Since then we have grown even closer and I’ve been able to watch each step of his and Ashley’s relationship that began that year.  I’ve loved getting to know Ashley and Bert as a couple and being present from the early days when they were merely exchanging facebook messages to riding with Bert to pick the ring up from the jewelery store.

Even though it started sprinkling as we began their engagement photo shoot, this didn’t stop it from being a great day!

The Hovering Spirit

Sunset from Screamer Mountain

Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church in Sylva, North Carolina

I also had the opportunity to visit an official state fair for the first time in my life.  Friends, moments like this only happen once.

Come and Get It

God willing, I will one day have the privilege of serving a church that has its own concession stand at a state fair!

I often have trouble deciding if Spring or Fall is my favorite season.  However, I’ve been able to pause school at a few points in the last few weeks, and they’ve pointed me to the beauty of this time in the year. I hope you’re able to step away from your routine and see some of this beauty as well!

Usually it’s put a little more subtle than that — but I am always excited to tell about my experience!

Duke Divinity School requires two units of “field education” and this summer my placement was in Central America along with three of my good friends. After spending five weeks in language school in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, we moved to Ahuachapán, El Salvador where we had the privilege of being in ministry with the Evangelical Methodist Church of El Salvador for six weeks.

While I spent a large portion of my time in language school there as well, each day also offered me a new glimpse into the life of this young church and into the lives of its many faithful servants.

I’ve found the “five marks of mission” listed in Andrew Walls’ book  Mission in the Twenty-First Century: Exploring the Five Marks of Global Mission to be a helpful way of thinking about the holistic mission of the church, so I’ve organized this post around these marks.  This break down makes it look like these marks are very distinct from one another, but as you read I hope you see how fluid they are within the overarching mission of God.

Pasaje Concordia in Ahuachapan, El Salvador

1. To Proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom

The majority of Methodist Churches in Ahuachapán have worship services every night in addition to Sunday worship each week.  During these times, the good news of the kingdom is preached to a variety of audiences – children, youth, adults, and elderly – by a variety of ministers – laity, ordained, women, men, young, and old.  And every couple of weeks, many of the churches hold “vigils” on Saturday nights which usually last from 8:00pm until 5:00am – think of it as a youth lock-in, except it ’s all prayer, singing, preaching, and teaching.  No lazer tag.

I had the chance to attend three different Methodist churches in the city regularly, and my last week I preached (in Spanish and English) at La Providencia – home of Pastor Angel who has the biggest smile I’ve seen in Central America.

I was also able to go on some pastoral visits where I was able to be a part of sharing God’s promises with others in difficult situations.

2. To teach, baptize, and nurture new believers

This mark of mission centers upon growing into Christ’s likeness – a key task for any church.  During my time in El Salvador, I was able to help the church engage in teaching largely through Bible school for children (after all – my Spanish was like a child’s) in cooperation with mission teams from the States and local volunteers.

However, one of the most unexpected ways that I was able to help nurture believers was by outfitting them with reading glasses so that they could finally see the Bible properly in order to read it on their own.  One day we set up a clinic in my house and we were able to give out 100 pairs of reading glasses to people in the area!

Fellowship is also a strong component of growing as believers, and one of the highlights of this trip was spending time hanging out with church members and other Christians.

3. To respond to human need by loving service

The church in El Salvador is fully engaged in taking the whole gospel for the whole person to the whole world.

This was most clear to me through the church’s relationship with foreign mission teams that I participated in on a daily basis.  Most of the teams have long-standing relationships with the churches and assist in responding to physical and spiritual needs by building houses for the poor, partnering with local Methodist medical clinics to provide assistance, helping fund church buildings, providing food and water to hungry and thirsty families, teaching children about Christ, and showing Christ’s love in their interactions.

These teams have not replaced the local church’s work, but rather serve as an additive to the ministry of compassion that the church supports year round through medical clinics and other avenues.

4. To seek to transform unjust structures of society

While I cannot claim to know a great deal about the societal injustices in El Salvador, I witnessed and participated with the church in addressing such issues on two major fronts: housing for the poor and medical care.  The church currently provides space for medical clinics – governmental and private – that enable and encourage those in their vicinity to take advantage of access to care that has been lacking in the past and is still inaccessible for many people.

The church also provides houses to families in the midst of an economy where housing costs often consume a family’s budget due to rent and loans – if they are even able to build or update an existing structure.  Home ownership enables people to have a safe and clean structure in which to live. And it also allows families to have lasting economic assets in the midst of a country that has historically seen the country’s finances tied up in a small number of families.

A few days later…

5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

I witnessed this mark of mission largely through the water collection projects at some of the churches.  These water collection systems harvest water for use in washing, bathing, and cooking, and began in locations that did not have access to municipal water.  And beyond this, I have yet to encounter another culture that reuses so many materials rather than throwing them away.

This is just the surface of what I experienced this summer, and I look forward to talking with many of you in more detail about my time. I’m going to dedicate a future blog post to some of the major issues I’ve been reflecting on since my return.

While I do not personally know everyone in the portraits below, these faces represent a people I have come to love and a people that bear the image of God.

I met Juan in Parque Central in Xela, Guatemala.  He was the first person I struck up a random conversation with in Spanish.

I had the opportunity to visit this woman’s house where she and her family made blankets and other goods that were usually sold to students in language school.

I came across this man in Momostenango and he asked for his picture to be taken.  Later, I printed out the photo and sent it to him with one of his friends I knew.

A man in Salcaja, Guatemala told us about the history of making fabrics in the city and how this art has been passed down generation to generation.  Each town in the area has a unique weaving pattern.

Alma was one of my teacher’s at Sakribal.  We always had a great time speaking Spanish, laughing, learning about our cultures, and becoming friends.

These friends in San Andres Xecul, Guatemala were very eager to have their picture taken together in the midst of their games in the street.

One day we traveled with our teachers to a city park called El Baul in Xela and enjoyed going down the concrete slides on plastic Coke bottles.

I happened to have my camera out when the boy on top was celebrating a victory in  his wrestling match with a friend in the street.

]]> http://www.jonathanandersen.com/faces-of-guatemala/feed/ 1 http://www.jonathanandersen.com/cooking-in-guatemala/ http://www.jonathanandersen.com/cooking-in-guatemala/#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 03:24:54 +0000 Jonathan http://www.jonathanandersen.com/?p=630 One of my favorite things about traveling is the opportunity to sample foods that I don’t normally eat.  At school my diet consists of cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and something quick and easy for dinner — Panda Express being my favorite in this latter category.  Here in Guatemala, it has been a true blessing to have fresh meals cooked each day by my house mother Aldina.  The menu for the past month has consisted of combinations of:

Breakfast – Pancakes, eggs with salsa, tortillas, black beans, toasted sandwiches (ham, hotdog, tomatoes, onions, ketchup, and mayo), fruits (papaya, mango, watermelon, pineapple, plantains), corn flakes with warm milk, and mosh (similar to very milky oatmeal)

Lunch and Dinner – Carrot soufflé, rice, tortillas, cucumbers and tomatoes in vinegar, black beans, eggs, chicken (covered in onions, bell peppers, and salsa), hotdog tacos, carne asada, vegetable soup, carrots and potatoes, fried plantains, tortas (similar to hamburgers on tortillas), paches (rice, steak, and mole), green bean rellenos, and plantain envueltos.

Here is Aldina cooking my favorite food in Guatemala, fried plantains, by candle light one night when the power went:

Each day we have fresh tortillas that are made at a tortilleria named Los Comalitos that is only a block from my house.  Three ladies operate this business, and they go through 75 pounds of corn per day as they hand pat 2,000 tortillas.  They work from sunrise to past sunset each day. Here is one photo of Mary and Norma (18) who have both been doing this for ten years and another of me making my first tortilla!

At my Spanish School, Sakribal, we have weekly meals where the students and teachers cook.  The first week I cooked fried oreos (Oreos fritos) and they were a huge hit.  Since then I have watched globalization take place as three of the teachers at the school informed me that they went home and made them as breakfast items for their children. All of the kids loved them, and the teachers added a little fruit surrounding them for a little more balance!

Last week at the school we had some of the best pork I’ve had in a very long time.  We had fresh chicharrones (pigskins with a little meat on them) and carnitas which are traditionally eaten by families on weekends.

Other random food finds:
These are macadamia nuts at the Nueva Alzenaia planation.  We visited there last week and were able to see the processes they use to produce coffee, macadamia nuts, spring water, and biodisel.

A Chocolateria in Xela:

If you buy a glass bottle Coke, most stores will pour it in a bag for you so that they can keep the bottle and give it back to the manufacturer for refilling.

Every Guatemalan I’ve met loves to put ketchup on top of their pizza.  I sampled this trend when I bought Dominoes for my family one night, and I can report that it tasted exactly how I expected.  It wasn’t great and it wasn’t terrible, and the whole time I asked myself why I put ketchup on top of a perfectly fine slice of pizza.

And finally, here is a picture of the family I live with and some of their friends eating Shrimp Creole that I cooked last night.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

Do you have an image that does this for you?

Here is the same spot 3 years earlier: Quiet Spring Evening I

At the Foot of the Cross – Conyers, GA

Roadside Attraction – Glade Springs, VA

Hold On

1839 – Wilmore, KY (I was limited to three entries so I had to cut this one.)

More pictures below the fold.

This is one of the most important days of their life and I’ve been entrusted to capture it all. What a huge burden of responsibility and a huge opportunity to fail.

Those are the initial thoughts that come to my mind whenever I’ve thought about photographing a wedding, and they’re the reason why I’d never taken on such a venture until asked.  Come to think of it, before I preached for the first time I had many of the same sentiments as well.

I like to play things safe.

Common in my thought process are things like: If we go on this bridge that says ‘no trespassing’ the cops may come. My season ticket to Duke basketball will be revoked if you use one of my friend’s student IDs to get into the game. If I go hang out with you guys I’ll have less time to study for the exam and I could do poorly. That idea will never work in this church.

And while sometimes playing it safe is a good thing, I’ve been convicted about some of my tendencies towards safety and stability, and fears of failure lately.  And today, I came across an article advocating this idea which hit me like a gust of freezing wind on a winter night:

Creativity and safety are incompatible.

It sounds simple, and may not make much sense to you at this point, but I urge you to read the article I’ve reprinted below which explains this better than I ever could.  This truth has profound implications for our daily lives, our relationship with God, our art, and much more. However, don’t read it if you’re not ready to be awakened by a fresh wind.

Creativity Overcoming Safety

By Cole Nesmith  - One of the founders of Uncover the Color — a collective of Christian artists I recently joined.

We live in a culture consumed by safety. There are organizations completely dedicated to making sure we’re safe while working and traveling and eating and doing just about any other common practice.

And, being good westerners, we’ve allowed our cultural obsession for safety to define our lives as Christians. We’ve spent the last several hundred years sterilizing our relationship with Christ into a religion that is neat, defined, predictable… might I say, systematic?  We’ve worked hard to eliminate as much of the unknown as possible, and we wonder why we feel distant from a God who exists in the mysterious.  Today, we try to compensate with our heads by creating large educational institutions where we can further define and attempt to know God intellectually.

Hence, today, my friend Dustin called me and asked :

What happened historically that caused Christians to stop being influencers and creators of culture?  Where did our creativity go?

The answer : It was driven out by our fear of the unknown and our lust for answers.

Creativity and safety are incompatible.

Creativity is willing to step into the unknown and bring something new into existence.

Creativity is about an unbridled heart that is so free in who it was created to be that it is unstoppable.

Creativity is central to EVERYTHING God does.  And I’m not just talking about the creative work of the land and seas and animals and you and me.  I’m talking about things like redemption, peace, beauty and hope.  These things can only exist when we tap into the creative heart of God.

When I pass a homeless drug addict on the street, I can respond with my earthly, uncreative heart that sees what is before me.  Or, I can choose to look on with the creative heart of God that sees something that is yet to exist.  God looks onto what seems like a dark canvas of nothingness and imagines a beautiful life – a tree bearing all kinds of good fruit that nourishes those who come to eat of it.

Recently, I was talking with a guy  who has lived and worked in Haiti for the last 27 years.  He said,

“the most difficult thing to overcome in Haitian culture is the pervasive mindset of “present hedonism.”

And it seems that statement is true for lots of Americans (especially American Christians) as well.  We’re only concerned with the present, the now, today.  We’ve lost the ability to dream.  In short, his assessment is that one of the largest hurdles in Haiti is a lack of creativity.

That night, I posted this online :

Thinking about two future Haitis : One rebuilt on the foundation of creativity and the other built on the foundation of utility.

And the sole response :

I like the one where their foundation is Jesus

And that’s where we stand today – in a world where Christians have erected a wall of fear, prejudice and sterility between creativity and Jesus.

But when we truly look at the heart of Jesus and the river of the Holy Spirit, all we see is the unexpected.

I remember going to the Grand Canyon several years ago.  I was on the road with some friends, and we drove all through the night.  The next morning, when I woke up, we were parked in a campsite several hundred yards from the hole.  I was so excited to start exploring that I skipped breakfast and jogged up the path to the canyon.  It was beautiful.  We hiked all day along the ridge occasionally walking out on the narrow pieces of rock that jutted from the main path – only 3 feet wide with hundreds of feet of cliff on each side.  And no rails!

God wants to take humanity deep in the mystery of Himself, but for generations, Christians have stood on the bank of the river of His Spirit.  And over time, the river has carved out a canyon before us.  That canyon gets deeper and deeper.  The rushing waters that we’re meant to swim in get farther and farther away.  Some thought about diving in for a while, but eventually the river just looked like it was too far down to jump in.  So we started building a fence.  And today, that fence keeps us safely perched on top of the canyon.  We have taken to study the rocks and the sand and the bushes.  We become intimately acquainted with the signs of what once was.  And as we turn our backs to the river, we settle into the comforts of the land.

But I’m so thirsty.  And I know that there are people in the world that are too – people that are ready to swim in the river of God, not exactly sure what will happen, but ready nonetheless.

So, what do you say we tear down the fence, stand on the edge of the cliff and jump into the unknown, beautiful, creative heart of God?