So this is progress?

(this post was written late Tuesday nite, April 15 - HA! Tax day!!)

So, imagine that you went to the mechanic today because your only car died last Friday. Now - this mechanic doesn't speak your language, and you barely speak his. Yet, he shows you how totally jacked up your engine got when both of your belts broke. You understand the seriousness of the car's injury, and you understand his estimate that it will cost more than 1,000 euros to fix. Where would that fit into a ranking of things that happened to you today?

If your answer was "one of the best things," you might be living in a new culture. (or perhaps you really had an awfully crummy day.) For me, as I thought about this tonight, I think it is a sign of some progress that something like this would have been somewhat of a crisis several months ago, but was not the dominant issue of my day today.

My day started out with a complicated trip to my Spanish class. Complicated, you'll remember, because my car has all of it's important parts laid out on my mechanics workbench and was unavailable. We took a taxi to school which was far to expensive to take home. We walked part of the way home and took a bus the rest of the way - arriving home an hour and a half later than we do with the car. My reward for getting to class - a brutally difficult exam that made me feel both slow and dimwitted - despite the fact I knew exactly when the test would be, and what chapters of our textbook it covered.

After gathering the boys from their respective schools, making it through feeding time, and finally putting them down for their naps, I was looking forward to sitting on our couch, listening to some new CD's, and folding laundry. This moment of peace was interrupted by a call from my mechanic (who, to give him credit, did get out the english words "You... Come.... Now..." followed by whistling the our national anthem). So, after a confidence shattering encounter with the morning's exam, I boldly set forth to find out what exactly was wrong with my car, and how much it would cost to fix it. And as difficult as it was to communicate, I felt good in the end to discover I really had understood almost everything he was trying to communicate. Now, I did not understand even close to every word, nor could I even translate for you what he said - but I got all of the important parts non-the-less. Now, it was much harder for me to find words to communicate back to him - but I was able to call in the help of a friend to make sure we were all clear on the details.

The rest of my day included a cafe, a store named 'Bizaar Chino,' and a party for a newly minted 5-year old. On the whole these were also good things. We especially enjoy going to birthday parties - I may blog separately about that. By the time we returned home from an extremely full day, we were hungry, tired, and ready to make and eat dinner. This is when we learned that Faith's father had discovered that the Spanish Consulate in D.C. was asking for another letter before they would approve his visa.

This was a stress-raising problem for several reasons. First of all, we thought we had resolved all of the necessary details for the visa 5 weeks prior by taking the time, effort, and euros to create a notarized letter of invitation. Secondly, this new request from the consulate came 8 days before Faith's parents are scheduled to come visit. Additional pressure is added because one of the reason they are coming to visit is to watch the kids while Faith and I attend an International Teams leadership conference in Manila. So there are 4 round-trip international airline tickets hanging on this visa approval.

This would be an example of some of the frustrations of making this cross-cultural life change. Paperwork is a way of life here - we've experienced it from the beginning. On the whole, nothing is truly urgent, because there seems to always be time to get something fixed. This is our first experience with something that has a concrete deadline and significant negative impact if it is not completed. It will be interesting to see how the system works from here.

Missions where you are.

Faith and I are following in the steps of our friend Matt, who blazed a trail to Galicia years before we arrived. He and his family have since returned to the states. We would not be where we are today if it were not for his family's faithful journey to live and minister in Santiago for six years. His wisdom and help have been a very significant part of our journey. I introduce him to explain why I'm posting this link. He has a blog that I enjoy reading, and is one source for some things I re-post here.

The link above is a thought that really struck me. When we were in the Chicago burbs for 8 years we had the joy of meeting folks of many different nationalities and backgrounds. It was a great blessing to live in such a large metropolitan area. It's not just the cities anymore - the burbs have plenty of immigrants. If you take the time to get to know some of them it is incredibly rewarding, and can really help expand your view of the world outside of the US. His post got me thinking about how much more I might have been able to do had I lived more purposefully in regards to reaching out to immigrants in my area.

Not that we don't have that same opportunity here. We rub shoulders with as many immigrants here as locals at the moment. Faith especially has been connecting with a few immigrant women here. One Brazilian woman has a child at the same school as Brennan - she lived in New Jersey for 8 years, and now lives here. Faith has also connected with a group for immigrant women through the local Red Cross. My daily Spanish class is also populated completely by foreigners (of course!). On the whole it is fun, and interesting. It can also be both funny and frustrating to communicate with classmates where our only shared language is our limited Spanish skills.