While the original Thanksgiving had pilgrims and Indians around the table thanking God for the food and strength to survive a long winter in a new land, today's Thanksgiving is quite different. Our memories revolve around being with family, eating way too much, and falling asleep in front of the football game!
This year will be quite different for us. You may wonder, what will we do for Thanksgiving? Our morning will be the same as other days with all of us in class. Then in the afternoon we will be going to the Higher Grounds Coffee House, run by Youth with a Mission (YWAM). Each year, they host a Thanksgiving Day meal. We don't really know what to expect. We know the dinner is limited to 100 people. We have invited our teachers to join us and we may invite a few others who have helped us greatly as we have learned to live in this strange land. I was thinking today, it is not too different than the original Thanksgiving.
We want to wish each and everyone of you a Happy Thanksgiving. Regardless of how you celebrate, Thanksgiving is a day set aside to remember all that God has provided. We certainly are thankful to Him. We have seen His hand and provision through so many good and hard times. Take some time and give thanks
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
Thank you for Praying for my dad
About 2 weeks ago, my dad had a heart attack. I learned about this pretty quickly and I emailed those who are on our e-mail list to request prayer. My dad ended up have quintuple bypass surgery. We are so thankful to God, first that my dad made it to the hospital and second that the doctors completed a successful surgery. My dad didn't know the condition of his heart. Certainly the outcome could have been much different. We feel thankful to God that he has come through this.
He is at home recuperating. Mom's health seems to have rounded the corner after a couple years of an inflammatory condition with many complications. With the assistance of friends, family, and a visiting nurse they seem to be managing well.
Thank you for your prayers. While it was difficult to be here in Guatemala during this time, we could feel your support. The e-mails were an encouragement to us. And the knowledge that so many were in prayer, was overwhelming. Thank you.
Please continue to be in prayer for my dad recovery. As his doctor said, his recovery will be measured week by week. We know it will take some time.
He is at home recuperating. Mom's health seems to have rounded the corner after a couple years of an inflammatory condition with many complications. With the assistance of friends, family, and a visiting nurse they seem to be managing well.
Thank you for your prayers. While it was difficult to be here in Guatemala during this time, we could feel your support. The e-mails were an encouragement to us. And the knowledge that so many were in prayer, was overwhelming. Thank you.
Please continue to be in prayer for my dad recovery. As his doctor said, his recovery will be measured week by week. We know it will take some time.
Language School...An Overview - By Rick
I never was the best "English" student. In grade school, math was more my thing. Still, I did learn English grammar. And now I am learning Spanish grammar! If you love grammar, the overview below may be interesting and mean a lot to you. If grammar isn't your "thing," well, the list below may just be a long list and let you see that I have been busy! Either way, this overview will help you to see and understand more about my studies.
Grade A
Focuses on giving sufficient proficiency in Spanish for basic survival situations such as when greeting, expressing basic needs, attitudes, emotions, exchanging information, socializing, persuading, etc. After completing level "A" students should be able to understand and use simple present, past and future tenses to give the opportunity to initiate conversation and to respond in Spanish.
Personally, all the grammar of Grade A was a review to me. What really challenged me, was all the vocabulary that needed to be learned as well as some of the rules that guided when certain vowels were used. I tested very well, scoring 96% (for those of you who give $ for "A's"...well?!).
Grade B
Focuses on...
Grade C
Focuses on...
Grades D - G... I can tell you more about those books when I get there.
My Biggest Challenge:
Getting my brain to remember words and their correct uses when in conversation. The best way to work on this is to practice! I have found that book work easy to do. The challenge is to use what I am learning on the street. This means, making millions of mistakes and being open to correction. Practicing will help me to grab hold of the language. How do I done this?
Each day in class, my teacher makes me talk in Spanish. At times it a struggle and frustrating. We spend a good part of class taking about everything that happened the day before. Spanish class is probably the only class I have ever been in where I can bring up any subject and talk about it as long as I have "words"...and it is part of my learning. Outside of class, I take walks and look for people to talk with. Today, I had my shoes shined (which costs about 40 cents) and it became an opportunity for me to practice. A week ago, I took a trip to Guatemala City to pick up some things a friend had left for us at a hotel. In the chicken bus, anyone who sat by me became my captive for conversation. I found that sometimes this works and other times, it doesn't. For example, the conversation didn't go so well with the guy who immediately fell asleep next to me.
But practicing is my biggest challenge. CSA (my language school) will continue to test me and those tests will help me to measure what I know and where I need work. But the real test is found on the street in conversation with people.
Thank you for your continued prayer for us. I know many of you are praying specifically for me as I learn Spanish. These last few weeks, my brain hasn't seemed as "sharp" (hold the comments please). We have been told that in language learning it is not uncommon to hit a wall. Possibly this happened to me or maybe I was just tired. But after being in class for 6 weeks I felt like my brain wasn't wanting more information and was trying to process what it had already taken in. We did slow down a little in class which helped tremendously (one of the huge advantages of studying one on one with a tutor). I hope that I have moved passed this. Thank you so much for your prayers.
Adios!
Grade A
Focuses on giving sufficient proficiency in Spanish for basic survival situations such as when greeting, expressing basic needs, attitudes, emotions, exchanging information, socializing, persuading, etc. After completing level "A" students should be able to understand and use simple present, past and future tenses to give the opportunity to initiate conversation and to respond in Spanish.
Personally, all the grammar of Grade A was a review to me. What really challenged me, was all the vocabulary that needed to be learned as well as some of the rules that guided when certain vowels were used. I tested very well, scoring 96% (for those of you who give $ for "A's"...well?!).
Grade B
Focuses on...
- Verbs, regular and irregular. In Spanish, the ending on a verb changes based on who is doing the action. Regular verbs follow a simple pattern. Irregular verbs have to be memorized. In addition, just like English, the verb changes when used in the present, past or future.
- "Ser & Estar" Two verbs that mean "to be" but are used in different situations as well as "Haber" which means "there is." It is easy to use the wrong verb, which can sometimes give a different meaning then you intend.
- Present & Past Progressives (I am going, I was walking), Interrogative words (Who, what where, etc), Negative and positive words, Negative Prefixes (example in English - "formal" and "informal")
- Negative idiomatic expressions
- Idiomatic expressions with time
- Possessive & Demonstrative Adjectives
- Possessive & Demonstrative Pronouns (yours, mine, his)
- Uses and Rules for Omissions of Articles (when to say an or the and when to leave it out)
Grade C
Focuses on...
- Past Imperfect Tense - uses, time expressions, contrast with the past tense, imperfect progressive (When I was little, we were working on it all night)
- Uses of Prepositions & Prepositional Pronouns
- Imperfect Future Tense
- Conditional Tense
- Position and agreement of adjectives
- Short form of adjectives
- Verbs that conjugate using the Indirect Object Pronoun (like the verb "Gustar") Note: in Spanish you don't like something. Instead the thing is good TO you.
- Adverb Formation and Use
- Present Participle or Gerunds
Grades D - G... I can tell you more about those books when I get there.
My Biggest Challenge:
Getting my brain to remember words and their correct uses when in conversation. The best way to work on this is to practice! I have found that book work easy to do. The challenge is to use what I am learning on the street. This means, making millions of mistakes and being open to correction. Practicing will help me to grab hold of the language. How do I done this?
Each day in class, my teacher makes me talk in Spanish. At times it a struggle and frustrating. We spend a good part of class taking about everything that happened the day before. Spanish class is probably the only class I have ever been in where I can bring up any subject and talk about it as long as I have "words"...and it is part of my learning. Outside of class, I take walks and look for people to talk with. Today, I had my shoes shined (which costs about 40 cents) and it became an opportunity for me to practice. A week ago, I took a trip to Guatemala City to pick up some things a friend had left for us at a hotel. In the chicken bus, anyone who sat by me became my captive for conversation. I found that sometimes this works and other times, it doesn't. For example, the conversation didn't go so well with the guy who immediately fell asleep next to me.
But practicing is my biggest challenge. CSA (my language school) will continue to test me and those tests will help me to measure what I know and where I need work. But the real test is found on the street in conversation with people.
Thank you for your continued prayer for us. I know many of you are praying specifically for me as I learn Spanish. These last few weeks, my brain hasn't seemed as "sharp" (hold the comments please). We have been told that in language learning it is not uncommon to hit a wall. Possibly this happened to me or maybe I was just tired. But after being in class for 6 weeks I felt like my brain wasn't wanting more information and was trying to process what it had already taken in. We did slow down a little in class which helped tremendously (one of the huge advantages of studying one on one with a tutor). I hope that I have moved passed this. Thank you so much for your prayers.
Adios!
Monday, November 13, 2006
Everybody's in School! - By Becky
As of November 5th, we are all attending school! We found a Vacation School for the kids to attend for the month of November. The Guatemalan schools run mid-January to mid-October. "Mundo Sesamo" is a preschool run in a local church. In November they have a special vacation school for ages 2-8. Ben and Elena spend three hours each morning playing games, doing art projects, singing and learning a little bit of French. That's right, they are learning counting, colors, animals in French. Of course our goal for them is to learn Spanish. Each day they come home with a new phrase that they have learned and want to try out. Sometimes, the phrase they have learned doesn't make sense. For example they insist that people are saying "Chicky-ticky bada-boom bang." to the toddlers during open play time. They keep asking us what it means! Either it is just a nonsense phrase you say to babies, or the kids are not repeating it right. They are also making friends, which is great!
I am going to language school while the kids are in their school. My teacher, Veronica, is great! In the first couple of sessions, we got acquainted and analyzed my Spanish. Although I "know" all the grammar, it isn't all coming out of my mouth. So we are reviewing some of the advanced, yucky congegations. She is also correcting my bad habit of "eating" my "S"es. This is frowned upon in Guatemala, but a typical accent in some places (Colombia for example). I am already seeing improvement in my speech. She is also challenging me to read more in Spanish, so besides reading the newspaper, I am reading a college text on the culture and customs of various indigenous groups in Guatemala and a novel, En El Tiempo de Las Mariposas, by Julia Alverez.
For anyone interested in the D.R., Julia Alvarez is a dominican who was raised in New York. The novel, In the Time of Butterflies, is a fictionalized account of three sisters who were part of the plot to overthrow/assasinate President Trujillo. They were murdered by Trujillo's secret police and are national heroes. Trujillo was the dictator of the D.R. from the 30's until his assasination in 1961. He has been called "the Hitler of the Caribbean" because of the horrendous atrocities he executed during his years in power.
Rick continues to plow his way through level B in school. He hopes to start level C before Thanksgiving! He's doing great, but still praying for the "gift of tongues", in Spanish of course
I am going to language school while the kids are in their school. My teacher, Veronica, is great! In the first couple of sessions, we got acquainted and analyzed my Spanish. Although I "know" all the grammar, it isn't all coming out of my mouth. So we are reviewing some of the advanced, yucky congegations. She is also correcting my bad habit of "eating" my "S"es. This is frowned upon in Guatemala, but a typical accent in some places (Colombia for example). I am already seeing improvement in my speech. She is also challenging me to read more in Spanish, so besides reading the newspaper, I am reading a college text on the culture and customs of various indigenous groups in Guatemala and a novel, En El Tiempo de Las Mariposas, by Julia Alverez.
For anyone interested in the D.R., Julia Alvarez is a dominican who was raised in New York. The novel, In the Time of Butterflies, is a fictionalized account of three sisters who were part of the plot to overthrow/assasinate President Trujillo. They were murdered by Trujillo's secret police and are national heroes. Trujillo was the dictator of the D.R. from the 30's until his assasination in 1961. He has been called "the Hitler of the Caribbean" because of the horrendous atrocities he executed during his years in power.
Rick continues to plow his way through level B in school. He hopes to start level C before Thanksgiving! He's doing great, but still praying for the "gift of tongues", in Spanish of course
Thursday, November 02, 2006
All Saint's Day/Day of the Dead
We have spent the last week or so asking about what goes on on November 1, All Saints Day or Day of the Dead (we have heard both names). We learned that it was a day to remember your dead loved ones, a day when everything is closed, a huge family feast day. Yesterday we left our little apartment to see it first hand. 
We walked to the big local cemetery. A few blocks a way, the road was blocked off with police directing traffic and only allowing residents of the street and those with elderly or handicapped occupants down the road. Outside the cemetery there were venders selling a variety of snacks, meals, and flowers to cemetery visitors. Also there were groups of well dressed men at religious booths collecting money for their causes. Inside the cemetery, as you can see from the pictures, we saw lots of families visiting their family grave site and leaving flowers. Inside the cemetery was a small chapel where people lit candles and prayed. We really got the sense of how important family is here as we saw multiple generations together. Some families had dressed up for the occasion, others were in regular street clothes.
It was interesting to read many scriptures on the tombs and see how far back the earliest family members were buried. The earliest we saw was in the 1800s. There we some really old tombs that were soweathered you couldn't make out the inscriptions. The town was destroyed by earthquake in 1773 and abandoned for many decades afterwards. Since people are interred above ground here, a dozen family members may be in the same structure. We are not sure how this actually works. Around the outside of the cemetery were high walls with people entombed 5-6 high. It was sort of the apartment section.
We had read about the use of kites to send messages to the dead or call the dead spirit to come down to visit the living. We saw no one flying kites in the cemetery, however. We did go and fly kites behind the openmarket at the dirt soccer field. There were lots of kids and dads enjoying the afternoon together. I asked someone about the kite messages. This guatemalan said he thought it was just a tradition and didn't believe this.
Our landlord told us that there is as much cooking and family get-togethers on Dia de Muertos (Nov. 1) as Thanksgiving in the USA. So we assume the noon meal, traditionally the main meal of the day, was a feast for many. There is a special dish that is made for the occasion called Fiambre. Many businesses were closed, the market was quiet and of course all government offices and banks were closed. The day before there were long lines at banks and ATMs since it was payday AND the next day was a holiday.
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