brought from my mom, along with the peanut-butter-popcorn balls and chocolate chip cookies they brought from my aunts, ought to hold me off on good home-cooking at least until I return home in four and a half months. Speaking of home, having my family stay with me for a week and a half made me realize how much I really do like home and miss my family. I’m going to keep doing my best as an English teacher and missionary in Paraguay, but I’m also looking forward to Christmastime in Ohio half a year away.

Trip over

The family is back home after a day delay in Buenos Aires. Thank God.

Arrival

Hooray! After many difficulties and no short voyage, the group from Vesper has arrived! Thank God!

Stuck in Atlanta

Crew Update: The work team is stuck in a Atlanta, Georgia for a day until the passing of Hurricane Bertha. I guess it´s better than being stuck in the Atlantic. God´s surely answering our prayers for their safety, though, just maybe not in ways we expected.

My Fourth of July

Friday was a day I was tempted to complain. There were plenty of good reasons to do so, too: it was a really long week, all my dishes were dirty, it was the Fourth of July and I was in Paraguay, and all the Americans in the mission were off to travel the world on the day of American Independence. A couple people wished me a happy Fourth of July, but overall it could have been a really downer day.


Thankfully and by many graces, though, it turned into one of the most enjoyable and consoling days of my time here. This past week was Missions Week at Adonai, a time set aside each year to remember the countries and cultures of the world in prayer. This year the assigned countries all came from Europe. Each class was responsible to research and present to the rest of the school a report on their assigned country, and to pray for the evangelization of that country every morning of the week. The week ended, then, with a Missions Fair and every grade presenting its nation to the school along with its way of dress, typical food, and style of music.


Each grade took the project as a matter of class pride and did their best to participate, from the tiny preschoolers dressed as Greek philosophers to the 11th graders as classy musicians from Austria. Each stand representing a country was meticulously decorated with banners, balloons, and billowing polyester fabric by parents, students, and teachers working together to finish the project. There were vast banquet tables set with dishes from all over Europe, although somehow a lot of Paraguayan food snuck its way in to the mix, too. In the course of the night, I sampled a thick quiche and coffee from Finland, fondue from Switzerland, roast pork and sweet potato from Ireland, fried mashed potato finger from France, lemon meringue pie from Greece, a tuna, egg, and tomato sandwich from Norway, and paella from Spain. Needless to say, by the end of the night I was feeling a little sick.


Still, there was a world of beauty to the entire event: to see all the students putting their best effort forward in study, planning, and prayer for Missions Week was an awesome privelege; to participate in the Missions Fair and see hundreds of students, their parents and teachers, and people from the neighborhood come to the school together was an amazing blessing; and to have my Fourth of July occupied with such excitement and activity was an unbelievable grace.


Missions Week at Adonai really showed me what the school is all about: preparing students to reach out to the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The awesome part of the event was that the students of every grade were really excited to participate, learn, and pray. Even better, though, was that included in the festivities were dozens and dozens of parents and guests from the neighborhood. Thus, the value of my own participation in the school and the time I’ve set aside this year to teach at Adonai were confirmed to me in a mighty positive way as I got to see the mission of the school “to educate children, molding their character in order to serve God and the nations” lived out practically and powerfully.

Family´s Coming

The family is coming along with some friends from the church today... Please say a prayer for their safety!

A Prayer for the US

There’re a lot of things messed up about Paraguay: corruption in the current government basically prevents any major national economic development; a lack of security means you have to build high fences around your house and always be ready at a moment’s notice to give out your cell phone or wallet to an armed attacker; and the average Paraguayan family is broken beyond imagination and irreparably hurt by marital infidelity, alcoholism, and general lack of male responsibility.

Although I see so many evil things resulting from sin in the Paraguayan people, though, there is one great and perhaps greatest evil of which, thank God, they are entirely innocent. It is an evil that has been prevented at every level of society by what many consider to be an outdated, archaic, and stale Catholic society. Still, it is an evil that, because of the Roman Catholic Church’s influence, has largely been avoided and is, in any case, a Paraguayan social stigma punishable by many years in prison if found out. Sadly, however, it is also this greatest evil to which my own foundationally Protestant and “more advanced” United States have succumbed. This great evil, eschewed by Paraguay but embraced by the United States in the Holocaust of our generation, is abortion, the intentional murder of pre-born children.

Paraguayans, most of whom are nominally Catholic, at least get this one thing right: they understand that abortion is an atrocious sin, abhorrent before God and intolerable in society. And their country is blessed because they believe it. Paraguayans are a fruitful people, and they are growing fast. New human life sprouts from every corner here, and demographic studies show that half of the now nearly-six million Paraguayans are under the age of twenty. In the United States over the past twenty-some years, on the other hand, we’ve murdered nearly seven times the number of Paraguay’s entire population in children before they were even born, and we are now faced with the crisis and curse of a declining native population.

It literally makes me sick to think how many people my age never had the chance to breathe because of legalized abortion. In the words of Saint James, I “am wretched, mourn and weep” for my nation. I see that although we have plenty of money, power, and “civilization,” we lack the greatest thing of life itself, and oftentimes we even allow that to be taken away from those who are least able to defend themselves. Yes, we find our rights, liberties, and freedoms in the United States, but we also find our hands stained with the blood of millions of innocents.

I believe that soon we shall reap the consequences for our sins. We cannot cheat God forever, because one day He “shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him” and “in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.”

For that reason, this Fourth of July I pray, Lord, have mercy. Forgive our nation for the atrocities we have committed in selfishness and the innocent lives we have taken in cold blood. Christ, have mercy. Free us from our self-seeking lives to live in your Life, being able and willing to love You and our neighbor, from the greatest and most powerful to the smallest and most defenseless. Lord, have mercy. Give our leaders the grace of repentance and the strength of will to turn our nation away from its massacre of innocents to a society that recognizes the divine blessing of human life and the value of every person created in the image of God. We pray this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns together with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever, Amen.

Hard knocks

Every once in a while things in life hit you that just make you say, “Wow, that hurts.” They seem to come flying out of nowhere and, even if they’re things that don’t touch you, your family, or even your close friends directly, you can still feel the knock on your soul and empathize in bleeding heart with those who are going through the unimaginable pain. Within the past week, Colegio Privado Adonai and the AC Church here have both been hit with news that wrenches at the heart; news that makes us question the basic justice of the world and leads us out wondering and wandering around in a mess of pain and unanswered questions.

The first hard knock came about a week ago. I found out in my first class last Friday that one of my second-grade students, Josué, was nearly burned to death in a dreadful accident that ravaged his tiny body. What makes the situation even more tough to comprehend is that even before the accident Josué’s story was so sad to begin with. Abandoned by his mother and having a father who works so much that none of the teachers at Colegio Privado Adonai had ever seen him before, Josué was basically being raised by his ten year-old brother who cooked and looked out for him. In the classroom, although a kind and quiet student, he was unable to concentrate and learn in any significant way because of the problems at home.

Then, a week ago Wednesday, seven-year-old Josué tried to finish up the job of burning a trash pile in his back yard. In the process he was doused in a large quantity of gas that, quite naturally, was quickly absorbed by his warm winter clothing. When the fire jumped up to meet him, Josué’s clothing burst into flames like the ignited tip of a sulphur match. His brother made a good effort to save him by taking off Josué’s burning fleece sweatshirt, but in the process he also took off half the skin from his little brother’s face. He then put Josué in the shower to douse the flames, but the burning continued to the point of charring one of Josué’s entire legs beyond much good future use.

I went with the second-grade teacher Liliana to visit Josué in the hospital on Saturday. He’s in the I.P.S., a massive communist-looking government-run run-down complex offering sub-standard medical care to the thousands of poor Paraguayans who can’t afford anything else. It’s a hospital comprised mostly of medical-student doctors because all the good professional ones work in private practice. It’s a place with broken windows and leaky roofs, where cleaning ladies mop the floor without putting up signs warning against the slippery surface and where surgeries are delayed because the surgical instruments haven’t been sterilized well enough.

There we found out more details about Josué’s condition. He’s in the burn unit all alone, without anything to occupy his mind except for pain and where he is able to be visited only by closest family members infrequently. If infection from his wounds doesn’t kill him soon, he will be having reconstructive surgery sometime next week to transplant the skin from his hindquarters to the charred portions of his leg. They say he’ll need six units of blood for the operation: six units of blood that, with one look at Josué’s small size, you’d imagine could probably fill him up two or three times with a little extra to share. Needless to say, he won’t be returning to school any time soon.

Just knowing that an innocent child, who perhaps has never hurt anyone in any significant way, is in such a state of agony seems to entirely protest the idea that any Good could exist at all in the world when there is such clear evil.

The second hard knock to the church community came with the unexpected death of a dear sister from the congregation. Doña Irene, 59, had been a member of the church for no few years, a founding member of the prayer ministry, the church cook on retreats, and a faithful visitor to and prayer warrior for those who were sick themselves. They say that she prayed several family members to salvation; indeed, today both her husband and son are recently-established although not unimportant pillars of the church and the church’s ministry.

About four or five months ago Doña Irene was re-diagnosed with a form of cancer from which she claimed to have been miraculously healed about ten years ago. She stopped coming to church for her sickness and underwent aggressive chemotherapy treatments—the best and most expensive in the country, we were told—that left her weak, tired, and discouraged. Her last treatment, a milestone for her and the completion of a long, painful process, took place last Friday. I almost took her flowers to celebrate, because I thought it would be a big relief for her to have finally triumphed over the treatment.

Little did I know, however, that those same flowers would have still been fresh enough to send to her funeral. Early Monday morning, perhaps the coldest of the winter, Doña Irene was taken to an urgent-care facility where she passed away after a night of agony. After such a long fight against cancer and the completion of such a dreadful treatment, how could she have passed away so easily? The news took us all aback, as we expected her improvement and a new strength after the ravages of the treatment.

I could probably think of a thousand good theological and very Christian explanations for the presence of evil and suffering in the world. Yes, we are fallen sinners and we suffer the consequences of death. Certainly, the world is broken by our choice and every one of us is culpable. And sure, we even serve a God who, in His grace and mercy, knows our pain and has experienced death for us. There’s no doubt He entered it and redeemed it by His own blood, and then triumphed over all the suffering of the world through His resurrection. Absolutely, as Christians we participate in that reality and we have a hope that we, too, do not suffer in vain and that one day we will be bodily resurrected to an eternal relationship of peace and complete joy with our creator.

Having all of these explanations, though, doesn’t necessarily ease the pain. No, life can be really hard sometimes. There is real agony to be felt, no matter what theologians or pastors or anyone else can say to try to ease it. Little innocent children get burned alive, and godly women who have passed through rigorous chemotherapy treatments die of their cancer anyways. And these hard knocks sting.

An American in Asuncion

As an American in another country, sometimes you just need an all-around American day: a day, that is, to indulge yourself in your own culture and get reacquainted with your own way of life; a day full of familiar luxuries and simple wonders taken for granted at home; a day, perhaps, even to wallow around and get dirtied in the mud of what many too-good-for-you-types would consider baser parts of American society.

After eight months in Paraguay, I was long overdue for such an all-around gratifying American day. I was ready, and even hungry for, the shopping and the movie theater and the cheap fast food (which isn’t so cheap, after all, here in Paraguay). And so, last Thursday on a day off from school, I headed out to the “choochy” part of Asuncion on the other side of town. Here one can find many of the luxuries of life patterned after finer American living: nice little bakeries, expensive car dealerships, modern furniture establishments, movie theaters, a mall, and even a McDonalds and Burger King. This little piece of America in Asuncion lies in the rich part of town, about an hour bus ride away from Lambaré, amongst guarded mansions and beautiful embassies and high-fenced English-speaking schools for the children of diplomats and missionaries.

The first thing I did when I arrived to the rich part of tow was to mill around Shopping Del Sol, the nicest mall in Paraguay but comparable in the States with old Rolling Acres in Akron. There I hit up the bookstore where I pretended to be interested in reading books, but, after finding that they were all in Spanish, left in a huffy for an antiquities dealership where I had a great conversation about antique dealing with an Argentinian woman whose ex-husband lives in the U.S. After I told her that I had spent time in the Middle East and had taken a course on archaeology, she thought I was an expert archaeologist and asked me my opinion of a hand-cut rock she had. She thought it was from the era of the cavemen, but I didn’t want to tell her it looked like a common broken barn stone. “One has to be careful of you buy from these days. There’s a lot of counterfits,” she said. “Yes, you have to be very careful,” I replied with my best put-on expert voice.

After doing some window shopping of stores and styles that I’m pretty sure were dumped on Paraguay as the unsold leftovers from other shops in countries up North, I went to the movie theater where a selection of movies that opened up in the States two or three months ago were playing as new releases. The only movie that wasn’t dubbed over in Spanish (I was, after all, spending an American day, so I could hardly tolerate an American movie not in American-speak) was the one with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman about two fellows—one a rich but sad white white-collar executive and the other a poor but content black blue-collar mechanic—who find themselves spending their last few months of life adventuring together after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. I won’t give away the ending, but the movie was too long and pretty predictable. I will say, though, that while I’ve only been away from the States for eight months, Jack Nicholson looks like death in the movie and seems to have aged a few decades since I’ve come here.

After slipping out of the mediocre movie I headed down the street for McDonalds, where I ate my first Big Mac in years. Even when I’m at home I usually get something more healthy from McDonalds, but this was a special occasion: a celebration of my American heritage and the Big Sandwich that is undoubtedly a bigmac part of that legacy. The fries I got on the side tasted just like those in the States. I wonder if they ship Idaho potatoes and McDonalds ketchup all the way to Paraguay.

After all was said and done, I left the mall, the movie theater, and MceeDees very satisfied and content with myself as an American. Although many might see the elements of American culture that I experienced as ugly things—that is, the materialism represented by the mall, the ever-new need for entertainment and pleasure represented by the movie theater, and the corporatism and gluttony represented by McDonalds—the day was just what I needed to remind me of my country, bring a smile to my face, and help me appreciate the things that America does and that America is. Even if it’s only for sending name brand clothes all around the world, making bad predictable movies, and being responsible for the manufacture of big cholesterol-filled BigMacs in South America, I will always love and appreciate my country, her culture, and her people wherever I may find myself.

A Good Rebuke from a Good Friend

(Ben´s response to what I wrote about bad Bible interpretation. It speaks very well for itself)

Since I’m supposedly a theologian extraordinaire and I’ve already talked with the author about most of this, I offer some counterpoint: One must remember and be aware of the fact the great strength and great weakness of our Anabaptist heritage is our literal interpretation of Scripture. This has led at times to prophetic portraits of Christian ethics and community, and has at other times created really bad stuff which borders on cultic esotericism. We can at least laud our charismatic young sister for believing in the authority of the Scripture, even if she doesn’t possess sufficient hermeneutic principles to avoid bordering on heresy. (Although, in saying that, I also have to laud the preacher at the cult who continually repeated that everything he said was based on Scripture.)

One must also remember that this charismatic young woman has a strange polarization of Christian witnesses influencing her hermeneutics: mainly a legalistic authoritarian tradition and a Pentecostal-esque fervor which is almost inevitable in South American evangelical Protestantism. Does that excuse bad teaching? Not exactly, but it’s important to remember that that neither she nor her mentors were in any moment knowingly leading others astray through faulty and wrong Bible teaching. They were doing the best they could with the best that they had, which is pretty valuable in the ethics of the Kingdom.

Allow me to clarify something more: the principles which this sister was using bad Biblical exposition to teach were very important points which the group needed to hear. She used a great deal of discretion to guide the group into greater intentionality in worship; most of things she purported make a lot of sense when compared, for example, with 1 Corinthians 14. Obviously proper ends require proper means, but I was greatly comforted by the fact that her message was pertinent and timely in addressing the situation of praise and worship team.What I would like to highlight is that “orthodoxy” (even just the word) rings pretty clangily without a thoroughly established context of love. Good doctrine is essential; but good doctrine is pointless without love. Of course I’m quick to admit that without a good doctrinal base, love becomes perverted and even impossible. But if the chief end of man to love God and enjoy him forever, orthodoxy can do no more than provide the necessary direction for that love.

Orthodoxy without love does not create orthopraxy. Quite contrarily, it creates the vilest of character qualities, the subtleties of which C.S. Lewis is so good at describing in many of his works. So I am willing to suggest that Jason’s equation may be a bit wrong. I’ve even seen that bad doctrine is often transformed by a genuine love for God into pretty good practice. I think the promise about the Holy Ghost teaching us what we need to know really holds true, and that through her deep devotion to the One and True God of Scriptures, our charismatic young worship leader is being led by the Counselor into the whole Truth. Of course, that Spirit-leading will almost necessarily involve me and other Biblicist brothers and sisters who are willing to humbly speak the truth in love. But thankfully, even if we’re too concerned for orthodoxy that we’re impeded in loving our sister, the Spirit is capable of innumerable other means, and will keep the Church, his body of believers, strangely saintly.

Pay a Visit

If you’re in Medina today, you might stop in and pay a visit to my mom. She’s in the hospital there, in room 308 bed 1, and should be at least through the late afternoon (of today, Friday, May 30). She might be a little grouchy with you, but don’t worry about it— you’d probably be grouchy, too, if you’d been through all she’s been through the past year and especially the past week. Even if you haven’t talked to her in a year, though, now would be a good time. Pay a visit, bring some flowers, show some love, pray with her. She needs good affection from folks. Give her a hug and a smile, and if she still isn’t happy, tell her I sent you and the hug is from me.

Lessons Learned from Bad Bible Interpretation

Sorry about this one. It was definately written without much love, and even without confronting the person who misused the Bible. I stand by what I said- bad Bible interpretation is bad Bible interpretation and heresy is heresy, but I apologize for the spirit in which I said it. Next time I´ll be more direct and deal with things more openly.

Very humbly with all apoplogies,
Jason

Snow, Soccer, and Hell

Ice skates. Sled. Skis. Snowboard. This past week I had the privilege of teaching some 25 Paraguayan third graders English words for snow sports. Why any English textbook would include such a flurry of arbitrary words I have not the slightest idea; but behold, such has been my struggle with destiny these past few days. The situation wasn’t helped, of course, by the fact that half the words about snowy things weren’t even mentioned in my Spanish-English dictionary. Trying to find the correct translation, therefore, took the form of me performing complex charades as to how these instruments of winter frivolity practically function along with a base commentary of broken, utterly confusing Spanish. I must have looked like I lost my mind pretending to snowboard and speaking in Spanish tongues to so many kids who have never even seen a snowflake.

Yes, there are certain cultural and linguistic boundaries that just cannot be crossed; gaps of understanding that utterly prohibit the communication of ideas. And it’s not just a problem with Paraguayans, either. Coming from a part of the world where soccer gets the media’s attention only every four years with the World Cup, I haven’t the slightest clue about futbol culture or how so many people can waste so much time being so wrapped up in it. When my students ask me which soccer team I prefer (in Paraguay, Cerro o Olympia? In Argentina, Boca o River?), I respond with a shrug of the shoulders and say I don’t really care or know about it at all. Cultural boundaries there certainly are. Entirely different worldviews persist. A hopeless lack of communication remains.

It all reminds me of the difference in thinking between Christians, those who are being transformed by lives of faith in God through Jesus Christ, and mundanos, those who are staying in the world for the sake of living for the pleasures of the world. The scriptures in so many places describe how there is a complete chasm between the thinking of a Christian guided by the Holy Spirit and the thinking of a non-Christian guided by the flesh. “What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?” “For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” The difference, really, is light and dark, day and night, Heaven and Hell. One cannot even be touched by the other; there is not even the slightest point of connection. Just as my students haven’t the smallest idea about snow and how snow-things work and I haven’t the slightest idea or desire to know about the many complexities of soccer, as believers we too must strive to maintain a purity of light in our relationship with God so that we may not know or even want to know about the darkness that can swallow us up.

But oh, how she cried.

They said he wasn’t worth a thing. A thirty year-old drug addict and dealer living five houses down, he only left home at night to do his dirty business and to play his dirty games. During the day he had little touch with the outside world; so little that, after hearing of his death, his own nephew went to school and played the afternoon as if nothing had happened. No, no one was surprised it happened.

But oh, how she cried.

They said he smoked pot, inhaled cocaine, and even burnt crack. After a while, his drug addiction took the best years of his life and all of his money, leading him to petty thievery of cell phones, fancy shoes, and of more serious breaking into homes for blenders, televisions, and jewelry. I heard it said that he once even stole a camera from a pastor to pay for his ravenous addictions. Stealing from a pastor? No, he definitely wasn’t worth a thing.

But oh, how she cried.

They said he left behind a ten-year old son, although no one knew about the boy or his mother. His own sister said she had no idea where the pair lived, but she did know for sure that her family hadn’t contacted either of them about his death. Not that they would have cared about it anyways; after all, the two never received a penny of support from his deadbeat days. Now that he’s gone, nothing will really change for them.

But oh, how she cried.

They said he was murdered in a nearby city around three a.m in the morning: shot five times, three in the head and two in the chest. It was a quick, easy, and efficient job right next to a popular soccer field, in a narrow passageway where there wasn’t much room to argue. People whispered that it was done to finish off a business transaction turned bad, a sort of life payment in the place of some missing cash. They put a doily over his forehead to cover the wound and cotton balls in his nose so the fluids wouldn’t leak out. It was all a very practical matter.

But oh, how she cried.

They said he went to the morgue early in the morning and finally came home in a hearse at three o’clock in the afternoon. His messed-up friends came by to visit him later on in the evening for one last time, not even knowing if this house was the right one. He’s the brown one, they said. Is that his funeral there? Yeah, I’m pretty certain that’s him inside.

But oh, how she cried.

They said that when she heard the news she went crazy, startling the neighborhood out of its siesta with her screaming and wailing. Five hours later she was the chief mourner and most pitiable of all seated around the coffin. Although considerably comforted by so many little pink pills, she still cried out at regular intervals, “Oh, my only son, my only son. My beloved son. God, why have you abandoned me?”

But oh, how she cried. My, how his momma cried.

Mother´s Day

This Wednesday Paraguay will recognize Mother’s Day. Why this country doesn’t celebrate on Sunday when everyone has a day off like in the United States I cannot imagine, but the fact remains that moms all across the country here will be honored on Wednesday and not on Sunday. This didn’t stop the church, though, from celebrating Mother’s Day yesterday when every healthy and sane mother and mother-county remembered the holiday. Pastor Pedro preached a sermon on the importance and celebration of mothers, but on families more generally because so many youth from the neighborhood and school have mothers who have left the home or are away in other countries. Generally speaking, the Paraguayan family is a disaster these days with one or both parents deserting or working in other cities and the children left to fend for themselves. Thus, like some cruel politically-correct joke, the church and school both celebrate “family day” out of recognition that our families come in all sorts, shapes, and sizes because of human sin and relational brokenness.

The reality of their political correctness, though, hits close to home for many and for that reason their celebration of “family day” instead of Mother’s Day really is a mercy for the church and neighborhood rather than a concession to progressive culture. On both Saturday night and Sunday morning, the pastors brought to light that many Paraguayans, even some from the church, are left without any parents or relatives at all. For that reason, on both days they preached the necessity and importance of being a part of the Family of God, that kinfolk of faith united in one Father through Jesus Christ. .Thus, they said, when we become believers we have brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, and all manner of other relationships within the church. For a couple youth in the church who really have no one looking after them except the church, the message rang especially true. Deserted or abused by their parents, they know and depend full-well on the spiritual family of God for so much of their physical, emotional, spiritual, and even financial needs.

To celebrate Mother’s Day, my own Paraguayan spiritual son/brother Christian and I went to go visit his biological family on the other side of Asuncion. Needless to say, it wasn’t a good part of town. I was a very terrified white and overdressed American with bulging khaki pockets as we walked through the back alley ways to the place where his grandmother had raised a dozen children. When we finally arrived the house, I was pleasantly reminded me of the shack where the Beverly Hilbillilies lived before they found black gold, although this house was in the middle of a semi-urban poor quarter and not the beautiful hills of West Virginia. We carefully entered, and for the first time ever in my life I saw first-hand how a family could maltreat an unwanted child. Only his grandmother smiled to see him, his own mother only recognizing him with a nod. His aunts and uncles, some only a couple years older than him, didn’t even greet Christian. It was sad—really sad—to see how no one cared that he was there and, although I was his official caretaker and the first person ever from his church family to visit his former home, only an uncle who married into the family asked how Christian was doing in his studies and life in general (and that was only out of polite conversation with me). Although they invited us to eat well, it was an awkward afternoon for both Christian and I. After seeing Christian’s family, the irreligious way they live, and the scummy way they treated him, I can say with a thankful breath of relief that it’s a very good thing he left home.

After the visit, we continued our cheery trip in Christian’s old neighborhood with a tour of Ycua, the place where five years ago burned to the ground a mega grocery-store. .The tragedy of the story is that store management, when faced with the prospect of thieves stealing in the chaos of a fire, ordered guards to lock all the entryways and exits, prohibiting anyone from leaving and securing the death of several hundred trapped inside. Whole families perished in what at the time was internationally reported as the worst super-market disaster ever. Five years later, the story haunts all of Paraguay as a cautionary tale against the worst of human greed and selfishness in the face of danger and disaster.

Today, only the outer walls of the supermarket still stand. Beneath and along the side the building , though, are hundreds of hallowed memorials recognizing those who perished in the fire along with long histories hung up recounting the survivors’ search for justice in the aftermath of the catastrophe. There was a place underneath too, in what used to be the parking garage, that held articles showing the force of the fire along with personal items of those who lost their lives. It all was a very moving memorial, where the ghosts of those who mercilessly died in the flames still haunted every small space. We were able to enter the shell-of-a-building in the late afternoon, when the now-twisted iron supports that once held up the roof looked in the fading sunlight like tortured rusty skeletons of ancient sea-snakes. We passed through what used to be customer bathrooms, and I could still see and touch with my fingers the soot on the tile walls from smoke that killed hundreds of innocent people. Feeling like the place merited some sign of recognition on part and not knowing what else to do, I drew a cross in the soot and said a prayer.

And now, some photos

And now, to move on from a post that for many of you may have been very awkward (but for me was very cathartic), some photos!



http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2114388&l=9d496&id=1407506

Dear Mom,

I’d like to take the time to publicly send you all my love today and to wish you all my best this Mother’s Day. I’m pretty sure everyone who reads this or knows anything about our family at all knows that we’ve passed through an unimaginably rough year in our now-very-public private lives. Most all of our family’s dirty laundry has been hung out on the line for all the neighbors and all the family and all the church to see, and it isn’t pretty. What made the humiliating spectacle even worse, though, is that at times I was the one spreading the dirt. I cursed you to your face, I screamed obscenities at home, and I spoke terrible things behind your back. I said that our relationship would never be the same, and I even imagined it would have been better if you had died. I did my best to heap up even more abuses and shame upon what was already a very publicly shameful situation. When all the other hypocrites were throwing rocks at you, I myself picked up the biggest stones and hurled them in self-righteous anger.

Throughout all my rage and betrayal, though, you constantly stayed my mom. When I wished you to leave home and drop off the planet, you said you still loved me. When I pleaded to God and you for a different and normal family, you said you’d always be there for me no matter how unnormal either of us ever got. When I rebelled, you showed me patience; when I threw a tantrum at things I couldn’t control, you again proved yourself the parent. With the very love of God you said to me and us all, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Through everything you were steadfastly my mom, steadfastly looked out for me, and steadfastly welcomed me back to be your son.

Please, mom, forgive me for the way I treated you. I love you, and I’m sorry to you and the world and to God for what happened. I miss you incredibly now that I’m a full hemisphere away, and I really dream about the day when I’ll see you again. I’ve cried many times thinking of you since I’ve been here, and I pray for you every day. Words can’t describe your faithful love and all the good service you’ve rendered to me. You’re my only mom: you always will be, too, no matter what, and your faithfulness to me this past year has proven that. For these reasons and so many more I publicly rise up and bless you today and give you thanks for all your love and forgiveness. I value our friendship more than you’ll ever know.

Sincerely,

Jason

Random Thoughts

Some random thoughts, not big enough to warrant a complete blog entry:

I was rudely woken up last night at hourly intervals by loud packs of barking dogs, and this morning when I left behind the protective innocence of my apartment I realized why: a bitch in heat was roaming through the neighborhood with a good half dozen hounds following her scent, and all the poor un-neutured dogs that were cruelly penned up inside fences just couldn’t bear the thought of being alone so they sang together in a great united chorus of sexual angst. I’ll never take the work of the SPCA and dog warden for granted again.

There’s nothing more beautiful or tasty than a freshly picked mandarin from the mandarin tree in your back yard. I ate two this morning after my morning run. I think I shall move to Florida some day.

I discovered recently there’s huge cheap avocadoes in Paraguay. Many people let the precious fruit fall to the ground to rot away without thinking about how special it is that they have avocadoes at all. Those who do eat avocadoes here eat them sweet, all mashed up with sugar. I’m convinced that if I continue much longer to take advantage of the bargain-priced oil-based fruits, I’m going to die by avocado.

For the first six months I was here, I heard huge flocks of what sounded to be seagulls flying overhead. How strange, I thought, that there should be seagulls in a completely landlocked, river-bound country. When I started to pay better attention, though, I realized that the flocks weren’t seagulls, but instead massive groups of very awkward parrots flalloping together in the wind. I’m pretty sure I heard one of them calling me a silly gringo, and I realized I was still in a very special tropical place.

Life is short, and so are Paraguayan funerals. The father and step-mother of my fellow English teacher at Adonai passed away in a terrible car accident this past week, and both were buried within about 24 hours of their respective deaths (while she died on-the-scene, he died the day after from wounds in the hospital). I was talking to another teacher—a firefighter/EMT who has visited the public morgue plenty of times—who told me they don’t use body-refrigerators here. The sad part of it all is that, because the funeral preparations and actual service went by so quickly, none of the teachers that I know of had the chance to go to the funeral or even offer their condolences. Oscar and Karen tried to go the morning of the internment, but found they were already an hour late. You might say a prayer for Prof. Monica and her family.

I saw a beautiful nun my age on the bus the other day. Although she was completely covered in a modest habit and big flowing dress, she wore very flattering sandal-like shoes. Appreciating her beauty and virginal innocence, I wondered if I had ever appreciated or even could appreciate the natural beauty of chastity and sanctity of a girl completely set apart for God without thinking sexual and lusty thoughts. I wasn’t lusting after her—after all, she was a nun-- but I wasn’t sure and I’m unsure now if I can unselfishly appreciate a girl’s natural beauty.

There are little red ants here about the size of a small matchtip that, like a match, pack quite a burn. There’s a pile of rocks in my backyard that sometimes I like to go digging into, and I always forget until it’s too late that this pile of rocks also has a pile of these pesky little ants. Before I know what’s happening, my bare hand or bare foot or perhaps both my bare hands and both my bare feet are covered in swarms of little stinging ants that, once they bite into you, can only be removed by squishing their tiny heads off. The poison in their peckers, though, leaves itchy pus-filled pocks all over, like the strange bastard children of a pimple who has had a continuing affair with a mosquito bite. Like the consequences of extra-marital affairs, too, the pocks last for way too long, refilling themselves as they do after being popped and itching to eternity.