Day
#4 Sunday, January 6, 2013
We got up this morning and had a breakfast of fried eggs, sausage, beans, plantains, papaya, and bananas (they feed us good here) and then loaded up on the bus for our adventure for the day. We went right down the road to a geothermal site that had hot springs. We spent a little while climbing around the rocks at looking at the hot springs. Then, we headed up the road a little bit to a town called Ataco, where we walked around for a couple of hours looking at shops and picking up souvenirs. Then we went to this incredible restaurant called Entre Nubes. The business opened in 2000 as just a coffee farm that served coffee in the morning. Then they grew to sell one breakfast item and one lunch item. Now it is a full restaurant connected to a coffee farm and a beautiful garden. We ordered our lunch and then were taken on a tour of the coffee farm and the gardens. Our tour guide told us all about the coffee making process and let us try some of the coffee beans, which are actually very sweet. Then we ate our delicious lunch and incredible passionfruit smoothies. We saw some incredible views on the road there and back. There is just nothing like the untouched landscape in central america. It is breathtaking.
We spent some time hanging out at the house and then went to church this afternoon at New Jerusalem where we went yesterday. All of the churches that we will go to here are Methodist because we are working with a Methodist missionary while we are down here, and we are a Methodist college. The church service went well, most of us understand very little, but I still enjoy being there. The people are very friendly and try to accommodate for us as much as possible. After every scripture reading, the pastor would give Brian, our missionary guide, time to read it to us in English. During the service we read, Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-2, Psalm 72-17, Matthew 2:1-12 and we sang "Blessed Assurance" in Spanish. I love being able to recognize the songs and hymns that they are singing and to be able to sing along with them in English. After we got back, we had a dinner of fish, avocado, cucumbers, and rice. During our reflection time, Brian read us this excerpt from one of Henri Nouwen's journals:
Friday, March 5: "The two most damaging motives in the makeup of missioners seem to be guilt and the desire to save. Both form the extremes of a long continuum, both make life in the mission extremely painful. As long as I go to a poor country because I feel guilty about my wealth, whether financial or mental, I am in for a lot of trouble. The problem with guilt is that it is not taken away by work. Hard work for the poor may push my guilt underground for a while, but can never really take it away. Guilt has roots deeper than can be reached through acts of service. On the other hand, the desire to save people from sin, from poverty, or from exploitation can be just as harmful, because the harder one tries the more one is confronted with one's own limitations. Many hardworking men and women have seen the the situation getting worse during their missionary career; and if they depended solely on the success of their work, they would quickly lose their sense of self-worth. Although a sense of guilt and a desire to save can be very destructive and depressive for missioners, I do not think that we are ever totally free from either. We feel guilty and we desire to bring about change. These experiences will always play a part in our daily life. The great challenge, however, is to live and work out of gratitude. The Lord took on our guilt and saved us. In him the Divine work has been accomplished. The human missionary task is to give visibility to the Divine work in the midst of our daily existence. When we can come to realize that our guilt has been taken away and that only God saves, then we are free to serve, then we can live truly humble lives. Clinging to guilt is resisting God's grace, wanting to be a savior, competing with God's own being. Both are forms of idolatry and make missionary work very hard and eventually impossible. Humility is the real Christian virtue. It means staying close to the ground, to people, to everyday life, to what is happening with all its down-to-earthness. It is the virtue that opens our eyes for the presence of God on the earth and allows us to live grateful lives. The poor themselves are the first to help us recognizer true humility and gratitude. They can make a receptive minister a truly happy person."
This passage is definitely a challenge for us on this trip. At this point we are about to start our work here. We have been doing sightseeing and getting a feel for the place, but now it is time to work. This challenge to work out of humility is one that we definitely needed to hear. Also, before we all left the table, our teacher, Lingenfelter, made this statement, “Work, live, and love as if you aren't leaving.” It is very easy on short-term trips to fall into the mindset of “I'm not ever coming back. I won't be here long enough to really make relationships. I need to distance myself.” However, that is not how we should be working. We should live our 2 weeks out like we are just moving in. We should work as hard as we can and we should love to our fullest ability.
Very good challenges for us as we prepare to start the work that we came here to do.
We got up this morning and had a breakfast of fried eggs, sausage, beans, plantains, papaya, and bananas (they feed us good here) and then loaded up on the bus for our adventure for the day. We went right down the road to a geothermal site that had hot springs. We spent a little while climbing around the rocks at looking at the hot springs. Then, we headed up the road a little bit to a town called Ataco, where we walked around for a couple of hours looking at shops and picking up souvenirs. Then we went to this incredible restaurant called Entre Nubes. The business opened in 2000 as just a coffee farm that served coffee in the morning. Then they grew to sell one breakfast item and one lunch item. Now it is a full restaurant connected to a coffee farm and a beautiful garden. We ordered our lunch and then were taken on a tour of the coffee farm and the gardens. Our tour guide told us all about the coffee making process and let us try some of the coffee beans, which are actually very sweet. Then we ate our delicious lunch and incredible passionfruit smoothies. We saw some incredible views on the road there and back. There is just nothing like the untouched landscape in central america. It is breathtaking.
We spent some time hanging out at the house and then went to church this afternoon at New Jerusalem where we went yesterday. All of the churches that we will go to here are Methodist because we are working with a Methodist missionary while we are down here, and we are a Methodist college. The church service went well, most of us understand very little, but I still enjoy being there. The people are very friendly and try to accommodate for us as much as possible. After every scripture reading, the pastor would give Brian, our missionary guide, time to read it to us in English. During the service we read, Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-2, Psalm 72-17, Matthew 2:1-12 and we sang "Blessed Assurance" in Spanish. I love being able to recognize the songs and hymns that they are singing and to be able to sing along with them in English. After we got back, we had a dinner of fish, avocado, cucumbers, and rice. During our reflection time, Brian read us this excerpt from one of Henri Nouwen's journals:
Friday, March 5: "The two most damaging motives in the makeup of missioners seem to be guilt and the desire to save. Both form the extremes of a long continuum, both make life in the mission extremely painful. As long as I go to a poor country because I feel guilty about my wealth, whether financial or mental, I am in for a lot of trouble. The problem with guilt is that it is not taken away by work. Hard work for the poor may push my guilt underground for a while, but can never really take it away. Guilt has roots deeper than can be reached through acts of service. On the other hand, the desire to save people from sin, from poverty, or from exploitation can be just as harmful, because the harder one tries the more one is confronted with one's own limitations. Many hardworking men and women have seen the the situation getting worse during their missionary career; and if they depended solely on the success of their work, they would quickly lose their sense of self-worth. Although a sense of guilt and a desire to save can be very destructive and depressive for missioners, I do not think that we are ever totally free from either. We feel guilty and we desire to bring about change. These experiences will always play a part in our daily life. The great challenge, however, is to live and work out of gratitude. The Lord took on our guilt and saved us. In him the Divine work has been accomplished. The human missionary task is to give visibility to the Divine work in the midst of our daily existence. When we can come to realize that our guilt has been taken away and that only God saves, then we are free to serve, then we can live truly humble lives. Clinging to guilt is resisting God's grace, wanting to be a savior, competing with God's own being. Both are forms of idolatry and make missionary work very hard and eventually impossible. Humility is the real Christian virtue. It means staying close to the ground, to people, to everyday life, to what is happening with all its down-to-earthness. It is the virtue that opens our eyes for the presence of God on the earth and allows us to live grateful lives. The poor themselves are the first to help us recognizer true humility and gratitude. They can make a receptive minister a truly happy person."
This passage is definitely a challenge for us on this trip. At this point we are about to start our work here. We have been doing sightseeing and getting a feel for the place, but now it is time to work. This challenge to work out of humility is one that we definitely needed to hear. Also, before we all left the table, our teacher, Lingenfelter, made this statement, “Work, live, and love as if you aren't leaving.” It is very easy on short-term trips to fall into the mindset of “I'm not ever coming back. I won't be here long enough to really make relationships. I need to distance myself.” However, that is not how we should be working. We should live our 2 weeks out like we are just moving in. We should work as hard as we can and we should love to our fullest ability.
Very good challenges for us as we prepare to start the work that we came here to do.
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