Today we awoke in San Marcos, Texas, for the first border crossing. First international stop: Monterrey, Mexico. Our pilgrimage began days ago, on August 7th but only now at the first border crossing does it feel real. This last week has been crazy; we couldn’t be more enthusiastic for it to continue as we transition into new cultures and surroundings. 3 of the fellas, Karl Cassel, James Guebert (myself), and Caleb Krumsieg, spent the our July working at WAnet’s Summer English Institute (SEI), teaching international students English and American Culture as many of them began their transition to American High-Schools. To risk being cliché, we found the students to be far more educational to us than we were to them. This high-intensity summer job included acting as both teaching assistants and resident assistants for nearly 200 students from Cambodia, China, Korea, South Africa, and Tanzania. We got a surprise head-start on Project:GoThere’s mission of cross-cultural dialogue! SEI ended in San Fransisco, from whence we swooped our fearless conversationally-fluent-Spanish-speaking friend, Theo, thereby marking the San Fransisco airport as the official commencement of PGT. Our next stops were San Louis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, the Grand Canyon, then our current location of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Outside of these fantastic visits with superb hosts, the trip has consisted of family time with our car, “Abuela”. Abuela—fondly called “Abuelita”— has the quantity of character, the homey presence, the unconditional affection, and well-wornness of a grandmother —hence her being christened the Spanish term for grandma. Structurally, the car has been deemed ship-shape and OKed for Pan-American travel by mechanics nation-wide. In terms of it’s aesthetics and cosmetics, we made some concessions allowing for a bargain and a low profile as we travel. We have removed the back seat-bench and substituted it with a shelving system that doubles as a bed in a pinch. Additionally, we have developed hanging systems from the ceiling for our camera, banjolele, and any other quick access necessities. This large quantity of time spent in the car have been a blunt wake-up that a large quantity of our next 5 months is going to be time spent sitting in a car. We need ways to fill our time to keep our minds employed. We need times to get out and move our bodies. We need small amounts of privacy during these long hours. The nature of a Pan-American road trip is that we are both tied to and limited by our car. Already the mental, physical, and relational implications of this are clearly going to be some of our greatest challenges we face as they build over time. Our hosts have been fantastic. We have visited Hudson Thomas, The Redin family, Lauren Wolf, The Gruendyke family, Annie Little, The Dix family, and Hazel and Adam Golder. Especially visiting for extensive amounts of time with the Gruendykes and the Golders has been beneficial to the trip. All hosts have been beneficial in revising our perspective as we seek to be listeners and not teachers. The Gruendykes showed us what it means to be hospitable and to create a space for conversation. The Golders showed us what it means to be self-sacrificial and generous. All of our hosts have been humbling with the prospect of being guests for the rest of the semester in Latin America. Visiting each of these locations was life-giving, helping us think, and propelling us farther/faster. Even within The States, we have been able to witness culture in action and entertain thoughts about what it means to be a global citizen. Practically, this means listening and learning as a guest in another culture. In many ways we’ve been able to do this already, and have certainly been able to set the framework for its continuation. Prayer Requests: -that we can remain worry free in regards to our general safety -that we each have relational wisdom with each other in stressful situations -that we maintain a love of life and a strong ability to give of ourselves -that we can make the most of this journey -that we can be gracious guests throughout Central America Try to keep up as we will be posting much more frequently!! James
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PGT ThoughtsStories of experiences we have along the way. Archives
November 2017
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