Ecua Art

This is some of the art that I have produced over the past year.

Home, transition, reflections

I have now been home in the USA for 16 days. I'm tardy in writing because I wasn't quite sure what to say. As time passes I do not think I will become any more wise so I may as well spew it now.

Leaving school was much harder than expected. In the last week of school as we realized it was over, people poured out the end little bits of themselves that they had kept all year, it was neat to be so honest although I wished it had started a little bit earlier. One thing about being in a community in such an intense environment is that we got to see each other grow and change through out the year. Some changes were huge, some viewpoints changed, some people changed without realizing it yet. Nobody is a new person, but just an improved, more aware, version of themselves.

As for myself, I can definitely say that I grew, learned and changed in the past 9 months of this experience. Alumni say that CBC is a 2 year process as it takes a whole year to unpack everything that you learn at CBC. I learned lots of things this year that I was not expecting to learn. I came in with all kinds of expectations for who the people in my class would be like, how I would change the world, and other such types of expectations. I was wrong and I spent a few months struggling with what it was like to live in a Christian community when everyone (myself included) was not the epitome of love, grace and humility all of the time. Instead classmates (again, myself included) had the capacity to be ignorant, obnoxious, annoying, immature, lazy, boring, imperfect, etc.... and they call themselves Christians! Welcome to what I learned to be as the church ladies and gentleman. We are not perfect, we suck, we screw up... we are all in need in grace and the person who forgets that is in need of extra grace.

I learned a lot about the Bible and Christianity. My understanding and background for my faith deepened. I can't say that God struck me with a bolt of lightning but I learned lots through the small everyday things. The beauty of the mountains, the smiles of earthy-smelling kids, the stars shining at night through the clouds, the nighttime cityscape, His faithfulness and protection over me.

I was witness to a few, what I would call, miracles this year worth sharing about:
1. One day up on the mountain we brought 80 of these mini pizzas to feed the kids (like cheese and some sausage on a half bun). As the afternoon progressed, more and more kids arrived, we started to worry and offered up little silent prayers for enough food to go around for all of these kids. Before we passed out the food, Tim went back to recount the pizzas... He counted 114! We were overjoyed and passed out enough food for all 110ish kids, and somehow we had about 20-30 left over! We passed them out to people on the way home and we each ate a few and we threw some away. I can't explain that.
2. About a week after the mini-pizza-miracle (as we came to call it) we drove back up to the mountain to see our favorite kids. As we drive up, the kids traditionally run towards the moving vehicle in attempt to dive into the open windows or hang out while we drive (although dangerous, they were not instilled with a "don't play in the street or near moving vehicles" mentality). This day in particular as we were driving, one little boy about 4 years old jumped directly in front of our van. I was riding in the front and our driver slammed on his breaks as we skidded down on the loose-gravel-cobblestone-downhill slope. We were going to run this little boy over. Then, it was sort of like I blinked, or light flashed and the van kind of jerked really fast, and it was if we all opened our eyes and the little boy was standing on the side of the road laughing -and safe- all in a split second. I believe that if it wasn't for God protecting him, he would be dead, and he just had a smile on his face the entire time.
3. Each time we went up to that mountain, we drove up this sharp, cobblestone, gravely road. Yet we never got a flat tire. We went each week with around 100 kids and we had no major injuries - all year we only had one bloody nose and a skinned knee. I walked up and down unsafe areas of the city and I remained protected. Greta broke her back- she was healed completely. God kept us safe.

In Ecuador, many things about what I had been learning about the world back home really clicked for me. I just realized that I live in a place of immense privilege and opportunity and wealth - it's my job to take advantage of that (use my resources) for the benefit of others. God has not called us to be successful or comfortable. He called us to love God and love others.

I'm not finished. I'm a work in progress. I'm in need of grace.

As I've been home, I love being along and I can't get enough of it. I love the freedom and independence that I have here. It's great to see my family and friends again. It hasn't been too hard yet - but I know that part will come. The materialism and amount of stuff that we have (that I have) is amazing, suffocating and overwhelming. It's hard to communicate this 9 month experience with others who did not experience it with me. It's hard to keep my mouth shut - I have all kinds of opinions and I am trying to be humble, patient, understanding... I don't know where or how it all fits together yet. I'm still physically unpacking my suitcases let alone emotionally unpacking.

This summer I am living at home and I am working part-time at Blick Art Materials (an art store) which I really enjoy so far - I like being with and around artists all day. I like that all my formerly useless knowledge about art supplies is suddenly very useful. I can tell you all about the different types and uses of graphite pencils if you are interested. I'll also be babysitting some (weekdays is when am mostly available - call me up!) and I am also interested in doing some commissioned artwork this summer so if you are needing a little somethingsomething on your wall you may additionally give me a call or shoot me an email. Have a happy summer!

updatito

I am short on time but wanted to give a little shout out...
As of today, I am officially done with school, classes, finals and homework!!! This morning I watchd both Beauty and the Beast and Peter Pan to compenaste for my extra time. We're going on our final retreat Sunday to Tuesday. Then final commencement programs are Friday to Sunday and I go home on Tuesday!

Easter in Ecuador

Hello faithful friends.

A quick update:
Last weekend I survived the loss of four of my wisdom teeth (via dental extraction). After swelling, laying around, doing nothing, and eating lots of Mango Bon-Ice (ecuadorian freezies) and JellO all week I have been restored back to normal life, now new and improved with extra space in back of my mouth. In exactly one hour I will be going to remove the stitches.

The past week consisted of a lot of homework. The next two weeks will consist of even more homework and finals. (we're talking at least one paper per day for the next two weeks. fun times)

And this is how I spent my easter weekend:
Thursday afternoon most of my class took off for the weekend to do some traveling. I stayed back with a few friends on campus (porque estoy sin dinero) and got in some major cultural experiences (we have become known as "the adventure squad") and R&R. One of my deans (Luke) never told us that he was a professionally amazing cook and spent the weekend cooking nonstop for us. I think I gained 30 pounds in 3 days. Thursday night we went to the theater and saw a small Swedish group do a LatinAmerican Baroque/Renaissance Opera in Spanish. It was out of control and entirely amazing. Friday we went to the Good Friday Pennance Parade downtown, that was an experience in itself... especially pennance part of it. Saturday we went into the salon and god pampered. Sunday we went to a bull fight which was put on by the high-class Yuppie Ecuadorian mothers of the country to benefit the children, which was also another interesting twist. We were the first ones to arrive to the bullfight and we got to sit in what we called the "splash zone" (like Shamu) because we were so close. It was a really good weekend. I was sad to return to real life this morning.

In 3 weeks I will be home. There is a LOT of action packed into those next weeks and I'm sure it will come fast. I'm really ready to be done with school, living in the dorm with 33 other students, small communal living, that whole scene... but I will miss this country. I'm a little nervous to see what the "culture shock" will look like, but also excited to see what I have learned through it.

Now I have to go back to class... have a nice day!

good books

I am reading a quite incredible book right now called Revolution in World Missions by K.P. Yohannan about his story as a missionary from India to the US where he founded Gospel for Asia, encountered many obstacles yet still tells of God’s incredible, practical faithfulness through his life. I highly recommend it.

Economist Robert Heilbroner describes the luxuries a typical American family would have to surrender if they lived among the one billion hungry people in the Third World:
“We begin by invading the house of our imaginary American family to strip it of its furniture. Everything goes: beds, chairs, tables, television sets, lamps. We will leave the family with a few old blankets, a kitchen table, a wooden chair. Along with the bureaus go the clothes. Each member of the family may keep in his ‘wardrobe’ his oldest suit or dress, a shirt or blouse. We will permit a pair of shoes for the head of the family, but none for the wife or children.
We move to the kitchen. The appliances have already been taken out, so we turn to the cupboards… the box of matches may stay, a small bag of flour, some sugar and salt. A few moldy potatoes, already in the garbage can, must be rescued, for they will provide much of tonight’s meal. We will leave a handful of onions and a dish of dried beans. All the rest we take away: the meat, the fresh vegetables, the canned goods, the crackers, the candy.
Now we have stripped the house: the bathroom has been dismantled, the running water shut off, the electric wires taken out. Now we take away the house. The family can move to the tool shed… Communications must go next. No more newspapers, magazines, books- not that they are missed, since we must take away our family’s literacy as well. Instead, in our shantytown we will allow one radio.
Now government services must go next. No more postmen, no more firemen. There is a school, but it is three miles away and consists of two classrooms… There are, of course, no hospitals or doctors nearby. The nearest clinic is ten miles away and is tended by a midwife. It can be reached by bicycle, provided the family has a bicycle, which is unlikely…
Finally, money. We will allow our family a cash hoard of five dollars. This will prevent our breadwinner from experiencing the tragedy of an Iranian peasant who went blind because he could not raise the $3.94 which he mistakenly thought he needed to receive admission to a hospital where he could have been cured.”

I have been reflecting on how I have been changing since living in Ecuador for 7 months now. At one extreme I feel like I have been stuffed full with all kinds of Biblical and theological knowledge, yet the other end of me is feeling strangely shallow. I’m ready to be done with this year to start living and applying the wonderful things that I have been learning here back at home in my country in my own culture. My outlook has really changed, which I expected it to, but it’s changed differently than I thought it would. Initially, I was astounded at the poverty and desperation that many people in this country live in, yet as I lived here longer, I am beginning to understand why the people are so poor. The poor here are very poor and the rich are very rich, with almost no middle class. The average yearly income of an Ecuadorian family is somewhere around $3,000 a year, which is what I made life guarding this past summer. I’m scared to go back to the states to live in such a materialistic, fast paced culture again, I’m afraid that I may give into that again. I think that my views about consumerism, government and the way that American society are rapidly changing and I am interested to do more learning to figure out where I fit into that world again. I’ve enjoyed being challenged and some books that have been really great (that I would recommend for you) for me in addition to Revolution in World Missions, The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, and The Heart of the Artist by Rory Noland. Next I will be reading Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community by Wendell Berry which I’m sure will open up a brand new bag of all kinds of issues.

The chapter of my life recently has been Romans 12.

I found a fortune cookie fortune on my desk this morning, which read, “How has God put you in a position to reach out to others with needs which they are unable to meet themselves?”

back to normal life now?

hello all. I think life is becoming "normal" again here at CBC.

Anders went home to Chicago this morning (and is hopefully home by now... that was the plan.) We had a really great time together here. He was extremely excited to have escaped the Chicago winter for a few days. We just hung out, saw some stuff in Quito, hung around campus, played with some kids, went to Mindo again for the weekend with Ellen, we went to the Ecuadorian Circus last night... (we're talking SKETCHY circus). It was good. Fun for him to see the other people I live with and eat the food I eat and breathe the cramped CBC air I breathe... It was fun. He's going to live with some of my neighbors this summer in Bloomington so the end of this ridiculous distance is in sight.

The highlight was the night we spent with El in Mindo. We stayed in this economically sustainable lodge in the jungle that was too expensive but ridiculously nice and luxurious and we really felt like we deserved it. We spent the first night there talking with the lodge owner and other guests in the lodge who were all from the states (a girl about our age from CO, a couple in their late 30's from San Fran who were kind of yuppie hippies, and a retired couple). We spent many hours discussing politics, environmentalism, traveling, education, religion, transportation, engines, God, Chaos, and every other intense topic under the sun. Anders, El and I being the token "bible school students" had a lot of explaining to do about the church and christianity and God but it was insanely interesting and cool to have an opportunity to learn and share with these other travelers in the heart of the jungle by candlelight (no electricity!).

News around here, Greta Espe is totally healed, her back is super good, in a few weeks she can start running lots of miles again.
My fellow classmate Michael went home on Friday because his mother is dying of terminal cancer. We are unsure of if he will return before the year is over (situationally depending) but it was still extremely difficult to see another classmate leave and to deal with a big loss agian.

I've felt like this year at CBC is like a year of incubation... I stay here for 9 months, time doesn't seem to pass, but suddenly my time will be over (6 weeks) and all the information and things I've learned will spit me back into the states, sort of like emerging from my isolated CBC cacoon... and I will be a beautiful butterfly? we will see.

Getting my life back...

Long time no blogging for me. It’s been an incredibly hectic and chaotic past few weeks. Let me explain a little of what went on:

Starting Thanksgiving weekend we started planning for Kids College.

As of Sunday, March 11, Kids College is over.

It was meetings and workdays and stress and painting and moving things and more meetings and planning and making things. In the end, we had a fully running marketplace, a secret worship room in an upstairs room of a house complete with secret passageway, a 13meter wide banner of the Olympic stadium, about 35 ionic columns, an ampitheater, a temple of idol worship, sleeping areas for the boys and girls, costumes for 45 people, a low ropes course, an Olympic torch, banners, signs, posters, etc. etc. All of this work to transform this campus into the city of Athens.

Leading up to and adding to the stress of Kids College was the end of 2^nd trimester and finals, the announcement that CBC is closing at the end of the year: last week, 5 students (my friends!) from my class were expelled and returned home to the states for various reasons, mainly being substance abuse. This was an extremely painful event for everyone, we miss them a lot. Suddenly, we had 5 large holes in our KC weekend, were short 5 friends and a large part of our community that we will never get back. We are slowly, painfully recovering from this event. It has brought a lot of division and confusion and miscommunication to this place but also has brought us closer together but still has been really tough nonetheless. Still the show had to go on…

With confused, broken hearts we continued, exhausted, into the weekend. The actual weekend went extremely well. The kids were insane but they really had a great time and it was fun to pretend that we were in Athens with them because they really bought the story. (Multiple kids cried when “Paul” “got thrown in jail” by the terrifying “Roman guards”). I spent most of the weekend doing background, setup type things and doing dishes in the kitchen, which ended up being a lot of fun. I worked really hard and was really exhausted but it was the kind of work, the unceasing service kind that feels really good to do when there is a lot of stress. Mopping tile floors has become one of my favorite thinking/ cleanup/ stress buster jobs this year. We wore these really attractive Athenian togas the entire weekend, I found it interestingly representative of all the weird tasks I ended up doing in it as it was really dirty by the end of the weekend as I was visibly wearing all of my odd tasks. While wearing it I: carried around large dead fish for the marketplace, did all kinds of dirty/ dusty outside jobs, chopped about 50 onions, made about a million oniony meatballs, washed thousands of dishes, rode a horse, worshiped some fake idols for a skit, painted and washed the feet of lots of children, painted 4 of the same pictures for a story, mopped some floors, sweat a lot, wore a lot of sunscreen, got RAINED on, ate really buttery noodles…

Now that it’s over, I am happily wearing jeans again and I am trying to stay awake (even though it is only 7:20pm) because we are having a Kids College burning party and we are burning all of our schedules, props, stuff that reminds us of KC, etc.

Anders and my friend Tim are in Ecuador right now for their spring break. I got to see them for about 3 hours on Thursday night, “Kids College Eve” as we endearingly called it. They went to the beach for the weekend to escape the madness and when they come back I’m sure I’ll spend the week hanging out with them and going to the market and other touristy things that I haven’t really done yet that I need an excuse to do. That is fun. Anders has officially decided (in all seriousness) that he will not wrestle any snakes that are larger than 10 feet long because they might eat him…