Eye Clinic

Aware of the fact that I have slightly been neglecting blogging, I am going to write about something that happened back in October. It was an amazing weekend; here's what happened:

We were visited by some ophthalmologists down here in Tlaxiaco at GFM! They had been planning on coming down to do an eye clinic in October, and we were all excited to see how the clinic would work out. The ophthalmologists brought barely any clothes because they filled their luggage with an eye machine (to calculate the degree of myopia or hyperopia of each patient), and hundreds, near one thousand, of pairs of eye glasses (no exaggeration here, both various prescriptions and readers). We were praying that all of this gear would make it through Mexican security at the airports on the way down to Oaxaca. It didn't. At least not right away. So for the first part of the week they were here we were unable to do the clinics because they didn't have any of their eyeglasses, or even the machine to read the prescription needed for each person. After four trips to Oaxaca, and a lot of empty promises from Mexican officials, we were finally able to recover the goods! We ended up doing three days worth of all-day clinics, each in a different village. We would have each Mexican sign in, and take a seat. Then one by one we would measure their eyes with the eye machine, and give them a prescription. They would head out the the boxes full of eyeglasses (which we at GFM all sorted through and organized for 3 hrs, actually it was 10-1am). We would help them find their correct prescription, chosen from all of the previously-donated eyeglasses. Then we would have them read a passage from the Bible or look out into the distance to make sure their eyesight was better with that particular pair. Some individuals could barely see anything and the transformation was dramatic! It was so great to see the appreciation and excitement that some of the locals experienced upon the being given the gift of sight again for the first time in many years.

Sorry for the Hiatus!

Hello! So sorry about that hiatus from blogging...I've had a whole lot going on lately. But I am back on the Blogspot now! A brief recap of some highlights from the past month:

In doing some community service, the entire GFM MTS went to the Agencia to work with the locals. The Agencia is our colonia's something like a recreation center. We were working  on constructing a new building. Before any construction could be done, however, there was a pile of rocks (and by rocks I mean boulders) that we had to move. This mound was about 4 feet high and about 25 feet long. We moved these rocks and also moved the dirt in between them into separate 'rooms' in order to fill up some of the spaces with dirt and rocks rather than concrete, which would save money. It took us hours in the morning...we took about four 'Coke breaks' by suggestion of the Mexicans with whom we were working. We had some lunch, and then started on the NEXT huge mound of rocks and dirt. That day I did the most exhausting, toughest physical work of my life as of yet! We were all tired and filthy--and to top it off, Heather and I were in the midst of an annoying cold, so we were schlepping back to the truck bed every few minutes to get another cough drop and blow our noses with the two rolls of toilet paper we had brought for such purposes. The most exciting part of the day had to be when I found a centipede on the ground. It intrigued me, as it was a vibrant blue color, and as I asked if it was poisonous, I bent over and touched it with my index finger. The Mexicans around me, seeing what was going on, were shouting advisory warnings such as, "don't touch that!" "that is poisonous!" "those have killed men!" "it could kill you!" BUT, I was not comprehending any of these cautions spoken in Spanish. When someone finally translated the messages, it was too late, and I had touched it. I lived in fear for about ten minutes thinking that at any minute I could be taken ill and die! But after a short amount of time had passed, and I wasn't dead, I considered myself safe.

More highlights to come...

Canadian Thanksgiving

 So, here at the GFM base, we have quite a few Canadians. And, October 13th marks the Canadian Thanksgiving! When asked what the reason for the Thanksgiving celebration is in Canada, the Canadians will tell you that they celebrate the big harvest, the harvesting of their crops for the year. So on Monday, the 13th we had a traditional Canadian Thanksgiving meal! It was great, the tables were decorated with 'Fall' favors and we had more food on the base than we'd ever seen since we've gotten here! There was a little bit of turkey, a little bit of ham, and a lot of chicken, sweet potato casserole, broccoli salad, some kind of noodle salad, strawberry jello, tea biscuits, mashed potatoes with carrots mixed in (apparently that's how they eat mashed potatoes...), pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pie,  butter tarts, and a traditional Canadian bar of which I have no hope of remembering the name. One of the Canadians even made a funny powerpoint "Quiz" about famous Canadians. It was a great and fun day, and a nice little reminder of home!

Mexican Church

Each Sunday, all of the Americans here on base split off and go to a local Mexican church. We are all supposed to be accompanied by a GFM staff member, but this  Sunday the staff members that go to our church couldn't make it, and neither could three of the other attendees. So, it ended up being me and one other girl and a guy who were attending church yesterday. It was a special day for our church, it was an outdoor service with a guest speaker and then a picnic! We brought some muffins and Coca-Cola. We had some neighbors from our barria (a Mexican neighborhood) come to the base and pick us up. The Mexicans are so hospitable, the parents had their four kids get out of the car (yes, car, as in seats five total, but rarely here are cars not over-packed) and had us three gringos get in, their children took a taxi to the site of the service/picnic. We tried to tell them that we would just take a taxi, that we didn't want to put them out, but, oh wait, none of us three speak Spanish! So, we graciously accepted their ride, with broken and probably grammatically-incorrect-to-the-point-of-comedy Spanish.

We arrived at the site, found seats and patiently awaited the commencement of the service (yet another Cultural tidbit, when Mexicans say something starts at noon, that means they stop what they were previously doing and start thinking about getting ready/going to the event at noon, not actually beginning the event at noon. This isn't the easiest adjustment for us punctual Americans.). So the service starts and the guest speaker begins his sermon. He spoke for 3 and 1/2 hours! It was a seemingly good sermon, I understood a few words here and there, he spoke for a while about his mother and something having to do with a time period of 8 years. The funny thing is, he would continually make eye contact with us three gringos, we think that he thought we could understand him, he constantly asked questions and pointed, and the church members (particularly the woman directly behind me) would answer by shouting, "Gloria Dios!"

After the service, the eating began. We were a little nervous, because it is offensive here to not each food which you are served, so that means if you are served pig intestine (which happens!) you must eat it-not taste it, but eat it in its entirety. Luckily, we were served black beans, minty rice, chicken, hard eggs and tortillas--astronomical portions, and of course we had to finish it all. Something else about chicken, you have to eat the whole piece chicken, the skin the fat, the gristle...everything but the bone. Luckily, I was able to finagle not eating the fat and skin and gristle, I hid it underneath my cup on my plate and quickly threw the entire think away. Aren't I sneaky? Once we were ready to go, we started making our way on foot to the main road to try and catch a cab back to base. Little did we know that cabs don't really run on Sunday, so we began the miles walk back to base, about 1/3 of the way three members from the church picked us up, so we again piled 6 people into a little car and accepted their offer. By the time we had made it home, we were gone for six hours! That's a long church service, but it was a great day and a great experience!

"Freedom Camp"

This past week, the MTS (Mission Training School) students were surprised to find out that we were to go on a camping trip in the mountains of Mexico. "Freedom Camp," as it was dubbed, lasted for a total of three days; we fasted from all food and drink (but were allowed water) and slept in tents in the mountains. It was a rough three days for me, my body didn't respond well to the deprivation past day two, but we all made it through! Even one of the staff daughters (she was 11!) made it, we were very proud of her. The camp was designed to be a 'death to self' experience, and we read Bondage Breaker by Neil Anderson and went through some worksheets to in order to find full freedom in Christ. Each  night we had a camp fire (which really wasn't the same without marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate) before bed, and we talked about how we wished we were roasting something over the fire! When we arrived back at base on Thursday night we broke our fast with Mexican Ritz crackers and Gatorade as communion and then had a meal of chicken soup. Needless to say, those were the best crackers and that was the best soup I have ever had! And although we tried not to get gluttonous that night, we gave in a little bit and ate some of the powdered sugar "donas" (donuts) from the Bimbo delivery the base had previously gotten--we all agreed they were worth it! So, overall Freedom Camp was a learning and growing experience, but one that I do not have the immediate desire to re-live any time soon :)

Oaxacan Idol

Last week we had a GFM Family fun night, celebrating the September birthdays. It was complete with a cake and a fun parody-based American Idol contest. We called it Oaxacan Idol, and there were only thee rules: entries must lip-sync, all music must be Christian music, and all entries must dress for the act. So, all of us unmarried girls living in the dorms (we are called the Singles) did a number together to a hilarious You Tube video that Heather found online...it's a for-real attempt at a song and a music video from the 70s, the song is called "Jesus Is A Friend of Mine." We cracked up the first time we watched it! So, we went to the Reto, which is the Tlaxiaco thift shop and got 4 tops for 10 pesos (one dollar US) which we deemed looked "70s." We then learned all of the words to the song (by watching the video over and over again), and practiced our performance, complete with dance moves and air guitars/keyboards, in our bathroom mirror before the Oaxacan Idol began. It was a fun night :)

Two weeks!

I have now been in Tlaxiaco, Mexico for two weeks, and I just now realized that I have been pronouncing the name of our city incorrectly! So, I was going by the general rule of pronounce the "x" as an English "h" as in Mexico and Oaxaca. Apparently the "x" in Tlaxiaco is pronounced as a "c." Okay, I can do that, now I pronounce the name correctly-it only took two weeks. We had our Sabbath day, today, Monday. It was wonderful, I slept in until about 9:30am and started to get on some of this week's reading material which includes, Intercessory Prayer, How to Read the Bible, and The Kneeling Christian. Currently I am into The Kneeling Christian, and the neat thing about that book is that no one knows who the author is, it just says, An Unknown Christian. It is very interesting. Then, today in the afternoon we hiked up a mountain near the base. It was incredible! It was honestly the hardest hike I have done in my life, steep and challenging, and the high altitude where we live doesn't help matters much for a girl from Michigan! The view from the top was spectacular, you could see for miles, and we also saw the town of Tlaxiaco from up there. We hiked for about five hours!

Last week we went through some pretty heavy material in class, the week was titled Death to Self week, and there is this rumor that we do something called Death Camp this upcoming week...supposedly we are going to be spending four days and nights in the wilderness of Mexico and fasting the entire time! That is going to be so tough! I would be lying if I said that I was sincerely looking forward to it...

Missions Training Classes Begin

So, it's Sunday, and this morning marks my first experience at a Mexican church. All of the gringos (what Mexicans affectionately call us 'white people' among a few other things) on base go to local churches down here every Sunday. Traditional Mexican churches apparently last for hours, sometimes up to four! However, the church that I went to only lasted for two and a half hours today, which went by relatively quickly considering that I could not comprehend more than a few stray words here or there. There is a praise and worship session at the beginning, which was so great! They had an overhead projector with the lyrics, and the first song was even a worship song that I knew in English, so I was able to learn a few words by translation. I brought with my my Bible and also my Pocket Spanish-English Dictionary. Going into Tlaxiaco is great; each time I learn a little more Spanish. Yesterday, actually, was the first time we went into town with out anyone to help us out, and I had my first conversations in Spanish with the locals! It's true that they were extremely short and broken conversations, but I am counting them nonetheless. I have to admit at this point my most commonly used phrase is, "no entiendo" which means "I do not understand." But, I am encouraged at how much I am learning each day! My first phrase was, "estamos caminando" which means, "we are walking" since  we walked into town that day. So far, my favorite Spanish word is "popote" which means "straw," as in a drinking straw-which I ask for by name at every restaurant to which we go! Today, after church, we went to one of the two pizza establishments in town, and one of the pizzas we ordered was Hawaiana, which is mostly similar to a Hawaiian pizza in the States...plus one ingredient. We found a list of the toppings after ordering and read them, included was the word, "tocino," which none of us knew. So, I got out my Spanish-English dictionary and looked it up. Come to find out we had just ordered a pizza with LARD as one of the toppings!!! I was shocked and grossed out and rueful all at the same time-I debated whether or not I was actually going to eat it. When we established that we could not visibly identify any lard, we decided to eat the pizza, and we all liked it, it was pretty Western. But, out of that experience, I added a new word to my "cuaderno" (notebook) that I carry around: tocino.

We just finished out our first week of classes, and had our first three book reports due Friday at midnight (I submitted mine at 11:38pm, I think, staying true to my American ways of procrastination). We had our first test on Saturday morning, and discussed the next week's reading selections. I am opting to read the additional books in order to have the option of attaining the Associates' Bible degree at the end of this year. The books we are reading are very, very good. All applicable and conducive to nuturing an ever-growing and ever-maturing Faith. The books we read last week really helped me to understand the life of a missionary and to adapt to my new life here and my current role. We read Foreign to Familiar, Unveiled at Last, and a book about language learning and bonding. The first one on the list for next week is John Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad. We've been having some great class discussion, I am really loving the classes here, learning so much! I will be sure to make a post soon about what I have been learning. Also, I am going to try and find a way to post pictures on this site so that photographs of town and of the base can be made available for viewing.

Blessings,

Missy

First few days in Tlaxiaco

I arrived in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, Mexico on the 6th of September after a long day, I left my house in Fenton, Mi at 4:15am and arrived at the base at about 9:00pm local time, which is 10:00pm standard time, that would make nearly 18 hours of travel, after which I was exhausted! I have to admit, it's jut as I pictured it to be down here...it's kind of stereotypical Mexican. As soon as I got into bed that first night, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a very large spider. Very close to my bed, could have easily crawled in. I smashed it with a shoe, then slept with one eye open. Just kidding, I didn't sleep with one eye opened, just reminded myself that it's all part of the experience (albeit, not my favorite part). I live in a big, open, tiled room with 6 other girls, we have three toilets, down which toilet paper CANNOT ever be flushed otherwise you go fishing with a coat-hanger. We have three showers, out of which normally only cold water flows. Our showers must be 2 minutes or less since there is always a water shortage down here, but I don't think I'd want to take a shower longer than that, it's so cold.  For breakfast this morning we had Granada juice, which was so good-it's like an orange fruit with black seeds, very sweet, very fresh. So far the food has been great, some of it is authentic Mexican. The people all seem wonderful, too, so I am excited to get to know them. I saw the medical clinic during orientation, but no Hours have yet been held. The internet connection down here is very spotty, and very temperamental. It's more a source of frustration than it is a source of information-but, at least it is accessible at some times!

About my daily schedule, every morning we have Prayer for the Nations at 6:30am, where we pray for the Unreached People Group of the day, according to joshuaproject.net, then we have Worship and a Bible study from 8-9:30am. We have Mission Training classes from 9:30am-1:30pm, then Lunch, then we have daily chores. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays we leave the base and go into the town of Tlaxiaco and do ministry after chores. Mondays are going to be our Sabbath days. We had our first visit to Tlaxiaco last night, we were oriented to the town, and then had tacos at a local establishment. Everyone stared at us...like we were a bunch of white folks in a Mexican city or something! :) While at dinner in town, the topic of discussion at my table was intestinal amoebas and parasites, how ironic.

The flies are rampant down here...everywhere you are, they are. We had a pig slaughter the other day, one of the pigs on base was sick, so they had to kill her, and we have been eating her for the past couple of days. We keep all of our left over food for pigslop. There are also some chickens and roosters on base. I think the roosters are a bit confused. They call out at all times of the day, not just in the morning. We have two guard dogs here, both German Shepherds, they are huge. Names: Adrian and Junior.

So, the weather down here is all over the map. The days here are normally pretty warm, the nights get chilly, and it rains every afternoon. I try to read in the afternoons, as we have 2-3 books to read per week, and weekly book reports on those books. There are about 20 students in my class, some singles, some married with children (families live on base as well).

Well, that will be all for my first post! I do not know how often I will be able to update this, as you never know when the internet is actually going to work and I am new to this blogging idea!

Blessings,

Missy