Author Archives: Aaron

“Assembly of the Arrival” (Fall ’13 Newsletter)

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Merry Christmas family and friends, I hope you all are enjoying the Christmas season back in the States. I’ll be making a brief visit into Virginia, before our annual Edify meeting and then heading back down to Lima, Peru in early January. I decided to assemble all the events of this past fall into one newsletter instead of sending out monthly updates because it was easier to communicate a summary of the information that was pretty much related over the past few months. It’s now summer here in Peru and schools and university are on their summer break. How strange! Blessings, -Aaron

I moved to Lima, Peru in mid-august to start the Edify program. As you know, over this past year, I had done a feasibility study for Edify in four different Latin-American countries, meeting with 10 different microfinance organizations, visiting almost 70 private schools, and conversing with hundreds of school leaders. Currently Edify works in six countries making small loans to low-cost Christian schools to help them with their construction projects like classrooms and computer labs and provide them business training to improve the school and the quality of education.

Aug-12-News-06As an organization, we decided to enter Peru based on the like-minded nature of potential Christian microfinance organizations, and the ability to have significant impact with education in an empowering country environment. We wanted to find a country that was safe to do business in, one that was open to the kind of Christian missional work we do in other countries, and one where the economic need was evident. After spending almost two months in Peru in late spring, we felt we had enough information to make the decision on the four countries in the study, and in July, we decided to set up shop in Peru.

After spending two years in the Dominican Republic, I felt like I had a good idea of how the Edify program works, and was very excited to open a new country for Edify. Sometimes it feels easy to start something for which you already have a template, and then you realize that bringing this to a new country and a new context requires a lot of patience and a tremendous amount of teamwork to make it happen. It’s interesting to me now to see how missions organizations and non-profits reach Sept-13-News-01the scale that they do. For example, the largest non-profit in the world, World Vision has 44,500 employees and works in 97 countries. I compare that with setting up this one partnership in Lima, Peru and I think of the monumental work World Vision undertook to reach their current level. I know now first-hand that it takes a lot of introductions, a lot of meetings, phone calls, visits, emails, travel, discussions, contracts, new connections; a whole lot of manual assembly to put the pieces together. That’s been the theme of this past fall: trying to tie it all together.

It’s been amazing to see how the Lord has been working here Lima, Peru. Early on, I connected with a local Christian organization called “Christian Development of Peru” that offers training and educational resources for Christian schools and pastors throughout Peru. They helped connect me to two different Christian school organizations that in total have 34 schools, and invited us to Sept-13-News-06participate in their fourth annual teachers conference entitled, “Evaluation and Sustainability for Educational Projects.” On October 29th,  we as Edify presented almost three hours of training to leaders from 20 different schools on how to be sustainable as a low-cost Christian school and how to improve local community impact. While we were hoping for closer to 50 schools, it was still a great success to be able to plant our feet here in the community.

We met our facilitator to do our business training through the church I’ve been attending, Camino de Vida, (www.caminodevida.com). I had connected with the pastoral staff and introduced myself and our mission for Peru back in April. As the months progressed, they became instrumental in helping us launch our program here, introducing us to individuals who work in Christian schools, broadcasting, government, and those in the private sector. There is really no other way I would have been able to meet such quality people, without the kindness and hospitality that the Peruvian leaders have shown us over the past few months. As we move closer to doing our first loan here with the Sept-13-News-04local Microfinance organization, Camino de Vida is waiting to introduce us to even more schools that could benefit from the work of Edify. What a great model for building a new program!

But I’ve been very careful about making personal visits to schools that have invited me to see their school. As you can imagine, it’s incredibly important for the long-term sustainability of our program that we work with local leaders to develop relationships with schools, and second, I don’t want to give off the impression that I’ve come to their school to prepare a huge check for a donation, or am trying to work out the logistics for a big shipment in a few months. That’s not what we do, and indeed, it wouldn’t be good for their overall success. It’s the basic principle of a hand-out or a hand-up. I know they could use any donation, be it monetary or equipment based, but if they keep relying on donations for their operation, they are going to be stuck in that cycle of waiting for the next individual Sept-13-News-08to walk through the door, and we will soon run out of resources to donate to all the schools we want to work with. It’s important to maintain a consistent message of partnership and sustainability.

Certainly, one of the worst things I could do is promise something I cannot deliver on. I’ve heard too many stories from school proprietors that told me about Americans who had come to visit two or three years ago, even five or ten years ago, and the people never delivered what they said they were going to do. I remember talking with a friend who spent a few months in Burkina Faso (An economically poor country in West Africa, and a new country for Edify this past year) and he said that “While we all have good intentions to help others, while we may have pure hearts, you have to think about it from their perspective. If you’re the only foreigner they’ve seen and you even hint at Sept-13-News-07something amazing that they would never in their life be able to afford, they are going to start hoping you’ll deliver, and treating your suggestion as a promise. Don’t break a promise to them.”

So as far as our progress is concerned, we’ve been proceeding slowly, patiently, making the right introductions, presentations and building up relationships in the first few months. We want to make sure we do this right. And when we are ready, and when the local organization is ready we’ll be excited to follow-through on what we promised to deliver on. It has been a period of expectation and waiting and a lot of assembly. That’s kind of what this season is about right? Awaiting the promise of something to come. That’s what they were waiting for before Jesus was born 2,000 years ago, and then he arrived in the season prepared for his arrival.

I pray that your Christmas season would be filled with the good and healthy promises, and that you would appreciate family and friends and the arrival of Christ to the world.

Blessings,
-Aaron

I too have lived through prohibition

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al-caponeLast Sunday was election day in Peru and to ensure that everyone showed up and participated they prohibited the sale of alcohol from midnight on Thursday until Monday. Well, voter participation is a kind phrase to describe it. If you didn’t show up you would have received a hefty fine. That’s an interesting thought: exercise your democratic ability or get fined for being lazy.

I thought this political move banning the sale of alcohol would usher in a boatload of bootleggers, crafting their concoctions in musty basements in bathtubs, with bare light bulbs swinging overhead. Instead, restaurants and bars that depended on the income from sales of liquor, beer, and wine, simply shut down. It felt like prohibition foto-1  a ghost town walking through Miraflores. In the section where I live, which is usually inundated with loud music and patrons congregated around the 12-15 local establishments Sunday through Sunday simply felt like a ghost town. Discarded plastic bags rolled through like tumbleweeds.

Talking with people around town, most people felt like it was a non-issue. Many Peruvians had taken the time to spend with family and friends. They had used their Friday off to catch up with people they hadn’t seen in awhile. They just couldn’t go to restaurants with their loved ones. That left us, the foreigners, ones with no local ties, to stick together and forage for food. Well, not really. Groceries were still open, and yes, some restaurants. In all, it was just an odd time.

prohibition foto-2It wasn’t crazy, there weren’t raids, nor bounties placed on the heads of the top crime families; it was just quiet, everywhere. And not like the “quiet, a little too quiet” line that hints at something big about to unfold, it was simply boring, and inconvenient. Many of the regular restaurants my friends and I would go to were closed so we walked to other areas. Closed as well. I kept wondering, “Does the prohibition of the sale of alcohol really determine that much of a business’ revenue?” I suppose it does. Because nothing was open. Sad right?prohibition foto-3

In sum, I had an interesting takeaway. I agree completely with the encouragement of people to vote, even suggestions to limit or curb the use of alcohol so that people come out and vote, but couldn’t they have held the elections on a Tuesday? Maybe they considered that doing so would impede the economic machine by having it during a day of work, but how much of the economy suffered from limiting restaurants/bars/grocery stores for three whole days?

Economic questions yes. And complicated too. It’s a weird nexus of political, economic, behavioral and religious intentions and conflicts.

I took the DELE C1 exam this past Friday

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Over the past couple of weeks I had been studying for the DELE  exam (Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera) which is a language proficiency test done by the Instituto Cervantes of Spain. Specifically it’s from the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte de España. They tell me it’s not as hard as the TOEFL, but still, this was one of the more challenging exams I had taken. Basically, the C1 level is one step below the C2 level (native language ability) and it’s supposed to ensure that the non-native Spanish speaker can do the following things:DELE exam

  • Understand a wide range of long, demanding texts and recognize implicit meaning.
  • Express themselves fluently and spontaneously without much obvious effort to find the right expression.
  • Be flexible and effective in the use of language for social, professional and academic purposes.
  • Be able to produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organizational patterns , connectors and cohesive devices.

It’s split up into four tests:

  • Test 1 : Reading comprehension and use of language (90 minutes).
  • Test 2: Listening and language use (50 minutes).
  • Test 3: Integrated skills . Listening comprehension and written expression and interaction (80 minutes).
  • Test 4: Integrated skills . Reading comprehension and oral expression and interaction (20 minutes) ( 20 minutes preparation ) .

I spent a total of eight hours on a Friday at the Universidad de Ricardo Palma here in Lima, Peru. I finally got back to my apt at about 9:15pm. It was a lot of work not only to take the test, but the whole period of preparation to learn the structure, practice the components of the structure, and perform well.

Overall, I think it’s a good exercise. I really do think if someone possesses a high level of Spanish language ability then they should be able to do well on the exam, really with little problem. What struck me throughout the process is just how much a few things really matter:

  • Deep Understanding
  • Critical Thinking
  • Accuracy

It’s really a process of sharping a language so that you know exactly what a text/conversation/argument is saying, what it’s not saying, and when someone asks you a specific (non-obvious) question in relation to a complicated subject, you can respond with a nuanced, well-thought out response. That’s not just a Spanish skill, but really an overall skill for approaching any subject with clarity, balance, and precision. Great practice I say, but wow, is it incredibly difficult in a foreign language.

I’m extremely relieved to be done, but what remains are two primary concerns. One, that I won’t pass and I’ll think for some reason that 3.5 years in Latin America hasn’t meant anything and that I’m not good at Spanish. The other is that I will pass, and within the day I’ll find myself completely confounded by a conversation or situation. Either way, they both tell of the same thing – that an exam score doesn’t determine proficiency of the test-taker. It’s really about how well that exam was able to unearth those vital skills of of understanding, critical thinking and accuracy.

You don’t need an exam to help you do that, but it sure does light a fire under you!

Words I’ll Never Understand

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When I started learning Spanish in Aug. of 2010, I would often stumble through learning new words. They looked so strange to me, and then even more surreal was how these words somehow lined up with an English equivalent. “How could that word mean this word?” I used to mutter. And then, in a stranger turn of events, I’d soon realize that the definition for one Spanish word wasn’t just one word, in fact there could be two words, maybe three, maybe even four that could suffice.

words-ill-neverThen I realized that each Spanish word could be a part of a set of words to describe something. Take for example the word “said” as in “He said he’d be back in 10 min.” We realize that there are a multitude of ways that someone can “say” something in English.

Did he simply respond, did he mutter it, or was it just suggested? Maybe he mentioned it, or no, he announced it, but how alluring would it be if he revealed it?

So then the obvious follow-up question is when and how do I use these new-found words. Ah there’s the nuance. Which in Spanish is “matiz.” How do we know when to use what we need to use? I guess that’s the magic of language ability. We just know.

Soon, I got over the confusion of words with multiple meanings, the inherent nuance, and of course the difference between slang and what could easily offend someone, but what I never got over is something so fundamental, so simple. I realized that there were words that I would never truly understand, not because of their definition, that part is easy, nor of their use, because context will help you out, but of how we come to know and understand words as they reflect the life we lived, our joys and our sorrows, and how we choose to approach a new day.

How can we understand words like these:

innocence.

regret.

carefree.

loss.

excitement.

love.

pain.

renewal.

These are words I thought I knew and used, but realized they were words I’ll never understand . . .

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I’ve always been a fan of this song:

“See I’m all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages forwards
More words than I had ever heard and I feel so alive”

Forever Vacation

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I hear from time to time people explaining to me that they’d love to do what I’d do, but without the “work” part. Like they’d want to quit their job and just travel. Explore all the destinations they’ve dreamed about, and be a part of another life. Others want to finish their career and just sit on a beach. Be forever on vacation living at the beach. lonely-planet-peruSounds grand, doesn’t it?

I always reply, “Well, you could do that, but honestly, I don’t think you’d be happy.”

Why not?

I think an intrinsic part of happiness is knowing that you’re connected to something of great value and that you, this body and mind you control, are directly contributing to this value. Traveling can feel like a spectator sport after awhile.

Ask anyone who’s been on the traveling circuit for more than a few months and you’ll hear things like. “I really just want a warm shower.” “I have hundreds of pictures of cathedrals, I can’t tell them apart.” “I miss the pizza/salads/desserts/pasta from back home.” “Why isn’t there any wifi?” “I miss my friends.” “I miss a regular schedule.”

When you make the transition from a normal life schedule to one of traveling, it’s bliss for a short period, but then a reality sets in that you didn’t expect. One reason you set out to travel was that these exotic destinations were not your regular reality, but you never thought that you’d want to return home for precisely that same reason.

Besides the obvious impediment of finances, travelers realize you can’t travel forever. Many of the travelers I’ve met got burnt out from the traveling because the feelings and excitement just before the initial launch from their home country eventually faded away. That propellant fuel can’t propel you forever; you eventually need to find a more durable source of motivation, something that continues burning after the initial batch of launch fuel does its job.

Meaning is the fuel for life, whether you travel abroad or invest in your local community.

More on that later, but for now, here’s a talk from Steve Jobs I enjoyed:

Major life goal: write a few short books.

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I’m the kind of person that doesn’t like to waste a lot of time shopping. I usually go into it knowing what I want and then I buy it.

I walk into a store, I look at the available options, and then after deciphering the key statistics, I make my purchase. Simple as that.

It became obvious to me that when I was looking at some books on Kindle that I liked the title, the author, the descriptions, the reviews, all of that, but I didn’t like the page count. I’d close to tab, and move onto the next book.

Now, to be fair, I am talking about non-fiction. Fiction books are a completely different story. If a fiction book is good, I’ll try to read it, but I fundamentally believe that if you can’t make your point in less than 225 pages in a non-fiction book, it’s not worth reading it.

icn.seths.head-1One of my favorite business writers, Seth Godin, (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/) only writes short books. He’s realized that it’s not just the short attention span of his readers that leads him to write less, it’s that it he’s recognized that people appreciate brevity and clarity. I’d add to that list the idea that we all seek a sense of completion, and a short book will allow you to have that feeling of victory.

It also reminds me of the famous Blaise Pascal quote, where he famously ended a letter with an apology:

“I’m sorry that this was such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write you a short one.”

So now, I’ll to be a bit clearer, when I say I want to write a few short books, what I really mean is that I want to write a few concise books, with solid content, that people can easily pick up, finish and feel like the read was worth it.

 

“Highlights from Edify Family Camp” (July/August ’13 Newsletter)

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 Aaron Roth – Edify.org – “Highlights from Edify Family Camp” – July/August 2013

Greetings family and friends, I had traveled quite a bit this past summer. That’s the reason the July/August Newsletter is coming so late. In one month this summer, I had been to the Dominican Republic for Edify’s Family Camp, to Guatemala for more feasibility study meetings and back to the states for Edify team meetings. I’m happy to report that I’ll be staying put in one place as I just arrived to Peru to begin work on the pilot program for Edify. Our intention is to start the micro lending program for small, affordable Christian schools here in the capital, Lima. The following newsletter is about our Edify Family Camp experience in La Romana, Dominican Republic. Blessings, -Aaron

The Edify Family Experience is a way for families from North America to experience the work that we do in Edify in a school that we support with micro loans and training. We bring families with children that are interested in learning how the model takes shape on the ground and want to participate in a camp that involves the whole family.

For us, family camps are a unique experience because normally our operations involve making small loans and doing business training for these schools. Fortunately, the camps of years past have been a huge success with everyone involved, from the North American families to the local staff and the children in the schools.

July-13-News-03So this past July we spent two weeks in a city in the East of the Dominican Republic called La Romana. Each week we had five different families participate in a four-day camp that involved a work project, English classes, crafts, recreation and a devotional. The final day we had a celebration, like a carnival, where we invited the parents and the siblings of the students. You’re probably very familiar with this description of this kind of camp as it sounds like many short-term mission trips that churches typically do.

At the outset, we explain to our guests that Edify normally doesn’t do trips like this and we’re very clear that the week is about partnership and celebration. We want to build onto what we’ve started with the school. Usually this means that schools come to know us through a small loan for building new classrooms or computer labs, or through business training where they learn to manage their finances. Most often, the relationships we have with the schools are kind of like a business/client relationship, and much like in American business, you don’t always take your friends to see your clients, unless there’s a really good reason.
July-13-News-04
Over the years we’ve developed great relationships with our schools; many really feel like our brothers and sisters, and we want to be intentional about who we introduce to our Dominican family just as they would be intentional about who they introduce to us. As you know, the normal mission trip from  the North American church usually means a large amount of money spent on short-term mission trips where large groups descend on a local community, bring truck-loads of donations, do a bunch of fun activities, and leave the week after.

July-13-News-02We’re trying to build a program with these schools that doesn’t fade away after the week that the teams leave or the funds dry up. Now, we’re not perfect by any means, but we are trying to do things differently, and we consistently ask our partners and people we serve how we can improve what we do in the communities where we work.

Before any of the families come down to the DR, we ask them to read the book, “When Helping Hurts” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. It details how poverty is much more than the lack of economic resources, that we can, and many times are, all “poor” (disconnected, hurt, broken and sometimes powerless) when it comes to these core relationships: with God, with our community, with our family and with own selves. We all emerge out of poverty when we start trusting  Christ and begin the process of restoration beginning first with our Heavenly Father.

Before the family camp begins, we discuss the first few chapters to lay the groundwork for the week ahead. We talk about how we are so similar to our Dominican brothers and sisters, even though we’re materially rich, we have all been damaged by the consequences of sin in our nation and in our relationships. We can start restoring this brokenness by restoring our relationships – first with our CreatoJuly-13-News-05r and then onto each sphere of relationships. So when we go into these schools we must treat each other similarly: as broken as we may be, we know that the path out of it is led by our redeemer, Jesus.

It really changes our perspective when we enter a school as equals. We see smiling children laughing and playing with their friends, hugging their parents goodbye, some are looking shy and apprehensive, and even little ones start crying because they’ll be away from their parents for a few hours. Those are just like children from the United States, and even though these local ones attend schools with uncompleted walls, broken fans, and unpaved roads, they are all here because they believe that Christ has prepared for them a brilliant future through good education. That’s what we believe too as North Americans right? We all want our children to have the best opportunities available and we try to make that a reality in our communities.

In short, it was a very full two weeks full of experiences, trials, and joys, and I couldn’t possibly write all that transpired, but I will share with you a few stories from our Dominican friends and family:
——————————————-

July-13-News-09One of our guests had decided to join the work project during the first week. He and his family have done a lot of work with a missions organization that builds houses for economically poor families in Mexico. He’s pretty good with tools, and has a lot of experience in construction, so it seemed like a natural fit for him to join the Haitian and Dominican workers in building onto the school’s wall during the first week.

It was fun to see the North Americans interact with the Haitians and the Dominicans. They all had a similar purpose in constructing the wall and got along really well. During one of the mornings, a Haitian worker was shoveling concrete when he immediately yelled out and grabbed his back. Our North American guest quickly went to his aid and helped him lie down in a classroom. As the Haitian man lay there wincing in pain, our guest came to ask me to help him translate. We walked into the classroom together and he wanted me to help assist the Haitian man. Now, I don’t know if the Haitian man was moaning from pain, or from the fact that he would probably be unable to work for a few days.

Our guest wanted me to speak to the Haitian man (in Spanish) and tell him that he had the same injury from shoveling concrete and a doctor showed him some exercises to relieve the pain. Almost immediately, the composure of the Haitian man changed as he saw someone not only willing to help him, but relaying to him that he had gone throughJuly-13-News-07 this pain, and had found relief. We all crouched there for a few minutes as our guest helped this man breathe through his pain, and gradually the wincing and the moaning stopped. There wasn’t any language spoken in these minutes; it was as if we were all just teammates trying to help our buddy out.

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For our final day celebration, we had a carnival where schoolchildren could win tickets from various games. We rented a bouncy castle for the children to play in. Knowing that these children hardly ever get to jump around in this inflatable house, we made a few decisions to manage the flow of traffic. First of all, to spread the number of children around, we started them off at different stations, and made the bounce house free. As soon as a reasonable number had passed through the house, we July-13-News-10set the bounce house ticket price at five tickets (well below market value). And as many more, almost too many children wanted to go through it, we raised the price to 10 tickets (approximate market value). One young man who had to decide between waiting in line at the free bounce house and playing tic-tac-toe bean bag toss with no line, first chose the bean bag toss to earn tickets. Upon arriving at the entrance to the bounce house, he was told that it now cost five tickets. He left to go earn more tickets and came back with eight. Unfortunately, for him the price had just been raised to 10 tickets.

This same young man, at seven years old, looks up at the bounce house attendant and as politely as he could muster he explains his strife: “This bounce house started out free, later it was five tickets, and now it’s ten. What’s going on here? Are you all crazy?”
July-13-News-06
To reward his patience, we let him in for eight tickets.

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The orange team, composed of children ages 8-11, had a young man named Stephen who showed signs of mental retardation who, being a few years older than his peers, joined this group because his brother was in it. During the recreation portion of the day, the group split into two teams to do an obstacle course than involved hopping on one leg through a series of cones and passing through an old tire set up on the playground. It was his turn to go, and Stephen had trouble with his coordination and struggled to hop around the course. When he finally reached the tire he hesitated at first, because he was very tall and knew would struggle getting through the tire. As he struggled, his teammates started cheering him on, and began chanting his name. Limb by limb he labored on getting his elongated frame through the old tire, but as soon as he emerged, he raised both hands above his head and yelled. Both teams, teachers, and the North Americans erupted in a victorious cheer.

——————————————-

July-13-News-08To finish out our final day each week, we had a celebration with the parents of the schoolchildren and friends and family in the neighborhood. We ordered enough food to feed over 200 people during the lunch break. After the big celebration of the games and the tickets during the carnival, it was a time to reflect on just what community means, and what it can mean for people like us, North Americans, and those who live in more economically impoverished areas. We had a really simple message that the director of the school (pictured left) gave us.

She talked about the importance of family, and how we should treat each other in a way that welcomes them into the family. It was one of those moments that Jesus describes in the Gospel of Matthew:

“The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.” (NIV Luke 14:21-23)

So we sat down, all the colors of the age group teams, all the North Americans, all the teachers, and all the people of the neighborhood. We came with the intention of having a common table, and we feasted like family.

I pray that you would see how God can use you to invite more people to the table.

Blessings,
-Aaron

The Joy of Dancing in Public

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I was wandering around Lima this past Saturday and passed through Parque Kennedy where there is usually some public event going on and loads of tourists passing through. I saw up ahead a crowd of people gathered around a small amphitheater so I made my way on over to Parque kennedy dance foto 1check it out. What I saw first were scores of Peruvians sat closely together with eyes fixed on the center area. Upon closer inspection, I saw several couples dancing, but the unusual thing was they weren’t exactly the young couples I would have expected to see. No, they were older men and women dancing in step with the Latin music.

A song finished, the partners exchanged pleasantries and returned to their seats. A new song began, and the men got up and sought out new partners. Often, they came from the other side of the amphitheater to find their desired partner. It all seemed very well orchestrated, but I knew that this was simply a public event where everyone came to listen to music and watch the dancers, that by the looks of it, came here quite frequently. In sum, it was quite a show for a Saturday afternoon without having to pay anything to enter.

I thought to myself that dancing in public isn’t really something that we do in North America for reasons I don’t think we all really know too well. Usually, people reserve their dance moves for special occasions or for a few drinks into the evening, and if we see someone dancing in public they are usually too little to fall prey to social norms, or they’ve had too much to drink, or maybe luckily they’re a little more well-hidden in the throngs of concert goers out to enjoy a concert in the open air. Rarely, do we such frank displays of affinity for music and dance.

Parque kennedy dance foto 2An older woman, much shorter, and certainly more joyful that the rest, arrived to the dance floor barely able to contain her exuberance as a favorite song played. She danced as though she had a partner, and her smile ignited the audience who sat close by. A younger man stepped out from the crowd that sat on the concrete bleachers and grabbed her by the hand. They spun, they danced, they strolled, and tried out the turns and steps that people in the crowd yelled to them. It was like they were the instructors for those who came to dance.

For a brief moment I noticed that they didn’t really dance in time to the music being played, but quickly that feeling disappeared when I did what everyone else was doing: I just went with it and enjoyed the scene. I then looked around and it seemed this odd couple, both dressed in red, had garnered the attention of nearly everyone in the stands. Now, surely, there were better, more fluid dancers, but none were as animated as this couple.

They came to dance in public. No shame in that.

My Spanish is not “Perfect” – but I Know What You Mean

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Where I work on a day to day basis I’m usually the only white person, and I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who speaks English. It’s funny sometimes to see the expression on the school directors face when they fear that they are about to have a conversation with a Gringo. They worry that they’ll have to use their rusty English to communicate. I tell them “Don’t worry, I speak Spanish.”

Usually at that moment, the loan officer or person I’m traveling with will chime in: “Yes, he speaks Spanish perfectly, you’ll be fine!”

I know this is not the case. I recognize my own grammatical errors, but frankly I’m too tired or too unwilling to stop them. My accent needs a lot of work, and I usually choose the easier phrase rather than the most adequate because I don’t want the hassle. It’s kind of like I ask myself, do I want to cook something on the stove, or just heat it up in the microwave? I’ll tell you honestly, the mornings are better for stove cooking. Afternoons, well, I’d just like to punch in some numbers and wait for the “ding.”

I realized though, that more often than not, when people describe my Spanish to other people, they use the word “perfect” and in fact, they use the word “perfect” to describe other things, like when a plan goes well.

I think as Americans, we’re obsessed with perfection. Beauty in youth, 100% grades on report cards, and flawless victories in sports. Often, it’s what people aim for even if they aren’t saying it.

Maybe here, in my travels, perfection means “done well” or “good enough.” I’d consider my Spanish more of the latter, and yes, I know sometimes, I do it well. I really have come to accept that my Spanish is good enough. I have friends who only speak Spanish, I make phone calls to strangers, and I conduct business meetings in Spanish. It gets the job done. It’s fine. It’s good. Here, it’s perfect.

You know, there are a lot of reasons why people travel: to get away from work, to explore foreign lands, to have an adventure in a place they’ve never been, to meet fun and exciting people, to stretch themselves, to become something different than they have been before.

For some of us seeking perfection, it’s a lot closer than anticipated.

“La perfección se logra al fin, no cuando no hay nada que agregar, sino cuando ya no hay nada que obtener.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“A Culture of Value” (June. ’13 Newsletter)

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 Aaron Roth – Edify.org – “A Culture of Value” – June 2013

Hi family and friends, I had an excellent two weeks back in Nicaragua and Guatemala doing some follow-up research on small, low-cost Christian schools for Edify. I was also able to help with a project with starting savings groups in local churches for HOPE International in those areas as well. I’ll be in the States for about two weeks before heading to the Dominican Republic to work with some family camps for Edify. We are going to be working with a few small Christian schools in the Dominican Republic with a few churches and families from the United States. This newsletter is about my experience in Guatemala, a country I have really grown to love over the past three years. Blessings, -Aaron

My return to Guatemala last week was a homecoming to where the adventure began almost three years ago for me. I learned to speak Spanish in the school of San Pedro La Laguna near Lake Atitlan. This lake, considered one of the 10 most beautiful in the world, still holds the same enchanting beauty as it did when I arrived almost three years ago. It is where I first learned to value the experience of living with a Mayan family that spoke only Spanish and Tz’utujil. I learned that we valued the same things in life: family, relationships, and dinner around a common table.

As I’ve written in previous newsletters, with all the traveling I’ve done in the past three years, there are a set of behaviors and beliefs I’ve gotten used to. I consistently abide by the same rules for safety, pack my suitcase and backpack the same way, and continue to galvanize my stomach or local foods. But every once in a while I get caught off guard by a statement or a view of something so unusual, it makes me feel I just stepped off the plane from the US for the first time.

“After the girl fell and bumped her head, I remember a woman telling me not to worry; if it had been a boy, it would have been a problem, because a boy needs to take care of his brain for thinking and studying, with a girl it’s not so necessary. Girls don’t need to use their minds.”

June-13-News-03This statement was retold to me by a loan officer of a local Guatemalan Microlending Institution who was teaching rural women about the inequality of gender, and how they should value the female gender and should stand up for the rights of their little girls to attend school and seek educational and vocational opportunities. Inequality still exists in many parts of the world, not just in money or power, but in gender. Very often, when we think of poverty, it’s a description of inequality in economic class, education, or opportunity, but I’ve come to see poverty also as a lack of values or appreciation of life.

June-13-News-02Now keep in mind, even in the tiny rural village where this training took place, culture is a behemoth that everyone can see, but very few can move on their own. It takes years to form itself, and sometimes it sets in like concrete, which means it takes years to reform or change. When any development or missional organization talks about transformation of any sort, be it economical, behavioral, or spiritual, they are entering into a long term process. I’m always hesitant to speak of rapid transformation in the work we do with microlending to schools, because when we try to improve the quality of education, and build on projects to schools, we’re talking about beginning a process for change with a diverse group of individuals who carry their own vision for the school.

June-13-News-05I think it’s better to say that as a development or missional organization from the States we are joining a team with a common goal. When we work together for long-term results, not just short-term projects that look good on powerpoints and photos, real transformation is possible. Real culture change is possible.

Last week, we met with an organization that is committed to long-term change. La Casa de Alfarero (The Potter’s House) is a local Guatemalan ministry that provides health, training, education, vocational, and spiritual empowerment to families that live in and around the enormous landfill of Guatemala. They told us that the community is made up of almost 3,000 people that work in the trash as “scavengers” looking for any material or item of value, and almost 9,000 people that work in and around the landfill. Families make at best $5 a day, with an average of $2-3 for a household.

As the director, Hector Rivas, explained to us, trying to reshape the culture of those who live in the trash is a difficult one. With their programs, clinic, and school, they consistently impart values to the students, by starting June-13-News-05primarily with telling the students that they themselves are valuable. He elaborates:

“We meet people all the time that say ‘Soy basura porque trabajo en la basura.’ (I’m garbage because I work in the garbage). We know that we can’t take these families and move them to another place because there would be no work or emploment there. What we try to do is simply take the garbage out of the person, knowing we can’t yet take the person out of the garbage.”

Culture change takes time, and Potter’s House has been working near the landfill for almost 20 years. Scavengers in the garbage dump know that the people from Potter’s House who come to serve them and educate their June-13-News-06students in the school value them because they came to help, and because they stayed. They invested in the community, and the community trusts them.

What we do in Edify is invest in local leadership and local communities. In every country I’ve been in over the past six months, and in every school I’ve walked into I usually say, “Our desire is to invest in this community, and you will work with people of your community, and we, the Americans, want to be part of the team.”

I believe that by truly investing in the local community, fully investing in the long-term change necessary to help change the mindset that all children, all boys and all girls, should be able to go to a good school and develop their talents as God gave them. This is a culture change of value. That we were all made with value, and that we all deserve to be valued, and to be valuable members to the communities where we live.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” (NIV: Jeremiah 1:5)

I pray that God would show you how you can help shape positive values in your community.

Blessings,
-Aaron