Hey everybody. I’m still truck’n away down here in the land of mosquitos and electric generators. Actually, mosquitos haven't been as much of an issue since I started wearing socks to bed. Yes, I know, hell just froze over. Everything is going well and I am enjoying my role here. The four English classes I am teaching are going well, and the students seem to enjoy the time spent in class over and above the fact that they are learning English. I try to keep it light hearted by joking around quite a bit. This becomes especially valuable when there are moments where I might need to make the same correction over and over again. The fact that a lighthearted atmosphere is well established helps keep anybody from getting upset or annoyed with either me or themselves. The class that meets here at the Resource Center where I have been living is especially nice, because they are close to my age and also a little more educated to start with, so we can move at a little faster pace. Generally speaking that group picks up on everything without the need for crazy repetition and “creative” techniques. That group will also occasionally bounce off topic and ask me questions unrelated to learning English, which provides a more personal atmosphere, which everybody seems to enjoy. That group has remained steady at about 6-8 people until a couple days ago when we had 4 new people show up, and then 2 more yesterday. The room we meet in here at the Center is not extremely large, so with the additional people it feels a little cramped, but that’s something I’ve learned to be more ok with down here (partly because I have learned that its something they are already comfortable with. Personal space has an entirely different definition down here).
The other three classes all meet in different churches, and all four classes are made up of current church members (though I don’t think the 6 new people that came to the Center the last 2 days are part of the group. So its pretty cool that what I’m doing is providing an environment where non-Christians can mix with Christians in a no-pressure environment. Circumstantially, or maybe not so circumstantially, that’s exactly the sort of context I want to be encouraging and establishing when I return to the States, minus the grammar lessons of course). One class moves rather slow because there are a couple students who don’t take shift in thinking very easily. They happen to both be 40 plus, so that may have something to do with it. But I realized the other day, after several weeks of trying to make progress, that these two did not even understand the most basic of language terminology, in their own language. So I got lucky yesterday and those two were the only two people who showed up, and I could go back to the basics. It was basically a grammar lesson at the most basic level, having nothing at all to do with English. Mainly I was trying to explain the meaning of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person perspectives. Then I realized that one of the two didn’t even know what Singular and Plural refer to. So I drew a diagram using pictures to explain. My stick figures were rather impressive, if can say so myself!
The class in the mountain town of Las Casitas is fun because it’s a group of about 15 and they are all pretty sharp… and laugh when I do something ridiculous . Driving up there is stressful though. I’ve never seen a road that bad in my whole life. By the time I get there after driving, I’m close to a brain aneurism from concentrating so hard on the road non-stop, and then I get to teach in Spanish for 4 hours. (That was probably a little dramatic, but hey, I don’t want to disappoint my avid fans!!).
Besides the classes, as I mentioned before, I have been doing random small things to be helpful as they come up. I suppose the best example of that would be just a few days ago, when Jorge (my “boss”) was in Tegucigalpa. He was gone while an older couple from the States were here, among other things, to help put together a bunch of food packs to distribute to poor families. Well, they needed to communicate with Jorge’s wife to get this done, so I became the interpreter (if you could legitimately call what I was able to do “interpreting”). Then they needed a bunch more food from the store, so I got to drive to the store three separate times and try to communicate our specific needs to the ladies behind the counter. In this particular store, you don’t go up and down isles and get your own stuff. You tell the employees what you want and they go back and get it. Then, around lunch time I was in charge of driving them to the restaurant in town that has both good and safe food. They probably could have walked, but Jorge and one of his bosses (who is also here right now) think its not that safe for them to be walking around on the street. So with Jorge gone, I became the resident expert in language, culture, and traffic (the last of which is not for the faint of heart). I’m definitely not complaining though, because not only did they pay for my lunch, but we also ate with the manager of the hotel/restaurant, who is a good friend of those two gringo’s as well as Jorge and others in the same network down here. Oh, did I forget to mention that SHE is 23 and quite attractive, and knows English. hmmm…. I ate there a few days prior with Jorge and his boss and was first introduced to her then. It was rather funny, because Jorge got a kick out of introducing us to each other by looking at me and saying “This is Nora. She is single and looking for a husband,” and then looking at her and saying, “This is Bryan, He is single and looking for a wife.” He was mostly kidding so it wasn’t really weird. But only a week before that, I had gone with a preacher from a town about 20 minutes away to his church on Sunday, and for lunch afterwards we stopped at a roadside stand where he introduced me to a long time friend of his family who he is literally trying to find a husband for. If this keeps up I’m going to have to just hide in my closet and come out for English class!!
Next week I will be canceling a couple days of my English classes to go up to Las Casitas, the mountain town, to help with some construction projects that a group from the U.S. will be here to complete. I’m not sure how exactly my presence in necessary other than a extra pair of hands, but Jorge seemed to think it would be good to have me there. Perhaps my little bit of Spanish plays in to that somehow. But I’m looking forward to a bit of manual labor at any rate.
Right at this moment the power is out, and it has been since 11:30 or so last night. That is the longest it has been out in one stretch since I got here, but its also not unexpected. It is a consistent and seemingly unsolvable problem here (and throughout much of Honduras I believe). Throughout the day you will see the lights dim and then get brighter again, or watch the fans slow down and then speed back up as the level of power fluctuates. And then many times, like now, it goes out all together. This is what I was referring to in the first sentence about “the land of electric generators”. When the power goes out, I can hear generators automatically come on from all around the city. Its sort of annoying, but you get used to it pretty fast. I don’t know how many of you caught my post on facebook about this next point, but I’ll share here as well. I was watching the old classic thriller-suspense movie “Silence of the Lambs” on TV several days ago, when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I looked to the left and saw a big black moth land on a stack of plastic chairs. If you aren’t familiar with the movie, there is a serial killer who places a big black moth on each of his victims. SPOOKY!!!! Another random note, I found passion fruit at the grocery store the other day and just about flipped, because I haven’t had it since the hiking trip I went on with my dad when I was like 11 years old and its my favorite fruit in the world. Its very uncommon and isn’t sold anywhere that I know of in the central 48 States. This fact is probably confirmed by the fact that most of the people reading this don’t have a clue what passion fruit is. But I was disappointed because they aren’t in season right now and it wasn’t ripe; rather sour and not what I remembered. Such is life I suppose. I can’t remember if I mentioned it in the last post or not, because I don’t have internet access right now, but I have had the good fortune of having lunch prepared for me most days by Jorge’s wife, Mayori (or for most gringos who know her and come down here, Margery). I pay her for that and I get to have a convenient, and always tasty, lunch. Then I eat rice and beans and bread and fruit for dinner. Though tonight I had a hot dog and Pringles from the gas station. Yay for Texaco!!! And on a side-note, BOOOOOOOO for BP! (If you don’t understand that last statement then you should probably start paying more attention to current events ).
I’ve been thinking a lot about what will unfold for me after I return to the States. In this regard, I have been reading and enjoying a book called “The Tangible Kingdom”, with subtitle, “Creating incarnational community – The posture and practices of ancient church NOW”. It is very good and I suggest it to anybody willing to keep an open mind about the FORMS (the what and how of structure, as opposed to function, why you do what you do) that “church” can take. Basically, there are two aspects to the book. One, it emphasizes the “going out” and the “inclusive” aspects of true faith, necessary to every Christian, that have so dynamically been forgotten about in a consumer culture. Second, it tries to emphasize the “tangible” factor of faith. To refer to scripture, it’s the issue James deals with when criticizing people who think they can have faith without fruit showing up as a result. This book, more than any others I’ve read, presents the general concepts necessary for specific action to take place, and gives examples of what that looks like. I’m not done, but this book has been very helpful as I seek to bring the last 5 years of my life into a focused tangible effort to pursue the Kingdom of God. Thank you to all who have helped me in this trip once again, because in addition to doing a good work, I have had the time to pray, study, and meditate on the past, present, and future in terms of my life in the Kingdom. Thank you for all your support and prayers.
Grace and Peace,
Bryan Cannon
The other three classes all meet in different churches, and all four classes are made up of current church members (though I don’t think the 6 new people that came to the Center the last 2 days are part of the group. So its pretty cool that what I’m doing is providing an environment where non-Christians can mix with Christians in a no-pressure environment. Circumstantially, or maybe not so circumstantially, that’s exactly the sort of context I want to be encouraging and establishing when I return to the States, minus the grammar lessons of course). One class moves rather slow because there are a couple students who don’t take shift in thinking very easily. They happen to both be 40 plus, so that may have something to do with it. But I realized the other day, after several weeks of trying to make progress, that these two did not even understand the most basic of language terminology, in their own language. So I got lucky yesterday and those two were the only two people who showed up, and I could go back to the basics. It was basically a grammar lesson at the most basic level, having nothing at all to do with English. Mainly I was trying to explain the meaning of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person perspectives. Then I realized that one of the two didn’t even know what Singular and Plural refer to. So I drew a diagram using pictures to explain. My stick figures were rather impressive, if can say so myself!
The class in the mountain town of Las Casitas is fun because it’s a group of about 15 and they are all pretty sharp… and laugh when I do something ridiculous . Driving up there is stressful though. I’ve never seen a road that bad in my whole life. By the time I get there after driving, I’m close to a brain aneurism from concentrating so hard on the road non-stop, and then I get to teach in Spanish for 4 hours. (That was probably a little dramatic, but hey, I don’t want to disappoint my avid fans!!).
Besides the classes, as I mentioned before, I have been doing random small things to be helpful as they come up. I suppose the best example of that would be just a few days ago, when Jorge (my “boss”) was in Tegucigalpa. He was gone while an older couple from the States were here, among other things, to help put together a bunch of food packs to distribute to poor families. Well, they needed to communicate with Jorge’s wife to get this done, so I became the interpreter (if you could legitimately call what I was able to do “interpreting”). Then they needed a bunch more food from the store, so I got to drive to the store three separate times and try to communicate our specific needs to the ladies behind the counter. In this particular store, you don’t go up and down isles and get your own stuff. You tell the employees what you want and they go back and get it. Then, around lunch time I was in charge of driving them to the restaurant in town that has both good and safe food. They probably could have walked, but Jorge and one of his bosses (who is also here right now) think its not that safe for them to be walking around on the street. So with Jorge gone, I became the resident expert in language, culture, and traffic (the last of which is not for the faint of heart). I’m definitely not complaining though, because not only did they pay for my lunch, but we also ate with the manager of the hotel/restaurant, who is a good friend of those two gringo’s as well as Jorge and others in the same network down here. Oh, did I forget to mention that SHE is 23 and quite attractive, and knows English. hmmm…. I ate there a few days prior with Jorge and his boss and was first introduced to her then. It was rather funny, because Jorge got a kick out of introducing us to each other by looking at me and saying “This is Nora. She is single and looking for a husband,” and then looking at her and saying, “This is Bryan, He is single and looking for a wife.” He was mostly kidding so it wasn’t really weird. But only a week before that, I had gone with a preacher from a town about 20 minutes away to his church on Sunday, and for lunch afterwards we stopped at a roadside stand where he introduced me to a long time friend of his family who he is literally trying to find a husband for. If this keeps up I’m going to have to just hide in my closet and come out for English class!!
Next week I will be canceling a couple days of my English classes to go up to Las Casitas, the mountain town, to help with some construction projects that a group from the U.S. will be here to complete. I’m not sure how exactly my presence in necessary other than a extra pair of hands, but Jorge seemed to think it would be good to have me there. Perhaps my little bit of Spanish plays in to that somehow. But I’m looking forward to a bit of manual labor at any rate.
Right at this moment the power is out, and it has been since 11:30 or so last night. That is the longest it has been out in one stretch since I got here, but its also not unexpected. It is a consistent and seemingly unsolvable problem here (and throughout much of Honduras I believe). Throughout the day you will see the lights dim and then get brighter again, or watch the fans slow down and then speed back up as the level of power fluctuates. And then many times, like now, it goes out all together. This is what I was referring to in the first sentence about “the land of electric generators”. When the power goes out, I can hear generators automatically come on from all around the city. Its sort of annoying, but you get used to it pretty fast. I don’t know how many of you caught my post on facebook about this next point, but I’ll share here as well. I was watching the old classic thriller-suspense movie “Silence of the Lambs” on TV several days ago, when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I looked to the left and saw a big black moth land on a stack of plastic chairs. If you aren’t familiar with the movie, there is a serial killer who places a big black moth on each of his victims. SPOOKY!!!! Another random note, I found passion fruit at the grocery store the other day and just about flipped, because I haven’t had it since the hiking trip I went on with my dad when I was like 11 years old and its my favorite fruit in the world. Its very uncommon and isn’t sold anywhere that I know of in the central 48 States. This fact is probably confirmed by the fact that most of the people reading this don’t have a clue what passion fruit is. But I was disappointed because they aren’t in season right now and it wasn’t ripe; rather sour and not what I remembered. Such is life I suppose. I can’t remember if I mentioned it in the last post or not, because I don’t have internet access right now, but I have had the good fortune of having lunch prepared for me most days by Jorge’s wife, Mayori (or for most gringos who know her and come down here, Margery). I pay her for that and I get to have a convenient, and always tasty, lunch. Then I eat rice and beans and bread and fruit for dinner. Though tonight I had a hot dog and Pringles from the gas station. Yay for Texaco!!! And on a side-note, BOOOOOOOO for BP! (If you don’t understand that last statement then you should probably start paying more attention to current events ).
I’ve been thinking a lot about what will unfold for me after I return to the States. In this regard, I have been reading and enjoying a book called “The Tangible Kingdom”, with subtitle, “Creating incarnational community – The posture and practices of ancient church NOW”. It is very good and I suggest it to anybody willing to keep an open mind about the FORMS (the what and how of structure, as opposed to function, why you do what you do) that “church” can take. Basically, there are two aspects to the book. One, it emphasizes the “going out” and the “inclusive” aspects of true faith, necessary to every Christian, that have so dynamically been forgotten about in a consumer culture. Second, it tries to emphasize the “tangible” factor of faith. To refer to scripture, it’s the issue James deals with when criticizing people who think they can have faith without fruit showing up as a result. This book, more than any others I’ve read, presents the general concepts necessary for specific action to take place, and gives examples of what that looks like. I’m not done, but this book has been very helpful as I seek to bring the last 5 years of my life into a focused tangible effort to pursue the Kingdom of God. Thank you to all who have helped me in this trip once again, because in addition to doing a good work, I have had the time to pray, study, and meditate on the past, present, and future in terms of my life in the Kingdom. Thank you for all your support and prayers.
Grace and Peace,
Bryan Cannon
My class in Las Casitas. This is inside the church building.
Me teaching in Las Casitas. Usually there is stuff on the board, but I hadn't got that far yet.
There is big hill on one side of Catacamas that has a multicolored staircase of about 4-500 steps leading up to this white cross. Rather picturesque.
Facing away from the white cross at the top of the big hill, looking down on Catacamas.
Lunch at road-side stand after church in Jutiquile (very small village about 20 minutes from catacamas).
We actually did two services the same Sunday as the lunch picture above. The first was in a building. This was the group of about 10 people who meet each Sunday about 1:30 for a church service. It was nice to have church under the shade of mango trees!
Jorge's (my boss) daughter Hillary breast feeding her stuffed animal duck. lol.
Tangible Kingdom is awesome! My husband and I used it in a small group at our church in Canada who were interested in looking outward. It was interesting how at first they all thought mission was leaving the country and were quite uncomfortable about that but then by the end they understood tangible ways to go out into their community and share the kingdom. We actually used the TK Primer which after you read the book, check it out. It is intense and has you doing stuff every day. At then end you work up to asking people in your neighborhoods and spheres of influence to a party that is not christian oriented but with chrisitians. We had a bowling night and I was so thrilled that our apartment neighbor whom we had been building relationship with came. I love how the primer gets you to do exercises that really help you get outside your comfort zone. Glad you found this great resourse too!
ReplyDeleteWow -- good to hear from you -- as usual -- And I'd love to see a pic of this "providential" 23 year old husband-seeker. ;) Lol!
ReplyDeleteBtw -- I like your 'decor' in your classroom -- very fun -- you look quite at home in the front of the room and your students are blessed to have someone who is so in-tune with the nuances of environment, creative approach, atmosphere and humor taking them through the process of learning a new language! KUDOS! :)
Take care -- and we'll see you somewhat semi-soon!
I think Hilary and Kacie would have fun together. The other day Kacie tried to nurse her baby Abby.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad for you Bryan.