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