Transitions

Yesterday we were learning here (Bear Trap Ranch, Colorado)
Today we are repacking and preparing here (Buenos Aires)
In a week we'll be teaching workshops for youth leaders
here (at a camp outside of Cochabamba, Bolivia)
These images reflect the geographic and relational transitions we're making this week. [click here for more pics or here for more info]

45 Years Later

We're still in Colorado doing our apprenticeship in mentoring.
Here we are with a group of proteges and our coach.
Last weekend my father was in Colorado for work.
He stayed an extra day and we all got to hang out
together at Bear Trap Ranch where we're living
during this month's assignment. In a very cool
coincidence... Dad told us that in 1963 he and
Mom worked a month at this very camp.

Our Curriculum Arrives Today

For a week we've been learning how to use life mapping, reframing, and personality matrix assessment tools but when Greg and Jennifer, Jeff and Lisa, Paul and Susan, Elliot and B'linda, Pete and Cheri, Denise, Andrew, Annie and Emily arrive at Bear Trap Ranch this afternoon they are the curriculum. Their needs and what God is doing in their lives as he prepares them for their next step with OC will dictate the flow of this summer's OC Internship.
Learner driven training forces us to really listen to those who are being prepared and to be sensitive to God's leading...which is much more challenging than merely moving through a lesson plan. We're particularly excited to work through this process with a great team of our OC colleagues, some of whom we'd never met before even though they've been with OC even longer than we have (they were in Asia and our paths had never crossed in the last 14 years, until now).

As our fearless leader Steve Aldrich says, "It's gonna be a GREAT summer."

Why Is Our Apt. Empty?

For the next month Annette and I will not be in Buenos Aires (B.A.), but in the mountains of Colorado getting hands on training in mentoring. "But why Colorado?" you might ask.

To answer that we need to go back a bit. When they invited us to Argentina it was to be mentors of the youth leaders who will be going through the program at the institute... kind of like the youth leaders for the youth leaders. As part of our preparation we are spending a 5 weeks as part of a mentoring program for OC International's new staff, all the while being coached and mentored by Steve Aldrich, an expert with decades of experience in this field. Our hope is that this mentoring apprenticeship will equip us to be more effect in our role in the youth ministy institute. Please pray with us for that.

We don't return to B.A. until July 17th and 7 days later we head off to Cochabamba, Bolivia for three days of leading workshops at the national youth leaders convention. This is the 6th year in a row that we've been invited but the first time we're able to participate. Some of you may remember the only other time we tried to go to this Bolivian event, the airline we were flying on went bankrupt and we were stuck in Chile for 7 days.

When we return from Bolivia we have a week before we leave for Guatemala for an annual youth leaders convention - 2000+ youth leaders from all over Central America. We'll also be in meetings with the Guatemalan team helping start the youth ministry institutes we're a part of. We get back from Guatemala and 9 days later we leave for Lima, Peru for a Raíces congress where we'll be doing in-depth youth ministry training for around 350 dedicated leaders. Wow, I'm tired just typing out that summer schedule :-)

Annette's First Half

Annette finished her 1st half-marathon.
She got the medal but i got the kiss!

Fall... forward

How to Cure Frustration

"So have you started working yet?" People have asked us this question quite a bit over the past few months. The short answer would be "Yes." The more accurate answer is that we never stopped working, even though at first it felt like we couldn't get traction and were getting disheartened. However, the last couple of weeks there is a definite feeling of momentum. Here's an update on some of the projects we're in the middle of.

(click on the logo above to visit the explanatory web site)

Instituto Especialidades Juveniles- This brought us to Buenos Aires and will absorb a major part of our time once classes start in March of '09. Until then we're on the launch committee, which means we do whatever has to be done. Last week we met with the director of the school we're partnering with - the one that will provide the academic accreditation - and it went even better than we'd hoped.

Raices - We recently spent time putting the finishing touches on the textbook that should be going to print any day now. In the next few weeks we'll be working with the designer to get the web page with the animated classes up and running, just in time for the summer conferences where members of the Raices team will be teaching around 1500 youth workers from this material.


Lider Juvenil (Youth Worker Journal in Spanish ) - Youth work in Latin America finally has its own professional journal and Annette is a columnist (see her name there on the right hand side), which hearkens back to a conversation she had years ago: "I majored in Spanish and Professional Writing in college and got a masters degree in Theology. What on earth will i do with those? Write about theology in Spanish??" Apparently the answer ended up being... yes.

Breathing and Sneezing Brown

Like a dreamy impressionist painting, but that
romantic mist is actually nose-clogging smoke
This is the park where we exercise
Annette is not deterred by the brown layer of air
I took this in the street in front of our apt.
(Click pics to see them BIGified)
From the roof of our apt. building this morning
I blew my nose the other night and... well, let's just say there has been A LOT of smoke in the air. We returned from our twice annual team retreat and as we were about to land in Buenos Aires the woman in the seat behind us said loudly, "No one told me that the pollution is so bad here. I think I'll go to Uruguay." I looked out the window and could see a layer of cafe con leche colored air just below us that was so thick I almost thought we'd feel a bump as the plane passed from the clean into the dirty layer.

There was no *bump*, but as we left the airport we smelled smoke so we did a Google search of - fire, Buenos Aires, pollution - but we got nothing. Now, a week later, the fires and resulting blanket of smoke are all over the news (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7353595.stm) and I can no longer distinguish the taste of turkey from smoked turkey (an alarming side effect - ha ha).

Both Amigos and Friends

The Unexpected

[Week 4] Annette and I are on the train going into downtown when a man gets on carrying a harp... a BIG heavy harp. I feel sorry for him. It must be a precarious situation travelling in a lurching train with such a large and valuable instrument. I imagine that that he is on his way to the philharmonic or a music school. So I'm surprised when he sits down on the arm of a seat and begin to play.

It was surrealistic - a roving, public tranportation harpist!? He played two songs, bowed, we all clapped and dropped coins in his satchel. Later as Annette and I exited the train, we saw him playing anew in the adjacent train car.

Due to the sound of the train, it's hard to hear how well he played, but click here to view part one and two of the video + a few more photos from week four.