Connections Article

I just sent this off to my church to be published in our monthly news letter, FMC Connections. Enjoy..


Just Getting Started

It has been almost three weeks since I was dropped off in Chicago for Radical Journey Orientation, but it feels like it has been almost nothing. As you may have heard, there have been many changes for my team. We are not, as was originally planned, in Bolivia, and we do not plan to go there. Right now, (Saturday the 17th,) we are in Argentina and we will be leaving for Paraguay on Monday. We will be spending the remainder of our time there.

The reasons for not going to Bolivia are numerous and complex. For reasons that are not fully known to us, the Bolivian government has decided not to recognize visas with Mennonite Central Committee listed as the sponsor. This change of heart could have to do with the civil unrest that Bolivia is currently experiencing. The Bolivian government thinks that American missionaries may be encouraging the movement. This unrest would also be another reason for our team to not go to Bolivia, as we do not know whether the country will remain stable for the whole year. Our team was disappointed, but we are learning to let go of our expectations and go where God leads us. This week in Argentina has been great, and we are excited for the opportunities in Paraguay.

Our orientation was in Chicago with the other Radical Journey participants. This year, Radical Journey has four teams: Paraguay, China, South Africa, and England. Joanna Epp is on the South Africa team. Orientation was a time of preparation for the coming year. We had lessons and talked about how things we were going to be, but we also started getting out of our comfort zones a little bit and began to get used to a different lifestyle. We stayed with in an intentional community known as Jesus People U.S.A. We didn’t have access to many of the luxuries that we would have in our own home and we had to learn how to live in community with a wide variety of people.

Argentina has been a wonderful experience for the whole team. The two other males and I are staying in one of the poor areas of Buenos Aires. There is a small Mennonite church about a block away and we live with one of the pastors. We are learning to drop the expectations that we have formed as we grew up in America. Many things still confuse us. For example, why does the man who’s toilet does not have a seat have a large LCD television with cable? Another thing that has been hard for our team is the lack of schedule, or at least the lack of our knowledge of a schedule. Things are going to happen, but we are not always informed when or where. We also do not usually have influence on the schedule once plans have been made. Since Katie and Cara live in a different neighborhood than Andrew, Riley, and myself, we don’t have much control of when we get to hang out or for how long.

Once we get to Paraguay, we will have one month of English lessons as we begin our jobs. Right now we don’t know where we will be working or who we will be living with, but we trust that the Paraguayans will be ready for us when we arrive.

Some prayer requests: That our Spanish will improve quickly. Sometimes the people here call me timido because I don’t talk as much as some of the others. A couple of them know more Spanish than I do, but I also need to be more willing to attempt to say things even if they are not grammatically correct. Another prayer request would be for peace with the unknown, and the inability to communicate at times.

The picture is at the local church with some of the members. The man holding the pizzas in the front is the pastor who is hosting me.