Back in Puebla

Well, we got back from the retreat pretty wiped out. It’s strange because usually being tired would be from staying up until 1 am playing Rook. But everyone was too tired and usually bedtime was 11:30. Maybe we’re getting old. We had good sharing, Bible study times, I thought. Really, this was almost the first time all of us got together, so it was a time to get to know each other and pray together and discover that our joint musical ability as a group is pretty limited. I made my feeble efforts at leading with the guitar, and everyone was nice enough not to laugh to my face, but actually to sing. Joshua is just a good book. There’s a lot to pick from. It was fun to do church all together with the kids on Sunday. It was especially fun to speak to Josh and Caleb about their namesakes in Joshua 14-15. We came back later than planned on Monday, and Gavin was almost asleep within 1 minute of going to bed. It was good to be in hot weather and water, unlike Tacoma, where it’s snowing.

Back in Puebla, it’s a little hard to get motivated into the swing of things. Fortunately yesterday was a low-key study day–thesis work and meeting with a pastor. Today was my day at the school. We started our introduction to Windows. I had a couple guys power off a computer without shutting it down and subsequently it went into a start Windows, fail, back to Bios, start Windows cycle…so we’ve broken one…it’s hard to get the kids’ names, starting with 10-15 for half an hour. But it’s fun. They’re in such a different environment and I’m an unknown element that they behave well, so that’s a bonus. I had a bunch of third graders come to the door of the room asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. It’s pretty fun to be there, although that’s because I’m there by choice two mornings a week–not trying to teach 45 kids, which is the average class size. It’s a really hard place overall. Kids that succeed from there probably do so because of good families. I like the teachers, but it must feel like swimming against the current a lot of the time. The sixth graders had a standardized test today, and one of the teachers told me it came out that a student couldn’t multiply, even by three. Kids just get passed from one grade up to the next. So maybe we can make something of a difference, both academically and spiritually. Check back on that in 10 years!

Finally, I had supper with the neighborhood president and the vice-president of a local university to discuss partnership for development in the community. It went well. It was fun to sit and listen to two Mexican men talk things over, to realize how little I know, and how nice it is to connect people who can do things. I think I will work much better as a connector/facilitator than a planner/organizer. So it looks like they connected pretty well. They want to do some work in parks, planting trees, to do some recycling/environmental education in the schools, and to organize a painting party in the schools. That’s a start.

Well this is full of random bits of information. But it paints a picture of what we’ve been doing. Oh, we got the keys to the house today and moved the first batch of stuff over. We’re not real excited about moving, especially since it’s going to be temporary, but it will be beneficial to be back in Pueblo Nuevo. So we’re taking lots of little steps that we trust God to move us in the right direction.


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