Jumping In

The past couple of weeks have been pretty crazy for me in all areas surrounding my pending career in TESOL and future plans. In one sense life is pretty simple right now. I am going to school to get my M.A. in TESOL and working so that I don't have to take out as many loans. Next year I am going to live with my parents in Vista since they'll be on home assignment, so I don't have to stress too much about that. Still  there are a lot of decisions to be made, changes to take in, and dreams to dream.

Currently I am on the hunt for a job. After working in the cafeteria at APU for the past 4 1/2 years, it is finally time to move on. I've tried to move on a few other times, but I think now it's finally going to happen! A part of me is sad to leave the people I've built relationships with there, but if I'm being honest I am more than ready to move on to another phase in life. I have a couple of other part time jobs that I'll probably keep on, but what I'm really searching for at the moment is a job teaching ESL somewhere. I have a couple of leads and interviews lined up, so I'm slightly encouraged, but it's also an overwhelming and somewhat discouraging task. See, it's hard to get a job teaching if you don't already have teaching experience. Because of this, chances are I'll have to take a lower paying job (thus slightly damaging my budget) just so that I can get the experience I need to get those other jobs I'll want in the future. This also probably means long commutes. Bummer. But while I am a bit discouraged about this, I'm also excited to finally be doing it. I'm finally trying to get into the field I am studying, and I'm excited to apply all I've been learning in my classes! I'm about half way done with the program so I think it's about time I actually jump in to the field!

Another exciting and extremely intimidating opportunity I have is to design a course curriculum in one of my classes. Most students do this for a somewhat hypothetical setting, but I've chosen to work with Mary Wong, Ph.D. (the head of APU's field based and online TESOL programs) on developing a course for a new university she is involved in starting up. Medes American University is going to be an American Christian university located in Erbil, Iraq (or Kurdistan depending on your political persuasion). I've already done quite a bit of research on the location in order to get a feel for the context of who I am going to be designing this course for and I am excited to jump in and get working on this course. Like I said, I'm incredibly intimidated by the possibility of actually designing a course, but I am humbled and excited to get the opportunity to work alongside Mary and others in order to gain this valuable experience.

While I'm busy jumping in to those two areas of my life, I am trying incredibly hard not to get ahead of myself with the future. The truth is I'm antsy. I'm tired of living in Azusa, and I just realized this week that I have lived more consecutive years in Azusa than anywhere else in my life. Of course, I left for most of the summers, but still... There are so many other interesting places in the world that I want to go. I want to travel home to Congo and Cameroun, I want to visit all sorts of other places in Africa, I want to go to Korea to visit old friends, Japan to see where some of my best friends grew up, and many other places in Asia as well, I want to go to South America (and especially to Bolivia), I want to go back to Europe and explore places I have never been as well as return to Romania (a place that captured my heart 3 1/2 years ago), I want to go to Egypt and experience life there (and see the pyramids), I want to go to the Holy Land, and now I want to go to Kurdistan too! Basically the more I meet people from different places and friends of mine spread out over the world the more places I add to my "to go" list. And yet here I am... still in California. I'm sure there is a reason for it, and I know I'm learning a lot, but sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes I just want to jump in to that next phase of life and forget the preparation... and then I remember something I reflected on this past semester and summer. I am in a preparation phase and it is important. If even Jesus had to prepare 30 years for 3 years of ministry, then I think I can do with a few more years of preparation. The trick is to make sure I actually use my time of preparation and don't just let it pass by. So as I'm waiting to travel the world and see how my life turns out I'm trying to jump in right where I am. Most of the time it goes really well, but right now it's a bit difficult to keep that perspective. Oh well, I guess I'm allowed my moments :)

The Help

It seems as if this blog is turning into my musings on books I've read, movies I've watched, and other such things. It's not because I consider myself an expert on any of these, but rather that I want to share with the world (or the very small number of people who read this blog :) the things I experience that touch my heart and stir within me deep emotions. This time what happened to stir me is the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett. There are some great reviews of the book out there, so this is not my attempt to review the book. Rather, it is my attempt to share what the book stirred in me, confess some things it brought to the surface, and hopefully encourage other people to read this book and allow themselves to reflect on its meaning in their life.

At first glance this book should really have nothing to do with me. It is a story of three women in Jackson, Mississippi during the civil rights era. It shares the everyday lives of these three women and their journey to try and change their world. What the women of this book seek is justice, and what the author of it seeks is to bring light to a difficult situation and honor her "help" growing up. I guess in a way that is what I want to do here.

No, I did not grow up in Jackson, Mississippi. I did not even grow up in the United States, let alone the South. I grew up in Zaire and Cameroun, Central Africa. There was no civil rights movement when I was growing up (or now for that matter), but I did have "help" all through my growing up years. Specifically we called them "househelp," "yard guys," and "guards." To many people who grow up in the US now this book talks about a very foreign concept, having someone in your house every day cooking and cleaning, but for me it hit pretty close to home.

No, the situations are not identical, and I truly believe that my parents treat our "help" with the respect they deserve as equal human beings, but what I can say is that there is something about my childhood that resonates with this book. I never had a nanny that I can remember, but I can remember key moments in my life that I shared with Robert, Mary-Jean, Elise, and Christian. For instance, Robert taught me to sing (and love it) and used to let me spend hours shelling peanuts with him (I'm pretty sure I ate more than I actually shelled). I haven't seen this man since I was in second grade, if I saw him now I probably would not recognize him, and yet he holds a special place in my heart always. This is one of the good moments that is talked about in the book. The bond that is created between the "help" and the children. It is a bond that you hope can never be broken, but sadly often is.

My family in Zaire with our "help."

Robert is the one standing next to my dad in the back.

This book made me nostalgic for the good times, for a childhood I remember through rose-colored glasses, and yet this is not all it did. See, what this book shares is that the greatest fear of the "help" is when the child they help raise turns on them. I don't think I ever truly did this. I believe my parents raised me right, to not see our workers as any less human or valuable than me, but just like every other teenager... well, I had my moments. I remember one specific time in junior high when I yelled at Elise because she wouldn't let me eat something she was making in the kitchen that I wanted (probably a tortilla or the end off of the uncooked cinnamon rolls she was making). I remember feeling like it was okay to yell at Elise because she was only our househelp. I pray that was the only time I felt that way, but to this day it haunts me.

Perhaps one of the reasons it bothers me is this: Elise was francophone and I was anglophone. I was never able to properly communicate with Elise, and I will never have the chance. Elise died of cancer when I was a senior in high school. Elise taught me how to make tortillas, cinnamon rolls, and bieroques, but more than that Elise would sing. I never was able to really talk with Elise, to communicate in the way I would have liked, so I don't know for sure what she believed, but every day when she would iron Elise used to turn on the radio and sing along to worship music. I know her life was not easy, but in her way she was a witness to me. Even though I can never tell her how much she meant to me, I will never forget her. I will never forget the last time I saw her healthy (about a month before she died- I guess her cancer was in remission), I remember sitting by her bedside just before she died not even recognizing the woman who lay before me because she was so frail, and I remember attending her funeral and listening to her mother wail- wishing I could do the same.

It's odd how a book like this can stir up so many emotions in me, a person so far removed from the context of the story, but it did. My heart was stirred to remember the good times and the bad. The things I have learned and the things I regret. The things I am thankful for and the things I wish I could change. Maybe this isn't the book to do that for you, but I pray that today you would have the joy (and pain) of looking back at the people who have shaped you and be grateful for all you have been given. I know I am.

So this is thank you. To Robert, Mary-Jean, Elise, Christian and all the other people along the way. I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for them. I'm sorry for the times I failed them, but I pray that my life would make them proud of the person they helped make me into. I love each of them with my whole heart.

The Stoning of Soraya M.

Today I watched a movie that I have been meaning to watch for a few months. A friend of mine recommended this movie to me during the summer and I only just got around to watching it. There are several reasons for this, but the real reason is that I was warned it is one of the most intense movies I will ever see- and my friend was not exaggerating.

"The Stoning of Soraya M." is a movie I will not soon forget. As you can probably guess from the title this is a movie about the story of a woman who was stoned to death after being falsely accused of adultery. The stoning scene of the movie is not for the faint of heart. Several times throughout the scene I had to turn away, close my eyes, and pray to God for a heart that understands what this movie means to me. A movie like this brings a lot of emotions to the surface. This woman was betrayed by almost everyone she knew. Her husband, her sons, even her own father all threw stones at her.

I know the men in my life and that they would never do such a thing. I will never be put in Soraya's position, but that does not mean this movie should leave me with no effect. There are real women going through exactly what this movie depicts. Some situations are better and others are worse. Here I sit in my comfortable living room with hundreds of people who love and care for me, and I wonder: Why was I borne into such privilege? I have never wanted to be seen as a radical. I have never had the courage to really take a stand against an atrocity like this. I can't say that after watching this movie I will change, but I can say that it made me pause and think. I pray that someday it would be revealed to me how I can allow God to have it change my life. I pray that I would be proactive and not sit back like the mayor of the town in this movie simply waiting for God to give me a "sign."

This movie also reminded me of John 8:1-11 and the story of Jesus and the crowd who wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery. Every time I have heard a pastor preach on this passage they say great things, and they do their best to describe to the congregation what a stoning would have been like. Unfortunately without seeing this event I don't think we can ever grasp the horror of it. Without seeing the hate on the faces of the people throwing the stones and the blood dripping down the face of the woman being stoned I don't see how we could ever understand what Jesus was doing in this passage. This movie brought to life for me a portion of Scripture I could never grasp before, and I am sure I do not fully understand it now.

This has been a sober post. It is not that I want to be discouraging but simply that I think this is something worth talking about. At the very least I think it is something that each of us needs to spend time thinking about. I have no idea where God will take me in this world, but what I do know is I long to have the courage (by His grace) to bring the joy of the good news and fight for justice wherever that may be.

I will end with a quote by Timothy Keller, one of my favorite authors, from his book The Reason for God. On page 15 he says this: "What is religion then? It is a set of beliefs that explain what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things that human beings should spend their time doing." So what is my religion? What is your religion?