Living in a Mystery

ADISA (the Association for Parents and Friends of Persons with Disabilities), has been a great organization to work with and I’m learning a lot from my co-workers and the participants. I’ve been helping primarily in their vocational program for youth and young adults, and their educational integration program for children.

We just finished up a month of ¨vacation school¨ with students with various learning delays and disabilities, helping them prepare for the next school year in January. I was impressed with their daily eagerness to come to school, and most left asking for more homework. Many of them will be going to a new school that ADISA is opening in January.

The kids with their certificates on the last day of school.

The youth and young adults in the vocational program have been working hard to prepare products to sell in the community and abroad. Many of them hardly ever left their houses before coming to ADISA. Working in ADISA they gain a new independence, friendships, learn new skills, and earn a little bit of money for their families.

One of ADISA´s products, ornaments made from old newspaper.

I’ve been really grateful for the ways in which my host family has included me in their lives. My oldest host sibling recently graduated from college out of town so the family rented a big van and piled in aunts, uncles, and grandparents to drive to the graduation, and they invited me with them. We visited a mall before the ceremony, and neither the kids or my host grandparents had ever been to one. The kids were wide-eyed looking at everything, and my host grandmother was terrified to go up the escalator. It was quite the adventure. A couple weeks later our house was filled about 40 or 50 people, for a celebration dinner. My host uncle who´s a pastor, and a few church leaders led a time of worship and thanksgiving, and then we ate churrasco (BBQ-ed meat), fresh guacamole, beans, and lots of tortillas.

We celebrated Thanksgiving a little late here at ADISA. It was a bit of an adventure tracking down things like cranberry sauce, and transporting a 20 pound turkey across the lake in my backpack. A couple co-workers helped me navigate the market to find ingredients for sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, and stuffing. And our baker, Mirna helped bake everything. Then I got to watch everyone try new foods, eating everything with tortillas of course. And we had a local favorite, banana pie for dessert.

Thanksgiving at ADISA

Reflection Time

Perhaps the biggest challenge so far has been with language. Everyone here speaks a Mayan language called Tz'utujil (if it looks hard to pronounce, its because it is), which absolutely no relation to Spanish. Most people of my generation and younger, and men, are fairly fluent in Spanish as well, but Tz'utujil is the language of choice. Although it can feel like not knowing Tz'utujil is a barrier to getting to know people, it has also been a good ice breaker, and provided for some good laughs as I ask people to help me learn. (IE when I tried to say "mouse" ch'uey but pronounced chuey which means diarrhea). In turn I've been teaching some English and we hope to start regular classes in January.

I've been blown away by the generousity and sense of community that it is the way of life here. I sometimes get lonely and frustrated with being far from familiarity and people who know me well. And yet its from that place that I can really appreciate my host mom asking what I've heard from home, or a hug from one of the kids at school, or my host dad fixing up my room with an extra shelf for my books, or a new friend inviting me to her house, or my co-worker making me a list of words in Spanish and Tz'utujil, or my 7 year old host brother praying for me at dinner...God has been encouraging me through these unexpected daily blessings, through your emails and g-chats, worship songs at church, and scripture. There's a lot about being here I don't understand (most of it, hehe) but I know God is present so I seek patience in the mystery of it all.