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Earthquake

13 April 2007 – 5:56 pm

Last night at about 12:42am our time there was an earthquake about 60km (35mi) NNW of Acapulco.  It was felt as far as in Mexico City, and beyond, and it was felt in Cuernavaca as well.

There were no deaths and only a few broken windows, as far as I know.  The power went out in places like Acapulco and parts of Mexico City, though our power didn’t go out (though it has been out more than usual today).  The quake was a 6.0 on the Richter scale.  There have apparently been a few minor aftershocks.

There was some panic in various areas - people who have lived through more serious quakes know enough to take it seriously.  No injuries or anything, but some evacuations, and spontaneous gatherings in central squares.

I know it’s not exactly earth shaking news, but … er, I mean … well, you know what I mean.  But I thought some of you might have heard about it in the news, so I wanted to give you the on-site report.  ;-)

Here’s the report on the earthquake from the National Post.  Here are the details from USGS, with maps and other reports.

Our friends in Mexico City felt the quake and blogged about it here.  Shari just got home and said her tutor felt it in the night too.

One more interesting note.  This is yet another example of the current speed of news on the internet.  People were finding out about the quake on Twitter instantly, and this blogger had a post up on his blog within 3 minutes (if I’m reading his comments right).  Sorry, I guess I’m a slow blogger.  ;-)

Popularity: 12% [?]

By Jim | Also posted in Computers and internet, Mexico, News and current issues | Comments (2)

Just improvise.

26 March 2007 – 8:00 am

I’ve done my share of improvising.

One day I took Hannah to Sunday School in Calgary, and there was no teacher.  So I taught a Sunday School lesson, crafts and all.  How did it go?  Ask the kids.  You remember the time I lost the song I was going to sing, and I did one I hadn’t practised.

Many years ago I was in Apatzingan, Mexico.  I had only an hour to prepare a sermon.  I sat down to get started, when someone came to tell me that we had misunderstood when the service was - it was now!  Somehow the Lord got me through that one!  At least that time it was in English (I was being translated).

Last week we were talking about some Christian history topics in conversation class.  I brought in a timeline so that we could see some things in context.  I was being asked about some numbers on my timeline, and I said they were just for a seminar I taught (2000 Years of Missions).  "Oh, you should teach us!"  Ha ha, sure.  I don’t have nearly enough Spanish for such a thing.  Maybe in a few years.

"No, really - you should teach us.  What do you think?"  "Sure, yeah, he should".

Yeah, hah hah… whatever you want.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?  After all my joking affirmation, my teacher was making plans and asking what I needed and planning where we could do it.  So this week, apparently, I have 8 hours of teaching time (2 hours each day- today, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday).  After I’d said sure, whatever you want so many times, I wasn’t sure how to refuse.

Now, of course, I won’t really be teaching.  I’ll be standing there introducing topics and asking how to say this and that.  I’m the one who knows the least Spanish in the class, and of course I’ll need words that aren’t in the dictionary - names, places, terminology.

It’s ok, not only have I improvised before, I’ve also embarrassed myself before.  Often.  Daily.  I’m used to it.  And now I can do it for 8 solid hours.  They teach conversation in this school - why don’t they have a course on keeping your mouth shut?

This post was inspired by a post by Andrew Comings in which he shared this video of Danish musician and comedian Victor Borge.  Talk about improvisation.  Borge was a brilliant musician, and could think fast even at 80 years old.  Of course, he already knew the language - of music…

Popularity: 32% [?]

By Jim | Also posted in Just for fun, Ministry glimpses, Video Blogs | Comments (6)

Dennis’ 101 things about Mexico City

25 March 2007 – 7:18 am

Mexico has been a part of our lives for many years, and so a lot of the time we don’t even notice the differences between life here and life in Canada.  For example, I had forgotten just how rough the roads are here.

Rough road in Cuernavaca

I was taking our van to the mechanic last week.  Our friend Tim was directing me from the passenger seat, and we went on a freeway (highway - whatever you call those fast big roads).  This road is very smooth - smoother than anything I’ve driven on for weeks.  That’s why Tim noticed that every time I stepped on the brakes, the van shook like we were three feet from the epicentre of an earthquake.  Where I normally drive, it always shakes like that.

The mechanic was too busy for me anyway, so this week I’ll take the van in not only for a tune up but also for the brakes.  And the air conditioning, which hasn’t worked for some time.

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy Dennis Poulette’s list of 101 things about Mexico City.  Most of them are true here too, although some are different.  We’ve had what we consider to be pretty good customer service, for example.  And the traffic circles/roundabouts/glorietas aren’t quite as bad here as they are in Mexico City (they have some big ones there - kind of like getting caught up in a tornado).

Popularity: 73% [?]

By Jim | Also posted in Mexico, Practical matters | Comments (1)

Jim guest-blogs at Money Missions

27 February 2007 – 7:48 pm

“Money Missions”  Now there’s a name for a blog that gets attention.  It’s the blog of Ben & Aaron, missionaries up in Tijuana, Mexico.  I was asked to do write a post on their blog for people who were planning to train a short term mission team.  In the beginning the idea was to give some tips or specific training ideas, but I thought that it would be hard to be brief and it would be different for every different team.  So I took one step back, and wrote about some of the assumptions that you need to have before you even start.

Money Missions

So swing on over, read what I wrote and leave your comments.  Let me know if you agree or disagree or have something to add.  And check out some of the other interesting discussions that are taking place over there.  Here’s my post:

So you’re the one spearheading that next mission trip. Nervous?

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By Jim | Also posted in Missions | Comments (0)

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