There are eight people in my Spanish class, and when I walked in this morning at quarter of the hour or so, four of the others were already there, and were talking about the differences between smoking cigarettes and pot. I’ll come back to this later.
Class began pretty normally this morning, and Thursday being a “class” day rather than a “lab” day, the first third of class tends to be more culture than language. One of the things I like about that is that during our (relatively ADD) discussion, Sr. Turner tends to turn to me for comparisons since I’m the only one in the class who has been to Latin America. He’ll talk about open-air markets in Chile and then ask “How about in Ecuador?”
At some point he made mention that I had been there for three months and one of the girls in the class asked what exactly I had been doing there. Something I didn’t even think about when I began to answer was what my immediate response turned out to be, compared to what it would have been last year. Had I ever been asked that in Raquel’s class when I took the previous level of Spanish a couple semesters ago, I’m sure I would have told them I’d gone with a short-term team and worked in a church and an orphanage. But out loud to a class, I that seriously would have been all I’d have said. And while I kept it brief this morning, I did my best to give a pretty full picture of hosting and a little bit about the whole reason for Missions.
The observation I did make, pretty much instantly (I automatically critique myself any time I talk in class) was that conversation had gone from smoking pot to being the hands and feet of Christ in Ecuador in under twenty minutes.
Even cooler was that Julian (a.k.a. Mr. Turner, the professor) instantly said “And what was the name of the church that you and Jerry go through?” Impressed that he’s already connected me and Jerry even though we’re in different classes, I ignored the detail of with whom the two of us were mostly working and told him Christ Episcopal Church, which he immediately scribbled down on his class notes (which I know he’ll look at several times before Monday). But wait, it gets better. Our professor then goes on this rant about how important it is to help people and how everyone should be involved in Missions.
Something else I noticed was his mention that even though he’s traveled pretty extensively, he regrets that all of it has been either for school or to support himself, when he was teaching English in Spain (something that strikes a chord in my family, anyway). I talked to Lydia today (who has now made it into three posts in just over a week) about how I have the exact opposite situation. Everywhere I’ve ever been has been for Missions and not for study or tourism or anything else. Which is not a problem, especially since I mentioned that we’re all on a Mission all the time anyway. Just something that keeps getting higher on my list to change.
As an overall observation, I just appreciate God’s use of unexpected people, places, and times to get a chance to share a little bit about Him. I feel like this is going to be a pretty cool opportunity with Mr. Turner, and maybe God struck a chord with somebody else in the room today too, or at least opened an opportunity for further growth, particularly some of the things I’ve been asking for lately. And as a sneak peak, I turned in my sermon theme to Diane today, and it’s amazing how much the same it is with this paragraph. Good thing the whole thing isn’t written yet. This is why I quit believing in coincidence a long time ago.
