Update and Xmas festivities

The Latest from Quito

December 2013

Hey Everyone!

Merry Christmas!  I hope this Christmas season is bringing you lots of joy.  Let me try to catch you up on what has been happening recently in my life.  The last few months have been a mix of many different enriching and fulfilling experiences as well as challenges and difficult moments.  I am very grateful to have been surrounded by so many wonderful people throughout all of these experiences.

Let´s start in October with some of the highlights.  In late October, 12 of us from Quito Mennonite Church attended a two and a half day training on trauma and self-care given by Paul Stucky from Bogotá, Colombia.  It was wonderful time of learning, sharing, reflection and rejuvenation.  Also, at the end of September and in mid-October we welcomed two refugee families that were sent by the Colombian Mennonite Church.  They are currently living in two of our rented refugee apartments and are participating actively in one of the new start-up churches in Quito.  They´ve faced many challenges in trying to adapt to a new life in Quito and are currently struggling with unemployment and sickness.  Please pray for them and the many other refugee families that are struggling to get by this Christmas season.

During the month of November, I was in the U.S. giving presentations as part of my North American Ministry.  I was able to speak at Weavers Mennonite Church, Virginia Mennonite Missions and Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg.  I also had the privilege of speaking to a 7^th grade class at my brother Timothy´s school in Camden, NJ and my brother Nate´s 3^rd grade class in Goshen, IN.  I felt incredibly supported in all of the presentations and was grateful for the moments to share about my experiences.  I was also able to visit lots of family and friends.  It was wonderful to see so many great people.  Thanksgiving at my Grandma´s house with lots of family was a notable highlight—needless to say, I came back to Ecuador with a few extra pounds on me.  J

December has been a busy month with lots of Christmas related activities.  We had a great Christmas Peace Education workshop with over 80 kids and lots of fun activities!  For our Christmas church service on the 22nd, I assumed the challenge of being this year’s choir director for the magnificent “Mennonite choir”.  After lots of practicing, we prepared three Christmas songs and were able to sing with different harmonies!  We also had a fun youth retreat on the 20^th and 21^st at a small retreat center outside of Quito.  We had 14 youth participate from the churches, 6 Ecuadorians and 8 Colombians, plus Wendy, Caleb Yoder and myself as sponsors.  We had a great time playing capture the flag, making a bonfire, playing games, playing soccer, competing in “A Minute to Win It” challenges and listening to an interesting presentation about women’s rights from an invited guest.  December also gave us the opportunity to do a little something special for a few refugee families from the church.  With lots of help from Wendy (the MCC volunteer working a year in Quito), the Refugee Project wrapped up special food baskets with a Christmas card to bring a little joy to families who are far from home. 

Another major activity that we’ve been working on recently is what we are calling the “Programa de Apoyo a la Economía Familiar-PAEF” or “Support Program for the Family Economy”.  It’s an initiative we are starting as part of the refugee project with hopes of being able to provide a way for families to earn an income.  As a project, we are buying school supply items and small beauty products (hair bands, mirrors, chap stick, earrings, etc) in bulk.  Those items are then put together in packets that cost $0.50 cents to make.  We will then distribute/sell the packets to families that can resell the packets on the street for a dollar and earn $0.50 per packet.  We are currently in the process of writing up the project and thinking through the policies and processes so that it will hopefully be sustainable.  The plan is to have families start to participate in early 2014.  Please pray for this program as we continue to get things ready.  We are excited to start and would be thrilled to be able to provide an income for families through this program.  

    

Other prayer requests:

-Please pray for the pastoral transition at Quito Mennonite Church.  The front running candidate to be the new pastor will be visiting Quito in January 2014.

-Please pray for the 2 new church plants in Quito.  May they continue to serve others in their respective neighborhoods and have the leadership they need to thrive.

-Please pray for the refugee families who will face hardship during this Christmas season.

Fun times with my niece, Lydia.

Speaking with the 7th grade class in Camden, NJ

Speaking at my home church CMC in Harrisonburg, VA

Speaking with my brother´s 3rd grade class in Goshen, IN

Family gathering for Thanksgiving

Peace Education workshop

Kids going home after the Peace Ed workshop

The packets that will be sold in the PAEF to generate income for families

Playing Jenga with youth at our retreat

The youth group at the retreat

Attempting to direct our church choir

Playing music at the Christmas service with Juan Camilo and Andrea Moya

Our special xmas lunch after the Christmas service

Speaking event at Community Mennonite Church

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to use this space to make a quick announcement / publicity plug if you haven't already heard.

I'm back in the states for a visit and will be having a speaking event on Friday, November 22nd at 7pm at Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, VA.  Mark your calendars if you'll be in the area--I'd love to have you there.

There will be some typical Ecuadorian snacks, I'll be playing some live music on the charango and I'll be talking about our work in Quito with refugees.

It'll be an enjoyable time!

Police and Street Vendors: Reflections on an unjust scene

ENGLISH VERSION BELOW:

Me quedé indignado y triste, por no decir furioso, por los sucesos que experimenté el jueves pasado en una calle bastante transitada en mi barrio El Inca, al norte de Quito.  Aquel día salí de la iglesia en mi bicicleta rumbo a mi casa a las 6 de la tarde.  Mientras iba acercándome a una esquina donde hay varios puestos de vendedores ambulantes con sus películas, zapatos, pinchos, yogurt y queso, un camión con veinte policías uniformados frenó abruptamente.  Los policías se bajaron con rapidez y empezaron a decomisar la mercancía de los vendedores usando fuerza, violencia y hasta con un sentido extraño de satisfacción y adrenalina.  En cuestión de 20 segundos, habían quitado, botado y saqueado los zapatos, películas y pinchos de varios vendedores dignos y trabajadores de mi barrio.  En el caos de la emboscada, lo único que alcancé a hacer fue gritarles varias veces a los policías "¡dejen de quitarles su dignidad!", mientras se subían al camión y se iban.  Algunos vendedores corrieron detrás de la policía tratando de pegarles con palos.  Otros se quedaron sentados en la vereda (acera) con lágrimas en sus ojos, habiendo perdido lo único que tenían para generar un ingreso.  Los que estábamos pasando por la calle en el instante del incidente expresamos nuestra indignación y solidaridad ayudándoles a los vendedores a recoger lo que quedaba de su mercancía, ahora botada y esparcida en la calle como si fuera basura.  Me quedé parado en la esquina un rato más junto a otros que también estaban llenos de rabia por lo que habían visto.  Queríamos una respuesta; teníamos ganas de hacer algo por los vendedores; deseábamos la justicia.  Se me vinieron sentimientos de impotencia, y arrepentimiento por no haber usado mi cuerpo y mi bicicleta como una barrera entre la policía y la mercancía durante esos breves veinte segundos de saqueo.  Después de varios minutos decidí seguir el camino hacía mi casa sintiéndome tan indignado que se me vinieron las lágrimas a los ojos.  

Creo que en cualquiera otro día me hubiera afectado esa escena, pero por alguna razón en ese día en particular estos sucesos me afectaron profundamente.  Quizá porque en esa escena vi el reflejo de muchas cosas que han estado girando en mi cabeza últimamente.

En esa escena, vi el reflejo de lo que he leído en los libros sobre las víctimas de los saqueos brutales de la conquista española de Latinoamérica.

En esa escena, vi el reflejo del caso de Trayvon Martin (y muchos otros jóvenes afroamericanos), atropellado y asesinado no solamente por su asesino sino por el sistema judicial y el racismo sistematizado en Estados Unidos.

En esa escena, vi el reflejo de las historias que me cuentan mis compañeros refugiados colombianos quienes también se ganan la vida en la calle y han pasado por situaciones parecidas.  

En esa escena, vi el reflejo de la respuesta violenta y represiva de parte de la policía mexicana en las actuales manifestaciones de los maestros/as mexicanos/as. 

En esa escena, vi el reflejo de las imágenes de la brutalidad de la policía en el famoso movimiento de "Occupy Wallstreet" en las ciudades de Estados Unidos el año pasado.

En esa escena, vi el reflejo de la respuesta del gobierno estadounidense frente a las acciones de Chelsea (Bradley) Manning y otros "whistleblowers".

En esa escena, vi el reflejo de los paros campesinos en Colombia frente a las políticas neoliberales que han sido impuestas sobre ellos.

Y la lista podría continuar....

La escena a la cual fui testigo el jueves pasado fue una chispa que trajo a la superficie muchos sentimientos que había guardado tras ver tantas situaciones de injusticia tanto en las noticias como en la vida real.  El suceso del jueves pasado me hizo palpar un pedacito de los abusos de poder que causan opresión y sufrimiento diariamente en tantas partes de nuestro mundo.

Que Dios nos ayude a saber actuar a favor de los atropellados y marginados en estas situaciones y aliarnos con los ejemplos de resistencia que traen esperanza y transformación.   


ENGLISH VERSION:        

Last Thursday I experienced an incident on a busy street in my neighborhood “El Inca” in the north of Quito that left me feeling indignant, sad and furious.  That day I left the church on my bike at 6pm to head home.  As I came closer to a street corner where there are various street vendors with their movies, shoes, shish kebabs, yogurt and cheese, a truck with 20 police stopped abruptly.  The police jumped off the truck quickly and began to confiscate the vendor’s merchandise using force, violence and with a strange sense of satisfaction and adrenaline.  In a matter of twenty seconds, they had taken, thrown around and ransacked the shoes, movies and shish kebabs of the decent, hard-working street vendors of my neighborhood.  In the chaos of the ambush, the only thing I managed to do was yell at the police several times saying, “Dejen de quitarles su dignidad!” or “Stop taking away their dignity!”, as the police climbed back in the truck and drove away.  Some street vendors ran after the police trying to hit them with sticks.  Others sat on the sidewalk with tears in their eyes, having lost their only way to make an income.  Those of us who were passing by on the street during the time of the ambush expressed our indignation and solidarity by helping the vendors pick up what was left of their merchandise, which was now scattered on the street like trash.  I stayed standing on the street corner for a while longer next to the others who were also full of anger because of what they had seen.  We wanted an answer; we wanted to do something for those street vendors; we wanted justice.  Feelings of helplessness came to me, and I regretted not using my body and my bike as a barrier between the police and the merchandise during those brief twenty seconds of pillaging.  After several minutes I decided to continue on my way feeling so outraged that tears came to my eyes.   

I think on any given day that scene would have saddened me, but for some reason the incident deeply affected me on that day in particular.  Maybe it was because in that scene I saw the reflection of many things that have been spinning in my head recently. 

In that scene, I saw the reflection of what I have read in books about the victims of the brutal plundering during the Spanish conquest of Latin America.

In that scene, I saw the reflection of Trayvon Martin’s case (and many other young African Americans), run over and assassinated not only by his assassin, but by the judicial system and systematized racism in the U.S.  

In that scene, I saw the reflection of the stories that Colombian refugees tell me since they too earn a living on the street and have had similar traumatic experiences.  

In that scene, I saw the violent and repressive response of the Mexican police in the current teacher’s protests in Mexico. 

In that scene, I saw the reflection of the images of police brutality in the famous “Occupy Wallstreet” movement in different US cities last year.

In that scene, I saw the reflection of the US government’s response to the actions of Chelsea (Bradley) Manning and other "whistleblowers".

In that scene, I saw the reflection of the campesino strikes in Colombia against neoliberal policies that have been imposed on them. 

And the list could continue…

The scene that I witnessed last Thursday was a spark that brought to the surface many feelings that I have hung onto after seeing situations of injustice on the news and in everyday life.  The incident last Thursday made me tangibly feel a piece of the abuses of power that cause oppression and suffering in so many parts of our world.  

May God help us to know how to act in favor of those who have been trampled on and marginalized, and align ourselves with examples of resistance that bring hope and transformation.          

The infamous alley

Up to this point, I have dedicated this blog almost entirely to stories of working with refugees and catching you guys up on big events that happen over longer periods of time.  In this blog entry, I want to write about something completely different: my neighborhood and the alley beside my house.  CJ Hague interviewed me on his blog about life in Quito and one of the questions got me thinking about this blog entry.  So here goes the extension of my answer to CJ's question about my neighborhood.

I live in a neighborhood of middle to lower class residents with cobblestone streets and exposed cinder blocks.  Lots of friends who have come over to my apartment express concern for me because of the neighborhood in which I live.  If they come visit me in a car and park outside on the street, many constantly look down from my third floor window fearing that someone will break into their vehicle.  When I tell them that sometimes I arrive home on my bike after dark, they fear for me.  Their worries are understandable, things can happen without a doubt.  But I continue to live here and enjoy it.  I try to be careful and very aware of my surroundings.  However, nothing has ever happened to me in or around my house.  Rather, I've been robbed on a bus, in a internet cafe, and twice on busy streets during broad daylight (once in a more wealthy neighborhood and once in a more marginal neighborhood).  What that means, you be the judge.  I find it an interesting thing to reflect upon.

So onto the alley beside my house.  I live on the third and top floor of an apartment building which overlooks an alley opposite the street entrance to my apartment.  For a long time now, I've been observing the activities that happen in the alley beside my house from the small porch outside my apartment door where I come and  go everyday and lie in my hammock.  I have found it to be a surprisingly community-oriented, yet violent and precarious environment, and this is both fascinating and puzzling to observe.  During the day, adults and children play soccer, volleyball and joke around.  Every now and then, a dump truck filled with junk material shows up and people come out of their houses and work together to recycle and sort the material.  I've been woken up by the sound of break glass early in the morning only to find that the "vecinos" (a common, informal term in Ecuador to refer not just to neighbors but to almost everyone) are breaking bottles together and sorting them into sacks.  Sometimes I wake up to the sound of live music and look down into the alley at 7am or 8am and find a brass band of adults playing music together.  Other times I can't sleep because the alley holds parties that last all night (and sometimes all day).  One such time, they began a party at around 11am in the morning.  By 1:30pm, they had stopped the music briefly in order to let an ambulance take away an injured man on a stretcher.  After the ambulance left, the music started up again and didn't stop until the next day.  Every evening and late into the night (and sometimes during the day), a group of men gather by a light pole in the alley to use and sell drugs.  A few times the police have come through the alley and made arrests which sparks the residents of the alley to come out of their houses and deliberate about what to do.  A few months back, I arrived at my house in the evening and looked down into the alley to find a man physically abusing a woman while others looked on with a relaxed attitude.  I decided to bike down to the police station and tell them about it.  The police strolled up in their pickup truck, talked to the man briefly and after he reassured them that she was a family member and that everything was under control, they headed off and the abuse continued for a few more minutes.  Most recently on a Sunday afternoon while eating lunch with Eliana and Kaleth, we heard yelling and an argument in the alley.  We went to the door to find that there were about 10 men, woman, and children in a heated discussion.  Two of the men pulled out pistols and starting threatening to shoot each other.  At that point, we went inside and shut my apartment door hoping not to hear gun shots.  After a few more minutes, the scene calmed down and shortly thereafter, kids starting playing soccer again in the alley.

It's a puzzling and peculiar environment.  Sometimes I'm not sure what to make of it or what my role is or should be in some of the situations.  The alley is right beside my house, but at the same time I don't feel very connected to it, because I have another street entrance to my apartment that opens onto a street with a different environment.  Sometimes I feel like a spy looking onto a secret sub-cultural that I have a special window into, since it's a fairly secluded alley where only it's residents and some close friends enter (although from my apt you would have to put earplugs and a blindfold on not to notice everything that happens).  And I find it interesting to weigh the positives and the negatives of what I observe.  Sometimes I feel that I observe positive community building practices in the alley that we could learn from at our churches, while at the same time and among the same people, I observe destructive behaviors that upset me and should have no part in our lives.

Maybe the stark differences that I observe in the alley reflect in an obvious way the contrasts and contradictions that each one us as individuals, communities and societies carry with us.  How different are we?

7:30am: Can you see the brass band dressed in black?  

This is a huge paper miche doll that they made to light on fire for New Year's (an Ecuadorian tradition)

The looong party in it's early stages

Finding Balance in Life--catching you up on my last few months

Since I've last posted to my blog, too much has happened to put into words...this is probably because I've let 9 months slip by and 9 months of anyone's life is too much to put on paper in one blog entry.

To catch you up to speed, here's the most brief of summaries of some of what's happened during the last 9 months:

July 2012 to November 28, 2012 was spent working in Ecuador.  There was much to be done.  Many experiences with refugee families, meetings, emails, phone calls, writing reports, doing finances, home visits, workshops, discernment, stress, heavy situations.  We also planned and did a weekend retreat with the church youth group.  I also started taking Anabaptist theology classes at the Mennonite church with our pastors and I participated in a workshop with the United Nations about refugees.  

November 28, 2012 to January 4th, 2013 was spent in the U.S. giving presentations about my work in Ecuador in VA, IN, KS and spending precious, priceless time with many friends and family in VA, OH, IN, PA, NJ, D.C., KS.

January 4th, 2013 to January 19th, 2013 was spent traveling through Colombia with my good friend and excellent travel companion Benito Miller, where we were able to meet up with our good friend Jes Buller and many other great people.

January 19th-February 21st 2013 was spent getting caught up on refugee work that had piled up after being gone from Quito.  We also hosted a learning tour group from the US.

February 21st-March 4th 2013 I hosted for the third year in a row a work team from the US and Colombia.  We worked on the construction of an indigenous church in the south of Quito and visited the now completed church in Arajuno.

March 18th to 26th 2013 I traveled to Colombia with other folks from the Mennonite church in Quito and Riobamba to have Ecuador Partnership meetings and to be present at the Colombian Mennonite Churches National Assembly.  I spent a good portion of the time doing simultaneous translation which was a fun and challenging activity.


Recently, a couple topics have been churning in my head because of recent experiences.  One is self-care and learning how to stay healthy and sane in the face of so many heavy and difficult experiences.  Why is this an issue that's been difficult for me?  In counting up the numbers in the registries that I keep track of with the refugee project, I realized that during the past year I've held more than 400 interviews with refugee families and done 100 home visits.  I've heard too many terrible stories to count and seen way too many precarious living situations.  Last year as a project, we gave out between 40-50 food rations a month to 140 different families, arranged 55 appointments with a hired professional psychologist, helped 25 families start a small business, held 7 workshops with an average attendance of 50-60 refugees, maintained a refugee house where two families live along with an agricultural project, and helped more than 150 families with either rent costs, mattresses, blankets, medicine, stoves, gas tanks, shoes, clothes, school supplies and personal hygiene items.  We've also helped various refugees pay for major surgeries and health issues.  And there are many other things that can't be quantified.  It truly has been a busy and exhausting year.

At first I think I tried to suppress feelings of exhaustion and being overwhelmed, living by the common sports motto of "playing through the pain".  But similar to my experience on the soccer field where a muscle injury would continue to get worse and worse as I continued to play, I also continued to wear down and become more exhausted and overwhelmed in my work.  I've realized how important it is for me to understand my own needs and take time for myself.  This continues to be difficult but I'm working at it.  To give you a better idea of the kinds of situations that make it very easy to get absorbed in work with refugees, here's an anecdote:

A few months ago I was relaxing at home on my day off on Monday when my cell phone rang.  I answered the call and it was Carlos on the other line.  Carlos had been to our church various times and I had visited him and his family group of 11 people who lived packed into one small room.  Carlos had fled Buenaventura, Colombia a few months earlier after his work partner was killed and he was threatened by paramilitaries.  Leaving in such a hurry from Colombia and with only enough money for his bus fare, Carlos had left his wife behind with some family members.  In talking with him at church, he had expressed to me his worries about his wife still being in Colombia and possibly becoming a target of paramilitaries that continued to try to track him down.  When I answered the phone on that Monday, his fear had become a reality.  He told me that paramilitaries had found his wife, entered her house and threatened to kill her face to face if she didn't tell them where Carlos was.  Luckily, they eventually left her alone without harming her but told her that they would be coming back to get information about Carlos' whereabouts and that if she didn't give them the information, they would kill her.  Over the phone, Carlos desperately explained this situation to me and asked if I could help by sending $60 dollars to the family in Buenaventura, Colombia in order to pay for his wife's bus fare since the family had no money to send her to Ecuador.  Despite the fact that as a project, we are many times weary about these kinds of transactions because in the past money has been used for something other than it's intended purpose, the urgency of this situation merited attention.  And despite the fact that "I'm supposed to respect my day off", that thought was put on the back burner as I thought about what could happen if I didn't take action.  Believe me, it was a difficult position to be in.  I asked Carlos for his wife's cell phone number in Colombia in order to call her and verify the situation and what exactly was happening.  I called her right away using skype and spoke with her about the situation.  As Carlos had already told me, it was in fact a very urgent situation.  I decided that if I was going to help, it shouldn't wait another day and I left my house to go to the nearest Money Gram office after telling Carlos that I would send the money to Colombia as long as his wife held onto the bus ticket receipt and took it personally to the church when she arrived to Ecuador as a method for accountability.  I sent the $60 to Carlos' wife in Colombia and a few days later she arrived to our church with the bus ticket receipt.....

This situation left me reflecting about whether it's more important for me to respect my day off and not answer my phone or give priority to the need of the person on the other line.  It's a difficult balance--especially since these urgent needs don't present themselves everyday and I want to avoid the "savior" type mentality and image that can be detrimental for myself and those that I work with.  Many times I ask myself, how could the economic situation of Carlos' family have been transformed so that Carlos wouldn't have needed to depend on an outside organization to solve this urgent problem?  Many refugees, including Carlos and his wife, have been victims to circumstances beyond their control.  But given refugees current situations, how can they be empowered to rebuild their lives in order to live without the debilitating dependency on outside aid?

The other topic that's been stirring in my brain is the challenge that I've had to face in working with some refugees who are very needy, but also dishonest, manipulative, and demanding.  It's difficult to express this and by no means do I want to generalize or criticize the refugee population as a whole as often happens in Ecuadorian society, but with a select few cases, I've really been challenged with situations that have not been enjoyable.  I won't go into a lot of detail right now, but I continue to struggle to know how to respond to need despite a lack of transparency, honesty and respect.  How can we continue to walk alongside these people and work together for transformation despite these difficult circumstances?

I continue to be thankful for the opportunity that I have to explore the complexities of these issues not just in theory but in practice as well.  Without a doubt, I'm being stretched and expanded by many new experiences.  I continue to enjoy life in Quito and the adventures that unfold both in my work and play.

I'll leave it there....if you've made it this far, thanks for reading!

Visiting a refugee family that lived in Quito but was resettled to the US

Youth retreat in November

Speaking at Community Mennonite Church's youth snow camp

Meeting my new nephew Brennan!

Much needed and enjoyed time with family

Sledding in Ohio...not the most exciting hills, but after being away from 

winter for so long, anything goes.

Visiting my Grandma Salome Holsinger in Kansas

Traveling through Colombia with Benito Miller

The work group from Colombia/US

Inauguration ceremony at the Arajuno church which

the previous 3 work groups helped to build