RachelsAdventure.com

I just got back from a week-long retreat with the CMF Mexico team in Playa Del Carmen.  The location was beautiful and it was so much fun to spend time with everyone else on the team (and some of their family members from the States). 

Also had a great time visiting with old friends, Mike and Linda Sweeney.  Mike was the speaker for the week (which was excellent).  Mike and Linda lived in Papua New Guinea for 15 years and were the first missionaries supported by Abundant Life and they are now living in Tennessee where Mike is the President of Emmanuel School of Religion.  While chatting, we figured out that the Sweeney's have known me since I was 8.  It's been awhile.

Here are a few pictures from the trip. 

I just went to the Congreso Juvenil Cristiano (basically Mexico’s equivalent of a CIY conference) and it was a lot of fun.  I started the weekend with prayer.  I anticipated that it was going to be one of those weekends that I survived not one of those weekends that I was going to enjoy.  I was wrong.

Normally youth events are my favorite.  I love large groups of high school kids…it’s where I can “get my joke on” and have a good time…but this was a different story.  Add a language barrier and suddenly, something that would have invigorated me actually terrifies me.  I am not one to shy away from any social setting but I’ve seen this whole new (previously unknown) side of myself now that I live in a Spanish-speaking country.  It’s so different when you can’t communicate (wow, I have so much more sympathy for minorities and English learners in the US…this is hard stuff).  So, I’ve developed this (very accurate!) scale for embarrassing language situations ranging from
1= “piece of cake, I'm practically fluent” to
10=“I wish I had a shirt that matched the wallpaper so that no one would notice that I’m here.”

1-      Pets/Plants
2-      Small Children
3-      Taxi/Bus Drivers
4-      One Teen
5-      Adults
8-      Men with guns
11-    A group of teens

As you can see, the Congreso put me right at the upper end of my scale…and I was feeling it.  I wanted to hide in my room most of the time (wow, who is this Rachel?!) because not only could I not communicate…I was also one of the very few gringos in this whole place and I stuck out like sore thumb.  I got in trouble the first night for skipping my discussion group time (long story short and all excuses aside…I think I’ve explained before that when you are unmarried in Mexico you are considered a youth (even if you are older) so I went as a youth worker but ended up being registered as a youth…let’s just say that churches in Mexico are a very humbling place for a girl who’s trying to convince herself that she’s a fully functional and complete adult without a husband because they keep throwing me in classes with 12 year olds!!!)

I didn’t want to just survive the weekend and I knew that hiding in my room the whole time was stupid… so, I kept praying.  We were divided into color groups and I really wanted a buddy in my color group so that someone could help me understand what was going on.  I could catch most of the dialogue, but suddenly with 20 teens talking at once I missed a lot (oh, did I mention that we had to perform a skit in front of everyone and write and perform a song with all group members participating…see the chart above for my feelings about this)…and wouldn’t you know it, God provided a buddy for me.  I quickly became the group novelty (again, I was the only gringo) and they asked me to “preach” in our skit.  Fantastic.  Can we heap on any additional embarrassment!?  Haha.

The topic of the weekend was the Holy Spirit and the theme was "Muevete" and it all really hit home.  God gave me the opportunity to come down here and serve...that doesn't mean it's supernaturally easy.  Sometimes it's hard and all I want to do is hide in my room.  It's in those moments that (most of the time) I choose to pray and push forward.  Through it all I met some really great people from Pachuca (we have a church plant there) and I hope to get up to visit them in January or February and I even had fun. 

To top it all off, we finished the weekend with commitments and baptisms…the first ones I’ve seen since I got here.  There is nothing like watching someone get baptized…it brings me to tears every time.  A couple of the kids in our group rededicated their lives and it seemed like they had a great time.

Here's a picture from one of the baptisms.  This guy was in my small group (you know, the one I skipped the first night) and it was really cool to watch.  (okay...upload trouble tonight...picture coming later!)

As of this posting I am 12 days from getting to see my family and friends in Oregon.  I am so excited I can barely stand it.  For the first time in my life I truly understand the meaning of the phrase "absence makes the heart grow fonder" because I miss everyone SO MUCH.  These past 4 months have gone very quickly and I cannot believe just how much my life has changed...and it's been amazing...but I do look forward to hugs from home.
Here's my (incomplete) list of things I miss:
1) my family and friends
2) driving
3) being able to buy books in English
4) cheez-its

haha.

Mexico is a very beautiful country.  It’s an interesting because most of what we hear and see about Mexico in the States is from the US/Mexican border towns…which are undeniably some of the least safe (and in my opinion least attractive) parts of Mexico.  Drug trafficking continues to make the border cities unsafe (hey youth pastors!  Do your Spring Break trips in Mexico City!!!)…and drug-related violence is usually what makes the news.  Some people miss out on the beauty of our neighbor-country to the South because of fear. 

Even in the three short months I have lived here I have seen so many breathtakingly beautiful things.  The fall months this year have been a beautiful time to see Mexico because the rainy season is just over.  Everything is green and the sun is shining.  Because I’ve done seen so many things this past month I decided to just a selection of pictures into one slideshow.  If you have any questions about the pictures, just leave them in a comment and I’ll post a response! 

Ask away.  Then come visit.

Working at a small school is a lot of fun.  I think one of the things that I appreciate most is the overall sense of “family” that we have.  We all work together to help the students learn and grow into awesome adults.

As an elementary school teacher I spend most of my time with other elementary school teachers and kids...they are so much fun.  I have decided that I really like kids of all ages.  I mean, I couldn’t teach all the grades (I am NOT a kindergarten teacher) but I really love playing/hanging out with all the kids.  Because we spend so much time together, when a new student comes to the school, it doesn’t really matter who’s class they are in…it kinda changes things for all of us. 

Recently Miss Julie (1st and 2nd grade) got two new monkeys.  The new little ones: O. and her brother R. are a lot of fun and I think that little R. has the very best imagination ever.  We’ve been playing variations of the same games at recess for the past 3 months…but little R. comes on the scene and we all get to see the field in a whole new light…through the eyes of a very imaginative little guy.  The other day I was sitting talking with the other teachers (ahem, watching the kids) and R. came running up to us in a state of amazed excitement…he’d found dinosaur bones in the field.  Of course I had to go see these bones for myself.  We’d run passed and skipped over those "bones" a million times and only seen them for what they appear to be...plain old rocks…but little R. still spends most of his time at recess excavating those dinosaur remains.

His creativity and excitement inspired me the other day and I had my kids do a creative writing project about a treasure hidden in the field.  In teams they wrote creative stories about pirates, aliens and even crazy monkeys who came to our school and left secret treasures in our field.  Then each team drew a map of the field that with directions to the secret treasure.  I made treasure boxes and filled them with little goodies from home (thank you everyone who sent little toys and things down…they are already being put to good use!).  Tomorrow my 5th and 6th graders will get to read their stories to the younger kids and then lead them on a treasure hunt during recess. 

I’m so excited because I know the kids are going to have so much fun…and my 5th and 6th graders learned how to write creatively and edit papers without even knowing they were doing it!!!

Little R. and his amazing imagination has challenged me to stop, look around, and see my surroundings with new eyes.  It’s amazing what 3 months in a place will do to you…there are times that I get so caught up in the daily “chores” of life that I miss all the interesting things around me.  Living in Mexico had already dramatically slowed my frantic life, but little R. has challenged me to stop, smell the roses and look for the dinosaur bones.

Sorry I've been gone for a couple weeks.  My laptop crashed.  Thank you Mom and Dad for the replacement laptop and thank you Heather for bringing it down here!!!

The laptop has been out of commission...but I've been plenty busy down here so I'll have to spend the next couple of days getting my blog updated!  I just posted a "first visitor" update and I have great pictures from my recent explorations of Mexico, a ministry update and even a few more funny kid stories. 

Stay tuned. :)

I just had my very first visitor and it was wonderful for so many reasons:

1)      I got a hug from home!!!  Heather was a very fitting first visitor; she took me on my first mission trip out of the country to El Salvador.  She came to school a couple days and even taught the kids about germs (and told funny stories) here is a picture of Heather teaching class.  
2)      I finally got to show someone around Mexico City.  It was the weekend of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos  (click here for pictures from the weekend) so there were a lot of things going on in the city.  We found this great part of town called Coyoacán.  It’s a very “artsy” part of town where Frida Kahlo, Dolores del Rio, and Diego Rivera all lived.  
3)      I just had mini-Christmas.  Heather packed two suitcases of things for me and my class/kids.  You know you’re a teacher when you get ridiculously excited over math manipulatives.  (Seriously…I LOVE math manipulatives).  Thank you everyone who helped fill Heather’s suitcases!!! 

Good news for everyone reading my blog…my guest room is all set up and ready for more visitors!!!

Hey All!  I am so sad that I can't make it to the retreat this weekend so I'm sending a little love your way from Mexico.  Have fun.  Love you all.  Lots.

Con Mucho Amor
-Rachel

Life is good. 

Thought I'd post a quick update (never know how long we'll have internet access around here!). 

Teaching is a delightful challenge.  I love trying to figure out what makes my little monkeys tick and then helping them learn to be better people.  I read an article from the New York Times yesterday that was about self control (a common topic in my classroom) and learned that self control, not IQ, is the best indicator of long term success.  Now I have a new mission: teach 5th grade boys about self control.  Wish me luck.  haha.

Working with the church is great, too.  I love giving English lessons (surprisingly, it helps my Spanish a lot because I'm constantly having to translate).  I'm going to a youth conference November, should be interesting because it's all in Spanish (and I'm all in English, haha!).  Church is starting to feel more comfortable...more like home.

A lady stopped me on the way to school the other day and asked me (in Spanish) about the Homework Club and the English Club and I realized, about 3 minutes after parting ways, that I totally gave her the wrong time.  That's another one of those frustrating things about not being able to speak Spanish...had it been English I could have run back and corrected myself...but I didn't know the correct words in Spanish.  Long story short, the woman and her daughter did show up at Homework Club tonight...LATE.  Oops.  I apologized profusely (one thing I DO know how to say!).  The woman was very kind and her daughter even walked home with me.

Overall things are settling into a good routine.  I thought I would do a "Week in the Life of Rachel" post sometime soon so you can see what a typical week is like (complete with pictures!). 

Hasta Luego.

Do you ever have one of those days when you think "hey, I look good today" and then one of your precious students pokes you and says, "you're fat". 

SERIOUSLY?!?

 I guess 5th grade boys are here to keep me humble (but really, can I strangle him?)