Jim

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26 March 2007

Just improvise.

Jim Just for fun, Ministry glimpses, Other missionary blogs, Video Blogs 6

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…

25 March 2007

Dennis’ 101 things about Mexico City

Jim Mexico, Other missionary blogs, Practical matters 1

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.

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).

18 March 2007

Look out our windows (part 3)

Jim Mexico 0

The windows of our house basically face out into our garden, so today you should be able to get a pretty good idea what it looks like. Starting in our kitchen here, you can see our lime tree and some plants to the right, and our van and trailer to the left (covered over, you can’t really see them well). Of course, with such a high window you can’t see most of the plants on the ground. Just for the record, the curtains and blinds you see belong to our landlords.

To the left you can see our other kitchen window, which doesn’t have a very inspiring view – just a wall. But I included it to be fair. If you look out at an angle, you can see a little more greenery. Nice inspiring view while we do the dishes, don’t you agree? Maybe we should paint a mural on there.

Moving on to the living room, we have a big window/sliding door combo dealy. Basically, you can see our driveway. Hannah and Nathanael’s scooters are backed up against the trailer.

To the right there is a more typical view out the window, since we’re often sitting on the couch. Hey, if you’re going to look out our windows, you might as well have a good look, right?

Ok, finally we get to the master bedroom. Those are vines you see in the middle (not sure how many of them are actually alive).

You can also see various other plants and flowers, the tall thing on the right grows chilies, and in the middle is a little lime tree. Right outside the window is a raised terrace (is that what you call it? "Terrace" makes it sound so fancy!).

If you want a better view, click on the pictures above to see the full sized version in our Photo Gallery. Except the second kitchen window – I didn’t bother with that one. Just use the drop down menu on the top right to make the picture even bigger.

And remember, this is part of a series. Look out our language school windows here, and the windows in the building where our church meets here.

17 March 2007

The faith of Patrick

Jim Devotional and Bible, Missions 0

The 17th of March marks over 1500 years since the death of Patrick, missionary to Ireland. I thought you might be interested in reading his confession of faith, translated from the latin by John Skinner. This is a small part of his Confession (Confessio), a defence of his ministry. Patrick’s writings are full of Scripture, and he shows a continuous love for the Trinity and a knowledge that we are called to reach every nation with the Truth.

There is no other God nor ever was nor will be in future days, other than God who is unbegotten Father, without beginning, yet from whom is all beginning and who holds all things in being as we have come to learn;

And his son Jesus Christ whom together with his Father, we bear witness, has most surely always existed even before time began, begotten spiritually and present with the Father in a manner beyond human words; before all time began.

And through him have all things, seen and unseen, been made, then he himself was made man, and once death had been overcome, he was received into the heavens with his Father.

“And he has given him full power over over every name in the heavens, on earth, and in the depths beneath so that every tongue shall confess him that Jesus Christ is our Lord and God” (Phi 2:9-11).

It is he whom we believe and we hope he will soon come again, to be “judge of the living and dead who will render to each man according to his deeds” (Acts 10:42; Rom 2:6).

And “he has poured out abundantly his Holy Spirit upon us” (Tit 3:5-6), given us his pledge of our immortality. Which Holy Spirit makes us both believers, obedient “children of God and equal heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17); whom we confess and adore, one God in the most holy named Trinity.

16 March 2007

Swimming and our Thursday…

Jim Family, Video Blogs 4

Yesterday was not a typical day, but since there’s no such thing I thought I’d tell you briefly about a sample day. I guess on a typical day I’d be in language school, but since I have the week off, things are a bit different.

Some things I did today: Took the kids to the fruit market for some fruit & veggies, tried to check what was wrong with our car air conditioning (no go – I guess it’s the mechanic’s turn), worked on some health insurance issues, sent out some email updates (that didn’t work the first time), answered some emails, played snap with Hannah, played basketball with Nathanael (briefly – short attention span), watered our garden, cleaned in the house, and lots more – can’t remember it all.

But the big activity of the day was going swimming – the first time we’ve been swimming since arriving. We went down the road to our friends’ house. And in my opinion, the pool was CoLDddd! But we had a little swim anyway. It was fun, and I took some video for you.

13 March 2007

Our language learning quandry

Jim Practical matters 2

We’ve been requesting prayer about language school lately, and you may be wondering, what’s the big deal? Isn’t it all pretty straightforward? Go to school, learn Spanish, move on?

So let me just take a few minutes to explain, for those of you who are wondering. Basically, things are very flexible with language school. We can do pretty much whatever we want here as far as language learning is concerned, as long as we get to a certain level in a reasonable amount of time. That reasonable length of time is usually around a year, but it could be longer (like 18 months, for example) depending on how you do things.

So we have a lot of options. Since January, I have been taking the regular recommended classes at the university, 5 days a week from 8am to 2pm (with some short breaks). Shari has been working with a tutor through the university (and at the university) for two hours, three times a week. That’s six hours a week (and I didn’t even check my calculator). Shari goes after I’m home, so we switch off with the kids.

There are two problems with this setup. First, although Shari is learning at about double the speed per hour that I am, she’s still going slower because she’s in school far less. That’s a minor problem, because we can switch off and have her take the classes and me work with a tutor, or whatever. The big problem is that Shari is paying far more than I am. Too much.

You see, we raised a certain amount of money for language training. If we run out of money half way there – well, we can’t do that.

So Shari is looking for a new tutor that will fit in our price range. We’re still glad we got her started, even if it was expensive, but now we need to find something more reasonable.

So it’s mostly a time and money issue. We could learn the language much faster if we just both used tutors, but it would cost far more and we’d miss out on some of the great benefits of the university (such as the cultural training I’m getting). Or, we could both do classes, which would be far cheaper, but it would take far longer – especially since we can’t both go to class at the same time!

So basically we’re trying to work out a compromise between these two extremes. There are some good tutors available in the city, so we’ll be looking around for someone for Shari to try for the next month. Then we have some time off in April, and we’ll decide how to go on when we start again in May.

I hope that’s as clear as Mexican hot chocolate! Or maybe even clearer! Just ask if you want to know more.

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