Let the blogging begin

I’m one week in, one tenth of the way through this journey and God has already shown me so much.  I’ve been to a Spanish-speaking church filled with clapping and the Holy Spirit (just don’t tell the Presbyterians about all that clapping), to the rushing and spitting La Paz waterfall, to Cinchona, the epicenter of the earthquake from January 2009.  Each adventure is charged, sometimes with wonder, but oftentimes with heartache because the earthquake cannot be separated out from many things that have happened here.  It is still very present in the lives of these people, just as April 16^th still resonates strongly with the Virginia Tech community.

For example, Eugenia, a girl from the colegio (the high school), still lives in temporary housing after over two years when the Cinchona earthquake destroyed her house.  Another mother must daily walk by what is know as “The Hole,” a steep drop-off where the tremor ripped apart the road and buried homes, as well as her twelve-year-old son.

As I began to right this first blog entry, I honestly didn’t know what I was going to say.  That’s the funny thing about writing.  You sit down, tenderly draw out your thoughts, like crab meat from its claw, and try to create some sort of coherent piece from all the different ideas that want to be pulled out.  I thought I would talk a little bit about the culture and my home stay, the ADE staff, and the children from school, all of which have blessed me and filled me.  These are key, but the thing that seems to strings them all together – the thing that cannot be overlooked and will be pulled – is the earthquake.

After it struck Cinchona and surrounding areas, Tomás felt that the Lord was calling him back to his home town in San Rafael, where he grew up and where his father owned many acres of farm land.  He created the non-profit organization, ADE, (the Association of Development through Education), with his wife, Chelsea, as a response to the tragedy and an opportunity to use the existing resources to build up the community.  The ADE staff works closely with the high school (20 kids between the ages of 9 and 17), teaching English, Spanish, Civics, Social Studies, Math, and Science, as well as a morning Bible study.  (I will be helping Lindsey teach English and am starting a creative writing class next week.)  I am eager to see what God has in store for the Varablanca area and just ask you all to keep praying.