June 2009 – dannypeck.net

Yes, Honey, They're Brothers

Colin and I should be on HGTV.

Brothers can be completely different, get on each others’ nerves, and be super-competitive. All of that can describe Colin and me at some point past or present, if not in an ongoing sense. But brothers- in this case we– can totally be on the same wavelength sometimes.

Colin’s drums have been in the FROG¹ for several weeks now, to give him more room to jam with his friends. With about half of my guitars and both of my amps up there for roughly the same reason- just to get them out of my room- and Daniel’s and Jacob’s guitars and guitar cases sometimes present, it’s been a pretty hazardous place to be lately.

So between a general desire to be able to safely navigate the FROG and complaints from everyone in the house, Colin started cleaning it up yesterday. This was also motivated by the addition of a powered mixer and two speakers.

For those of you not really into sound equipment, that’s basically a small, portable all-in-one PA system designed with microphones and instruments in mind, but with enough cables and adapters, you can hook anything into it: TV, Xbox, iPod, computer… you get the idea.

Without asking what the vision was or the plan of action for getting there, I joined in the cleaning. It was obvious to anyone that the room simply needed to be cleared out, rearranged, and organized if even a fraction of its contents were to remain and the room was to become easily traversed. But it was obvious to the Peck boys the potential this room now had to become what Kelli would call a “man cave.”

First order of business, pack up the instruments. Fortunately there was only one guitar present at the time that did not belong to me, so all the cases were handy. The air hockey table was pushed against the window and all guitars placed underneath. The Foosball table was pushed against the daybed by another wall and the chairs pushed up against that. Amazingly, this caused a sudden hole in the middle of the room from which to work against the remaining chaos.

While Colin set up his drums (and I think he finally has all his drums and cymbals set up together, which takes quite a bit of space) I began clearing off the computer desk, mom’s drafting table and the shelf behind the drums where the VCR² was located. We finished at roughly the same time, with a net result of extended the open space and having two more surfaces to work from.

Before I knew it, Colin was pulling an old TV cabinet out of the closet. We have these two huge closets in the FROG where the roof slants down on either side of the dormer where the daybed is located. One is used to store camping and sewing equipment and the other is used to store Christmas decorations and old toys so that any of the above are accessible at shorter notice than they would be if they lived in the cubby³. The particular TV cabinet that Colin was pulling out is a pretty small, cheap, black shelving unit and formerly where the family TV downstairs lived. It is only a couple feet tall and the TV sat on top with the shelves underneath storing movies and Super NES accessories. When my parents replaced it with a nicer piece of furniture, I talked them into keeping it in case I ever finish college and leave and want it.

Colin got the powered mixer set up on top, with the Xbox 360 on top of that, and I set up the VCR and Gamecube underneath, running all the cables and putting four generations’ worth of video games into their respective cases as I went. Colin set up the speakers and with a couple of really useful adapters, I set up my laptop on the drafting table and connected it to the mixer, thus enabling me to stream music from my desktop in my room over the wireless network and play it through the newly-re-erected sound system.

With the furniture back in place, I thought we’d be finished. But Colin mentioned a general desire to have his computer up there for recording purposes. I figured we might as well get that done while we were on a roll, so with some quick thinking and some maternal advice, the drafting table was folded up and moved to the corner where the computer desk was. The computer desk was taken downstairs and placed in my van for transport to Albemarle Music (more on this below). The other closet, this time the one with the Christmas decorations- including tree- was accessed, cleared completely out, and a folding table removed from the very back, from behind about two dozen boxes and really heavy wooden shelving unit.

The folding table was erected, fitting perfectly against the wall between the end of the TV cabinet and the door, and about this time, Daniel showed up intending to pick up his laptop and leave, but staying to help move Colin’s (monster) desktop computer from his room to the FROG. This was quite an adventure because though Colin’s room and the FROG share a wall, you have to go from Colin’s through the upstairs hall, down the stairs, through the foyer, den, kitchen, and back hall, then up the other set of stairs to reach the FROG.

With the computer set up and the chairs replaced, we transported ourselves, the desk, and our moving and staging skills to Albemarle Music. We initially moved the couch in the office, then moved it back when we realized its new angle made the room feel much smaller. With the desk placed against the back wall, we moved the office computer off the counter and now have a much more professional-looking space and enough surface area for three people to eat lunch at once.

In summation, we’re awesome and so is the new man cave. Pictures are forthcoming, and if anyone wants an air hockey table, let me know.

¹FROG is a real estate term in this region that’s become pretty ubiquitous in tidewater area vocabulary. It stands for Finished Room Over Garage and is what most of the rest of the country would refer to as a “Bonus Room.”
²Yes, believe it or not, we still have a VCR. It wasn’t that long ago that it got a lot of use for watching Disney movies with all my female friends- one in particular- and now mainly serves to extend the coaxial cable from the wall to the TV and as an extra set of RCA inputs for gaming systems.
³The cubby is an eccentricity of our house. Despite two attic access doors, one in the FROG and one in the upstairs hall, because of their precise locations the attic is still pretty inaccessible, and the cubby serves as our attic. It is basically a crawl-space-sized hall stretching from an access door at the top of the FROG stairs back over the rest of the house.

Why Do People Have Accents Anymore?

I’ve had quite a tour of this half of the United States so far this summer, as far east as the Outer Banks of North Carolina as far west as Elgin, Illinois, as far south as Atlanta and as far north as Holland, Michigan. What blows me away, even more so than my own travel skills (I’ve taken more public transportation in the last month than I knew existed in this country) is the difference in the way people talk.

Within fifteen minutes of meeting people during training in Illinois, and getting ever worse the more time I spent with my Michiganian friends, I was pronouncing my “O”s the long way, as in the way someone from Minnesota says “Minnesota” (on a semi-related note, if you ever want a laugh, get a Minnesotan to say “diaper bag). It’s like the pronunciation is contagious, and I incorporate it so fast and so strongly that as late as this Thursday evening, ten days after I’d left Holland, Lydia told me to “stop saying [my] ‘o”s like that,” without me even so much as mentioning that I’d noticed myself doing it.

Another experience with a Michigander (yes, that’s also another correct demonym) brought local accents and phrases to my attention, but this time the other way around. Sarah W.¹ made fun of my for saying “y’all.” Of course, I made fun of her right back for being unable to pronounce it. Being a typical northerner she said it closer to “yoll,” which is quite a difference: the apostrophe is both necessary and distinguishable to anyone on this side of the Mason-Dixon.

In many countries, certain areas are totally isolated, whether simply from each other or from everywhere. In the United States, where we functionally have one language (though we do not and should not have an “official” language), it seems strange that that single language can change so much from place to place. Not so strange, you might say, with the size and diversity of the United States. But everyone watches the same T.V.

That’s really what boggles my mind. While it’s understandable that most non-natives wouldn’t guess the proper pronunciation of Moyock², because there’s not much reason to hear the word. But it’s mind-boggling that nobody in Wisconsin can actually say “Wisconsin.” Of course, they’d say nobody outside Wisconsin can say “Wisconsin,” but I say the majority rules. (I’m joking, but you get the point).

Once in a while I’ll catch myself saying a long “I” in true southern fashion. I don’t mind it so much (or here in North Carolina, “I don’t miiiiiind,” or in Mississippi, “I don’t maaaaaand,”) when I’m here, but I try to force myself to say it correctly so I don’t sound like a redneck when I’m outside of my redneck hometown (despite giving a tutorial a fortnight ago about the usage of “you, y’all and all y’all”). I would think, though, that since you don’t hear national newscasters saying “Tonaaaaaght’s top story…” that everyone would catch themselves after a while and slowly morph their language into a more accent-neutral English.

Language, though, tends to be a jealously-defended personal aspect that we tie to our own personalities. For instance, I’ve grown up in the south, and look how I defended my own use of the contraction “y’all,” (wow, that turned into a great example- it’s almost like I thought of it beforehand). I wanted to say to Sarah “Don’t you listen to rap?”, knowing that she was thinking “People really say “y’all” in real life?”, which just goes to further both points, that we hang on to our local language idiosyncrasies (“we” meaning east coast rappers in this example, and thus not necessarily being inclusive of me), but also that technology, specifically mass media, ought to neutralize that, though it only does it to the extent that you can point to it in defense. Despite the connotations of southern accents, hip-hop slang, and mid-westerners’ inability to speak at all³ regional accents persist, and both boggle my mind (or bottle it) and entertain.

¹As opposed to other Sara(h)s that are a part of my life: A., B., C., C., D., F., G., H., M., M., M., O., T. or mom.
²It’s mo?j?k, if you were wondering, or MO-yock if you can’t read IPA symbols or your computer isn’t displaying these.
³Just kidding.⁴
⁴And then, not really.

Group Identity

One of the things I’ve looked forward to each day of training is getting to hear from a different missionary about their ministry each morning during devotion. We’ve now had Dotun and Ami from the team in Kenya, Margaret, headed to Soroti, Uganda, Ann from IT in Yemen, and the Timmers from Bolivia, as well as watching the ministry video and praying for Sammy in Cameroon. Even aside from Scott’s three classes on the Worldwide Ministry of International Teams, most everyone here at the Elgin Ministry Center has served for varying amounts of time in all kinds of places overseas.

While I’m understandably most passionate about Youth World in Ecuador, it has been incredibly eye-opening to see the needs around the world, and how missionaries from all of IT’s national organizations are spreading the Gospel and serving God. It’s also sobering to realize how dangerous it is for many of them, and even more so for new Believers in certain parts of the world. You can talk about how lucky we are to live in a country that guarantees your freedom of religion, but seeing photographs of a baptism with all the faces blurred out, or hearing a missionary calling a Yemeni woman “Brittany” to keep her identity secret halfway around the world really drives it home in a way that praying from a nice safe North Carolina sanctuary just can’t.

It’s really exciting to see what we are a part of as an organization, and I’m reminded of that even as I look around the classroom every day. During breaks I scan the pictures in the hallway of every MIT class back to 1998 and pick out all of the people I know. And pretty soon ours will be up there and Rich or Karen or someone will be telling some new MITs, “Yeah, that’s Danny and he’s in Ecuador, and there are the Moseys and the Rosses, they went to Bolivia…” Way cool.

Summer 2009 MIT class

Bouncing Around

I’ve spent the last couple of days being challenged and stretched in a lot of ways. From making myself be observant at Willow Creek to planning out an 8-minute testimony presentation to really thinking hard about Grace, Forgiveness, trust, the Love of God, and having a vision and mission in Missions.

Today was no less of a learning experience, but I didn’t bounce around from being exhausted and replenished all day, and my brain was really thankful for that. We started off this morning watching a ministry video and praying for Sammy, an IT missionary headed for Cameroon to evangelize unreached people groups. It’s incredible to realize how many people have come through this building and organization and are connected to each other through shared values and through faith in Christ.

Our Bible study with Rich went through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob today, and I don’t think I’ve ever really thought of any of the people involved in those stories the same way. I could write my whole post on this alone, but since my current goal is cataloging my time in Elgin, maybe I’ll revisit this next week. Suffice it to say that although I see Abraham as a lot less of a mythical figure and in a lot more human way now, I hope I never have to have the failings of my faith thrown at me by Pharoh (the world).

Scott Olson took us through the completion of our overview of International Teams vision and values. I’m still stunned at how many hours the CEO of ITeams USA would spend with us lowly MITs, but have appreciated his honesty and his passion for doing things right. If you have the desire, you should totally read through International Teams USA’s 14 values (which can be found here). We spent a good deal of time today working through each one of these and I both love them and agree that while maybe we should be more vision-based, International Teams does a fantastic job of living out these values.

Lunch was more taco salad, which was great because I don’t think you can ever be tired of taco salad. It does seem funny how we (John Andrew and I, at least) keep bouncing back and forth from (vaguely) Italian to Mexican food with taco salad, pizza, taco salad, lasagna, and fajitas. The trend seems to be continuing as well, with more pizza and enchiladas on the way.

This afternoon our mystery roommate showed up too. Jacob thought he’d had a screw from previous surgery puncture his jaw. Turned out to be a lot less of a problem than that, and he was able to make it to training, so once Nate’s wife and eldest son arrive tonight, all of the MITs who were scheduled for this module will actually be here.

We continued today with Cross-Cultural Communication, which I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of, but you just can’t have enough of those classes and always learn something new (or at least get to exchange hilarious stories, that even among missionaries have a tendency to be accidentally dirty). Finally, we rounded out classes with an orientation to IT Information Systems. Nicole joked as I came in that I could be teaching it, and at the end I actually realized I could have, but that’s mostly because of my experience last year and my Curious George mentality whenever I get some kind of new account activated (I was the only one in the room who knew I had and International Teams e-mail, which I’ve had redirected to Thunderbird since Dave sent me my ITeams financial password in March).

Before you think I have a superiority complex, I’ll just tell you how terribly I did at another kind of bouncing around. We played basketball this afternoon, and I’ve never been very good at it, but I’d like to think I was at least okay at shooting after all the hoops we played in the Alliance Academy gym last summer. Whatever progress I’d made during Quito Quest 2008, I’ve lost in the last ten months, but it was still enough fun that we shot baskets and played HORSE for nearly four hours. John Andrew and I were there that whole block, with Ted, Nicole, Bill, and Jacob joining and then taking off at various times over that period. When the three of us came back to our apartment, we were pretty shot, and really dirty.

We recovered just long enough to get hungry, and had an adventure in cooking fajitas. I’ll be much more efficient next time, and that’s as much story as you’re getting out of that one.

How many times can your world be rocked in one day?

Yesterday I was up at such an incredibly early hour that I thought I’d have no problem waking up today. This morning was totally different, though. For some reason, despite having gone to bed at a reasonable hour, I had to drag myself out of bed at 7:00 to take a shower and have breakfast before class started at 8:00. I was yawning until after lunch, which made me feel terrible because everything we did today was so thoroughly interesting.

We started off hearing about the refugee ministry in Kenya from an IT missionary couple on furlough. Dotun and Ami are Nigerian and Philippina respectively, and met on the mission field working with mostly women and children who have fled into Kenya from Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and other nearby countries. They work with people from backgrounds I can’t even begin to imagine, from the Lost Boys of Sudan to women who have been victims of trafficking. It was heartbreaking to hear their stories, but also uplifting to realize what a passion they have for God and for these people and what their team is doing for the Church in Kenya.

As if my world hadn’t been rocked by 8:30, we did devotions with Rich Becker (Director of Training) and then got to hear Scott Olson’s testimony (Director of International Teams USA), both of which managed to blow me away in their own unique way.

Lunch today included almost all of the Elgin Ministry Center staff, so they all introduced themselves and told about what they do, and all of the MITs introduced ourselves again. No matter how much confidence I seem to exude or how many jokes I tell, I loathe standing in front of a group of people and talking. I’ve gotten much better at it, but my nervousness has just never gone away. Even telling people my name and where I’m from and how I’ve experienced the love of God on my IT journey so far got my heart-rate up and it stayed that way until well after lunch and break were over.

I say that to lead into the fact that we gave our testimonies today. After facilities and mobilization orientations, we split into groups of three or four MITs plus a staff member as a facilitator and then one or two more staff members just for fun for each group.

Now as a little background, I’m Methodist. “Testimony” was like a bad word to me until very recently. In fact, I didn’t even know I had one until recently. Before splitting into groups, Mark Foshager picked three random people out of the eleven of us and asked us on a scale of one to ten how ready we felt to give our testimony. Kelsey, Ted, and I all said we were at about 5. I felt lucky in the group I ended up in, which turned out to be Kelsey and Ted. Rich was our facilitator, and Dave was our active spectator, and we theoretically had 8 minutes to give our story, but spent much more time than that on each person, asking questions when they were finished. I think we were all surprised at some of the things we learned about each other, especially how we keep finding out that everyone here would seem (at least to the world) to have ended up in Missions “accidentally,” Even aside from that, people can rock you just telling you about their seemingly average life and walk of faith. As Scott Olson put it at lunch “They know more about me than my mother does now.”

After we officially finished for the day, John Andrew and I headed outside to “play basketball” with the kids. It started raining, but we eventually made it back outside and shot hoops with the Ackermann guys, and eventually Eric invited us back to their apartment for dinner. It was pretty cool hanging out with them, eating taco salad and telling jokes and talking about Ecuador (the Eric, Carla and their 4 kids are headed to Costa Rica for language school and then to Quito to work at Casa Gabriel).

If the next four days of training are anything like today, we’re going to be well fed, both with home cooking and the Spirit.