Dramatis Personae and a few reflections

So, now that my time here is well underway, I feel somewhat obligated to mention some key people that you´ll be hearing about over the next year.

OTHER YAGMS

Kirsten/KD - My co-worker in Montevideo. From Minnesota, but has been living in Colorado. Wants me to wake her up in the mornings when it´s time for work with my deep announcer voice...I´m thinking this is a joke, but we shall see.

Karin - Assigned to Comodoro in Patagonia. From Seattle-ish. Walks really fast compared to several other group members.

Kim - Working in Oberdá in Missiones up north. From New York, but goes to seminary in Chicago. Majorly saved our butts in the airport by figuring out that our flight was cancelled.

Kristina - Placed in La Plata near Buenos Aires. From Puerto Rico, but has lived in a lot of places. Is my go-to source when people are looking at me funny after saying something in Spanish, but I don´t know what I did wrong.

James - Working in Resistencia in the north. From Wisconsin. Is probably the most thoroughly enthusiastic person I´ve met in my life.

Katie - Not technically a YAGM, but a part of the group nonetheless, working in Comodoro. From Minnesota, but lives in New York. Is not a big fan of flan these days.

OTHER BIG NAMES

Kate - Our country coordinator, and one cool person!

David - Kate´s husband. Also very cool, and could pass for a native Argentine.

Milton and Wilma - My site bosses in Uruguay; Milton at the after school center and Wilma at the church. I meet them tomorrow for the first time.

So, that´s the cast at this point - an incredible group of people to be working with for the next year! As we´ve spent this first week together in Buenos Aires, I´ve had some time to think about what I´ll be doing, and why I´m doing it. The why is deceptively simple. I could give physical reasons why - needing a break from school, wanting to live on my own and feel truly independent, a sense of restlessness, a desire to see the world, wanting to work on my Spanish. These are all good, solid reasons, and they´re not bad motivations to have. However, they´re not why I´m doing this. I could have taken a job teaching in the states, gotten an apartment, saved up for some vacations, and found a Spanish-language church if I wanted to meet those goals. It´s the call that brought me here, that deep-seated sense of purpose and divine appointment.

The logic of it, on some level, escapes me. Why come to South America to do things I could do back home without any of the risk or venture associated with pulling up stakes and coming down here? Because God made this way for me, and in faith I´m walking this out. I´m reminded of (go figure) a Rolling Stones lyric - "when the Lord gets ready, you gotta move." Well, the Lord got ready, and all I can do is follow, even to the ends of the earth.

And what ends, too. Argentine life is certainly pleasant, but it´s also different, and has already started to challenge me, even if just in the little things right now. Kissing cheeks, for example. I am not Mr. Touchy-Feely. I don´t particularly enjoy unsolicited physical contact, and I have to be comfortable with you to a certain level to want to hug, and I VERY seldom kiss people period. However, in Argentina, a kiss on the cheek is a very common greeting across all gender lines. I was more than a little taken by surprise when the men at the IELU (Iglésia Evangélica Luterana Unida de Argentina y Uruguay) office just gave me a kiss on the cheek when we went by for a visit. That´s just not how I comfortably operate - as the stereotypical Texan in me would say, "we don´t do THAT stuff ´round here."

However, I´m not down home in sleepy Seguin on the banks of the Guadalupe. I´m in Buenos Aires, and I´m the one who has to change, grow, and embrace some new cultural norms. That leads directly into the what question. I´m not here to beat on doors, pass out tracts, and bring light into the heathen´s darkness. That sort of mission work, at least in a cross-cultural perspective, is ultimately derogatory and demeaning in that it assumes that I´m better than my hosts, that I know more than them, and that they can´t get along without me. It´s Poisonwood Bible mission work - doing a good thing in theory, but in practice sowing evil because of misguided motivation. I want to be here because it´s where God has put me. I want to be like Philip in the Book of Acts, waiting on the roadside for what opportunities God has appointed for me, and again like Philip, I want to be available for needs recognized by the people I´m here to serve, not just a know-it-all trying arrogantly to push my own spiritual agenda. I want to live the Gospel of the Kingdom, not just tell people about it.

That´s not to be insulting toward outreach-oriented mission trips. People DO need the liberating truth of the Gospel. However, the purpose of my year here is to join in the work that God is already doing with and through God´s people here; presupposing that I, in my wisdom and glory, have all the answers for the people of South America´s problems is arrogant and ultimately cuts me off from God´s work in my context rather than promoting that work.

So, that´s life along the Rio de la Plata these days. I´ll get some photos up as soon as I can, and some fun stories from the first weeks. Chau!