Before I back came to Spain, I was excited, but more than anything I was afraid of being in class all day for five days a week. The CELTA course has been every bit as much work as I expected, but I will almost certainly pass.
I arrived on November 2 without incident. I was most worried about the layover in New York City- I noticed just a week before that I was scheduled to fly into La Guardia and out of JFK. I caught the bus to JFK with plenty of time to spare. Even though it was just a layover, it was cool to just be in New York City. Only one thing- I thought the bus driver was going to kill somebody. But when we got onto the freeway, I saw that his too-close-for-comfort driving technique had plenty of company out there. Amazingly, there was a lot of honking, but I didn’t see anyone get hit.
I sat next to an imam on the flight from JFK to Madrid. God has a knack for placing me next to interesting people. It took me a little while to figure out that he was not Spanish, though the fact that he was the only person around speaking English on his cell phone should have been a good clue. We had a good conversation about interfaith dialogue, which he promotes through organizing trips to the Middle East and Europe for students of diverse religious backgrounds. He told me, “The future is not just Muslim or just Christian. The future is interfaith.” Interfaith dialogue is a good thing, but it could lead to relativism. I wanted to ask him if he thought all the major world religions are as true as Islam, but I thought it was best not to go there. I’m pretty sure the honest answer would have been “no.”
I actually kind of felt at home in Madrid. Hearing those Spanish voices and just the overall feel of the Madrid Barajas Airport just gave me an indescribable sense of familiarity that I had forgotten while in Orlando but which returned quickly. Ryanair also brought back memories. I really felt like I was in Europe again when I opened my copy of their complimentary magazine.
I found the right bus at the Palma de Mallorca airport and took it into town. The walk from the bus stop to my flat was much longer than it needed to be because I did not plug the whole address, c/31 de desembre 9, into Google Maps. Most street addresses don’t have a number before the street and after so that confused me. The lady from International House arrived at exactly the moment I set my bag down on the sidewalk in front of the door. I had braced for the worse after reading a document from the school, “Accommodation in Palma is expensive relative to the rest of Spain. However, it is not necessarily of a higher standard. Whilst International House tries to make accommodation as comfortable as possible for CELTA candidates, you should be aware that in Spain it is not necessarily normal to have a lot of space, natural light, central - heating, air-conditioning or total silence at hours we may consider to be quiet times, in your bedroom.” The flat looked very old, but it was much larger, cleaner and in better shape than I expected. I met my flatmates later that afternoon- Madelyn from Sweden, Erica from New York City, and Douglas from England.
The course started two days later. I really wish I had known what I learned here in the first week alone when I taught the English Clubs at UPNA or at the CNAI camp in Lumbier. For example, asking, “Do you understand?” is not the best way to find out if your students really grasped what you just taught them. Also, reading aloud in class (which I’ve done several times as a student and a teacher) is not effective because the students get terrible pronunciation stuck in their heads. There has been a lot of focus on giving brief but clear instructions and achieving specific aims in your lessons. We spend the morning in TP (Teaching Practice- yeah, that cracked me up at first) followed by a feedback session in which we give and receive feedback on the lessons taught that morning. We all had to teach a total of nine lessons, two or three per week. The first lesson was twenty minutes long and the next six were forty minutes. I have to teach one more time on Monday for sixty minutes. I really can’t complain about how it’s turned out. The instructors are excellent, the class only has ten students, and I love my classmates.
Of course I expected a diverse group, but I was still captivated by my classmates. Danielle, who is originally from Illinois but has been bouncing around the world her entire adult life, walked straight to class from a boat that brought her from southern Spain just that morning. Matthew, who showed up in the middle of the first day of class, had come straight from volunteering at an orphanage in Mexico. Erica has worked for the Pew Center and done volunteer work for the Red Cross cleaning up after Hurricane Katrina. She’s been living in Ireland for the past five months. Douglas is from England but has lived in Germany for fourteen years and taught ski lessons. This group reminds me of a documentary I saw a few days before arriving in Palma called Encounters at the End of the World. Part of the film focuses on the people who work at this base in Antarctica. I love how their occupations were labeled: “cook/filmmaker” “forklift driver/philosopher.” Possibly unknown to most of suburbia, there is a subculture of globetrotters who don’t really call one place home. They move from one place to the next to experience a smorgasbord of cultures. I knew coming in that it would be a very secular group as, though they are not as hostile to Christians and Christianity as is widely believed. Nevertheless, I thought it was best to tread likely.
With most of my lessons behind me, I finally don’t feel so crunched. A few times over the past month I’ve felt extremely frustrated so I’ve had to stop and remind myself why I’m doing this. Matthew gave me a pretty good reminder at the end of the second week. When explaining his convictions to one of our classmates, he showed me that I was not the only person in the class living for God. Everybody at the table was floored by how well he knew the Bible. I’ll have that knowledge and experience to draw from someday, but for now I have an hour-long lesson to plan.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Summer '09
I was hoping to be teaching English in Spain by now, but during my last short-term mission trip in Pamplona in May I discovered that the process is far more involved than I originally thought. I talked to a guy at a language academy who wanted me to get some kind of training before he would consider hiring me so when I returned to Orlando, I looked into an English teaching course called the CELTA. For a number of reasons, I decided to take the course on Palma de Mallorca, an island off the east coast of Spain. I will be leaving Orlando November 1, and the course begins on the fourth. After the class is over, I will stand a much better chance of getting a job in Pamplona. But before heading over there, I’ll stop in Barcelona for three days because I can’t get anything done in Pamplona during the holidays and I’ve never really explored Barcelona. I will spend the following two weeks in Pamplona looking for a teaching job. Then, with a work permit and all my required documents in hand, I will apply for a visa at the Spanish consulate in Miami. Barring a major holdup in Pamplona or Miami, I will be back in Orlando December 17.
Of course, all of this requires money so I had to find a job when I returned to Orlando. I probably filled out about a dozen online applications and never heard anything, but SeaWorld granted me an interview the day I walked into the human resources office and hired me a week later. You know those people who ask you to stop and take a picture when you into any theme park? It is my job to sell you the picture. It turns out to have been a real blessing. I love the people I work with, especially the Taiwanese who were there over the summer. In the meantime, I joined H2O Church, which meets in downtown Orlando. I joined a “life group,” which is pretty much what Gator Christian life calls a “home group.” Overall H2O is very different from GCL for a variety of reason, but I have met some awesome people there and have continued to grow alongside them.
Orlando now feels like a big playground because as a SeaWorld employee I get free admission to SeaWorld, Aquatica, both Universal parks, and Busch Gardens. Thursday was my last day before I quit so I went to Islands of Adventure to ride the rides I’d skipped in the past and sneak a peek at the Hogwarts castle that now rises above the rest of the park, albeit covered in scaffolding. The Back to the Future music brought a tear to my eye because it simultaneously moved me and reminded me that the ride no longer exists in Orlando.
When I haven’t been working or at a theme park, I’ve been reading. My parents’ house does not have cable and lacked internet access until about a week ago, which was mostly a good thing. I will have read twelve books by the time I leave. I’m finishing the last of the Harry Potter books now. I figured that I should read them now that the theme park is being built and I’m about to take a class taught primarily from a British perspective. I think it is awesome how the wizards are able to live with mobile phones, televisions, computers, or even ballpoint pens. After reading a New York Times editorial by columnist Nicholas Kristof, I picked up The Life You Can Save. The author makes the case that extreme poverty can be eliminated if only a fraction of the residents in the wealthy countries donated a negligible sum. It really forced me to think about all the luxuries I enjoy and how I can be a better steward of what God has blessed me with.
The other half of the books I read has strengthened my walk with God. A book called Pagan Christianity? caught my eye at the library because of the title and George Barna’s name on the cover. The other author’s name, Frank Viola, sounded kind of familiar. It made sense when I found out he lives in Gainesville. In a nutshell, the book promotes something called an “organic church,” a simple house church just like in the first three centuries of the church. The authors argue that most of the commonly accepted church practices- worship teams, sermons, seminaries, tithing, etc. - were man-made inventions that came about centuries later. Reviews have suggested that church history is not as cut and dry as Viola claims so I am a bit skeptical of those sections, but there is a very good chapter on interpreting the Bible. Because we only have Paul’s end of the conversation of between himself and his church plants and those letters are arranged in order of length in the modern day Bible, the context is often lost. Lifted out of their cultural contexts, you can make Paul’s letters say anything any number of things. That’s how we got the entire Left Behind series. Viola has written a book intended to provide a context for each letter, but I would like to find a book by a different author so I am not too influenced by just one author. I’ll probably wind up picking up his book anyway just as a starting point.
Next I read The Reason for God, which I first heard mentioned at H2O about a year ago. I love how the author, Timothy Keller, reads many of the same publications that I’m familiar with such as The Atlantic, Time, and The New York Times. Furthermore, he defends the faith without compromise from the perspective of a New Yorker, not a Bible Belt preacher. In his chapter on science, he drew heavily from The Language of God so I read that too. The author, Francis Collins, who is also head of the Human Genome Project, defends theistic evolution. I loved the book, but I wish he would have been more specific. Probably attempting to keep the book short and sweet, he sums up very controversial points in a mere paragraph and hurts his case. But his critics (at least the ones I’ve read so far) don’t seem to have a very strong case either. I guess that means I’ll have to dig a little deeper. One question always leads to another. It almost seems that the more I read, the less informed I feel.
I really wouldn’t mind doing this every summer. I have a cozy little room in my parents’ house on the south side of Orlando. It is not nearly as isolated as my grandparents’ place on the east side, where I lived for two years in high school. If I can teach English in Pamplona during the fall and spring and work at a theme park during the summer, I would be thrilled. There will be plenty of ministry opportunities in both places (though, I probably didn’t pursue them here in Orlando this summer as much as I could have). Spending the summers in Orlando would be a good way to ease my parents’ pain too. My dream job for next summer is to be a character in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. But I need to try really hard not to get too far ahead of myself because I still have some worksheets to finish and things to pack before starting a possibly grueling CELTA course.
Of course, all of this requires money so I had to find a job when I returned to Orlando. I probably filled out about a dozen online applications and never heard anything, but SeaWorld granted me an interview the day I walked into the human resources office and hired me a week later. You know those people who ask you to stop and take a picture when you into any theme park? It is my job to sell you the picture. It turns out to have been a real blessing. I love the people I work with, especially the Taiwanese who were there over the summer. In the meantime, I joined H2O Church, which meets in downtown Orlando. I joined a “life group,” which is pretty much what Gator Christian life calls a “home group.” Overall H2O is very different from GCL for a variety of reason, but I have met some awesome people there and have continued to grow alongside them.
Orlando now feels like a big playground because as a SeaWorld employee I get free admission to SeaWorld, Aquatica, both Universal parks, and Busch Gardens. Thursday was my last day before I quit so I went to Islands of Adventure to ride the rides I’d skipped in the past and sneak a peek at the Hogwarts castle that now rises above the rest of the park, albeit covered in scaffolding. The Back to the Future music brought a tear to my eye because it simultaneously moved me and reminded me that the ride no longer exists in Orlando.
When I haven’t been working or at a theme park, I’ve been reading. My parents’ house does not have cable and lacked internet access until about a week ago, which was mostly a good thing. I will have read twelve books by the time I leave. I’m finishing the last of the Harry Potter books now. I figured that I should read them now that the theme park is being built and I’m about to take a class taught primarily from a British perspective. I think it is awesome how the wizards are able to live with mobile phones, televisions, computers, or even ballpoint pens. After reading a New York Times editorial by columnist Nicholas Kristof, I picked up The Life You Can Save. The author makes the case that extreme poverty can be eliminated if only a fraction of the residents in the wealthy countries donated a negligible sum. It really forced me to think about all the luxuries I enjoy and how I can be a better steward of what God has blessed me with.
The other half of the books I read has strengthened my walk with God. A book called Pagan Christianity? caught my eye at the library because of the title and George Barna’s name on the cover. The other author’s name, Frank Viola, sounded kind of familiar. It made sense when I found out he lives in Gainesville. In a nutshell, the book promotes something called an “organic church,” a simple house church just like in the first three centuries of the church. The authors argue that most of the commonly accepted church practices- worship teams, sermons, seminaries, tithing, etc. - were man-made inventions that came about centuries later. Reviews have suggested that church history is not as cut and dry as Viola claims so I am a bit skeptical of those sections, but there is a very good chapter on interpreting the Bible. Because we only have Paul’s end of the conversation of between himself and his church plants and those letters are arranged in order of length in the modern day Bible, the context is often lost. Lifted out of their cultural contexts, you can make Paul’s letters say anything any number of things. That’s how we got the entire Left Behind series. Viola has written a book intended to provide a context for each letter, but I would like to find a book by a different author so I am not too influenced by just one author. I’ll probably wind up picking up his book anyway just as a starting point.
Next I read The Reason for God, which I first heard mentioned at H2O about a year ago. I love how the author, Timothy Keller, reads many of the same publications that I’m familiar with such as The Atlantic, Time, and The New York Times. Furthermore, he defends the faith without compromise from the perspective of a New Yorker, not a Bible Belt preacher. In his chapter on science, he drew heavily from The Language of God so I read that too. The author, Francis Collins, who is also head of the Human Genome Project, defends theistic evolution. I loved the book, but I wish he would have been more specific. Probably attempting to keep the book short and sweet, he sums up very controversial points in a mere paragraph and hurts his case. But his critics (at least the ones I’ve read so far) don’t seem to have a very strong case either. I guess that means I’ll have to dig a little deeper. One question always leads to another. It almost seems that the more I read, the less informed I feel.
I really wouldn’t mind doing this every summer. I have a cozy little room in my parents’ house on the south side of Orlando. It is not nearly as isolated as my grandparents’ place on the east side, where I lived for two years in high school. If I can teach English in Pamplona during the fall and spring and work at a theme park during the summer, I would be thrilled. There will be plenty of ministry opportunities in both places (though, I probably didn’t pursue them here in Orlando this summer as much as I could have). Spending the summers in Orlando would be a good way to ease my parents’ pain too. My dream job for next summer is to be a character in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. But I need to try really hard not to get too far ahead of myself because I still have some worksheets to finish and things to pack before starting a possibly grueling CELTA course.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
After Dark
I went to an evangelical event called After Dark tonight. I wish I had been able to see the whole thing two weeks ago so I would have been more excited and bold in asking my classmates to go. I knew it would be cool, but I did not know how exactly it would differ from other presentations of the gospel. They promoted it all week on campus. I saw black and yellow t-shirts, balloons, and fliers everywhere I went.
My favorite part was the introduction to the gospel message. The main speaker, Joe White, told us he was going to talk about an important historical figure who we had never heard of and who had probably never been the subject of any book or movie- the soldier who built Jesus' cross. In the flashy video introduction, the text mentioned that he was living in the midst of a "great empire" at "a turning point in civilization." Then we saw Joe hacking chunks of wood off a beam to create a slit in which would rest the smaller beam of the cross. Debris littered the stage. While he hacked away, Joe, speaking for the soldier, told us about the brutal execution procedure and what he thought about Jesus. He said that he only knows about one Son of God, and that is Caesar, but people say that Jesus Christ will rise from the dead on Sunday, and if that happens, then he will believe. Then Joe broke character and, with clips from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ playing behind him, described Jesus using many words but in the end decided that just one of them fit: indescribable.
This is the first time I have ever heard the gospel presented in a way that explicitly put it in the context of the Roman empire- at least the first time I can remember. I was happy to see it. This is a blog I have been meaning to write for a long time. After Dark was the push I needed.
A couple months ago I finished a book my dad gave me called Jesus for President. He loved it and thought I would too. I was not disappointed. It really brought a lot of things into perspective. I am currently reading The Politics of Jesus, which JR Woodward of Kairos first recommended to me at Colorado LT in 2007. Several other books I have read draw from it. There is a page or two in Jesus for President about what the cross meant in Roman times- it was the way to execute anyone who questioned the empire's authority and supremacy.
This brings me back to Joe's role playing exercise. As Joe was attacking the beam, I reflected not only on Jesus' sacrifice, but also on the meaning of the cross itself. Its brutality was displayed publicly to discourage dissension. When Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 16:24, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me," He was not speaking metaphorically, as I originally thought. He was telling them that they could be put to death for what they stood for. Many of them actually were martyred. That makes the Christian life in the United States today look easy, not to say that going against the grain is encouraged here either.
In some ways, whether we realize it or not, we have adopted a mindset eerily similar to the empire that killed Jesus. When somebody criticizes our government or way of life, we do not nail him to a cross, but very rarely is dissension viewed as constructive criticism. The most popular terms include "anti-American" and "communist." The same goes for religion- the world often calls us Christians "bigots," "close-minded," or worse. The intolerant Romans wanted to show Jesus and His first followers who was boss. Then Jesus turned around and showed them. But he did it by rising from the dead and ascending to heaven. There is no record of Jesus encouraging his disciples (or us) to retaliate with violence, hatred, or name-calling because He wanted us to be very different from the Romans who killed Him. Let's remember that every time we see the cross.
My favorite part was the introduction to the gospel message. The main speaker, Joe White, told us he was going to talk about an important historical figure who we had never heard of and who had probably never been the subject of any book or movie- the soldier who built Jesus' cross. In the flashy video introduction, the text mentioned that he was living in the midst of a "great empire" at "a turning point in civilization." Then we saw Joe hacking chunks of wood off a beam to create a slit in which would rest the smaller beam of the cross. Debris littered the stage. While he hacked away, Joe, speaking for the soldier, told us about the brutal execution procedure and what he thought about Jesus. He said that he only knows about one Son of God, and that is Caesar, but people say that Jesus Christ will rise from the dead on Sunday, and if that happens, then he will believe. Then Joe broke character and, with clips from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ playing behind him, described Jesus using many words but in the end decided that just one of them fit: indescribable.
This is the first time I have ever heard the gospel presented in a way that explicitly put it in the context of the Roman empire- at least the first time I can remember. I was happy to see it. This is a blog I have been meaning to write for a long time. After Dark was the push I needed.
A couple months ago I finished a book my dad gave me called Jesus for President. He loved it and thought I would too. I was not disappointed. It really brought a lot of things into perspective. I am currently reading The Politics of Jesus, which JR Woodward of Kairos first recommended to me at Colorado LT in 2007. Several other books I have read draw from it. There is a page or two in Jesus for President about what the cross meant in Roman times- it was the way to execute anyone who questioned the empire's authority and supremacy.
This brings me back to Joe's role playing exercise. As Joe was attacking the beam, I reflected not only on Jesus' sacrifice, but also on the meaning of the cross itself. Its brutality was displayed publicly to discourage dissension. When Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 16:24, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me," He was not speaking metaphorically, as I originally thought. He was telling them that they could be put to death for what they stood for. Many of them actually were martyred. That makes the Christian life in the United States today look easy, not to say that going against the grain is encouraged here either.
In some ways, whether we realize it or not, we have adopted a mindset eerily similar to the empire that killed Jesus. When somebody criticizes our government or way of life, we do not nail him to a cross, but very rarely is dissension viewed as constructive criticism. The most popular terms include "anti-American" and "communist." The same goes for religion- the world often calls us Christians "bigots," "close-minded," or worse. The intolerant Romans wanted to show Jesus and His first followers who was boss. Then Jesus turned around and showed them. But he did it by rising from the dead and ascending to heaven. There is no record of Jesus encouraging his disciples (or us) to retaliate with violence, hatred, or name-calling because He wanted us to be very different from the Romans who killed Him. Let's remember that every time we see the cross.
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