Way Overdue

It has been way too long since I have posted here. Sorry. And now that it has been so long I feel like I can't easily write a lot to convey everything about life here. Every two weeks I have to write an assessment letter for the HNGR program. When I write these, it is supposed to be written for the HNGR program and not with any other audience in mind. I did that, but now I think that the best way to update this blog is to take excerpts from some assessment letters. It's a little lazy, I admit, but I don't really feel like rewriting a lot of those same ideas. It's also not something I want to get in the habit of doing, but I feel like I need to right now to jump-start the blog.

Ok, so this first one is from an assessment letter I wrote this morning.
"A little over two weeks ago I acknowledged that some of the spiritual questions and concerns I’ve had with my church here have led to my being more cynical than I would have liked to admit. I decided that one thing I should do is to stop allowing myself to be a distant cynic and participate more in my church. At first this went alright. I went to a Bible study the youth group started and it was alright. I suppose it was a lot like a Bible study at home, just with a few too many people.

Then, however, last Saturday I had a pretty tough experience with the church. Some of us in the youth group went up the hill to a small poor village called Algarrobos to show a film. We spent the afternoon walking around passing out tracts and invitations to the film to people. When we had finished I talked with the youth pastor and his fiancé. When he found out that I’m an anthropology major, he brought up that an American scientist is coming in a month or two to do some seminar on creationism. Pretty unhappy about this, I casually asked both of them whether they believe that people who accept evolution can be Christians, and they said no. I shouldn’t have gone there, but this really upset me since some of the most sincere Christians I know accept evolution. It’s very frustrating that my church here is concerned at all about evolution. It seems like it should be the very last thing on their minds.

Well, later that night the film we showed was even more frustrating and disappointing. Made by some Texas church in the 80s, it essentially culminated in 4 or 5 people that had just died hanging out in an all white room with Gabriel and Satan while Satan argued for each of their souls. One of the people had to go to hell because it flashed back to a time when his pastor led the church in a sinner’s prayer, but he didn’t pray. He had his eyes open. Then some people from our youth group did a skit about somebody caught in sex, drugs and alcohol who could only be rescued when someone prayed for her. Well, after we showed the film and performed the skit to the group of poor mostly children in Algarrobos, our youth pastor led everyone in a sinner’s prayer. The whole thing seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus and missed so much of the Gospel. We were trying to frighten these kids into the kingdom.

One of the main frustrations I have had with my church has had to do with the ways it has been influenced by the U.S. and that it is also a wealthy “influential” church here. As I see the Gospel go from the rich to the poor, from the powerful to the powerless, I often see great violence done to the Gospel itself and to Jesus. I keep thinking, “If that’s it, if that’s what we’re selling them then why should they accept it? Why should they care?”

Thankfully though, after that day I had a very good long conversation with my host brother Roberto about a lot of the things I have been frustrated with. I don’t agree with Roberto on everything, but we understand each other and that meant a lot that night. I also received an encouraging email from Drew Jennings who was the HNGR intern here in 2006. He affirmed my frustrations but was also very encouraging. Here is the part that really challenged me:

“I guess one of the places I grew most by staying with it was just learning to love people I didn't want to, to the point of trying to be humble enough to realize on Sunday or Saturday night that this is God's church and no matter how sexist the pastor is, or wrong their eschatology is, or how narrow-minded and judgmental the members are, God can still use them in my own life. I can learn from them.”

Our main pastor also came over for lunch the other day so I got to meet him. He was very friendly and even sat me down and prayed for me about my independent study, which meant a lot."

This next one is from an assessment letter I wrote two weeks ago.
"A few months ago I was in a meeting with some government officials and NGO workers who were brainstorming how to solve the problem of deforestation in this region, which is mainly caused by the slash-and-burn farming practices of these migrant farmers. I remember being astonished and quite angry when a woman in the group denied that the migrant farmers are poor. She said that they are not farming in unsustainable ways out of necessity, but because they are careless, selfish liars. Well, Wednesday night, after I returned from my visit to Bellavista, I was shocked to hear that my host brother and host mom feel very similarly. My host brother told me that it made sense that the people were friendly and welcoming to me, but that they will deceive me and lie to me in my study. This was obviously very frustrating for me to hear. It means that my study will likely be harder than I thought, but it also helped me to realize just how deep the class conflict is between the people here in the jungle and the migrants from the mountains. I need to focus on the economic reality of the migrant farmers in my study as much as I am able. I also cannot allow myself to glorify the poor as I have been tempted to do and to overlook their role in their situation."

I think I'll just stick with those two quotes from assessment letters for now. They certainly don't even come close to describing everything about life here, but they're something. Feel free to ask any questions about either of them or anything else by replying or by emailing me. I have reached the 3 month mark, which means I'm halfway.
-Michael

p.s. We got a pet monkey and I named him Jumper after the Hayden Christiansen movie that I never would have watched if I had been in the States. I think it's a good name. He's cute. You know what, I'm gonna post a picture.