Zeppelin and Life
Well, it seems very anti-climatic to write about it now, but the Zeppelin show was amazing. It happened almost two months ago, but I am just now getting to write about it. I guess I have just been busy with lots of other things. Phil and I had the time of our lives in London. We got 3rd row at the show after waiting in line all day. We were so close that Jimmy Page almost drooled on us! It was simply amazing and trying to describe the events of that night is nearly impossible. It is one of those events that you just have to experience. We were blown away. It was a fairly expensive trip for me, but it was totally worth it.
I wrote an article for the Wichita paper about my experience, but it is no longer on their website. If you want to get a bit of a feel for the concert, check out some pics that I took:
http://wheatonil.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022217&l=42c5b&id=187702610
http://harvard.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022207&l=48b30&id=187702157
or some video I took:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AKAy7FpkaA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhe8tQeNsbU
Since then, I have been back in Wichita working with Hospitals of Hope and substitute teaching at Trinity every now and then. I've started working on the bathroom in the house and I've been playing in a band with some of my friends. It's instrumental- kind of a mix between Sigur Ros, The Album Leaf and Envy. Hopefully things will come together well with that band.
Monday I leave for Bolivia for a week with HOH. I'm heading down there to get a feel for the ministry and to meet the staff from there. It will be good to get familiar with everything that they do there since I'm not completely aware of all the ins and outs of what goes on. Yet another trip. Good times are ahead.
Settling in and then heading to London
It's been a long time since my last update, so a lot has changed. I am still in Wichita and I recently took a job with Hospitals of Hope (www.hospitalsofhope.org), which is an organization that does medical missions to Bolivia- and some other places around the world. Officially, I am the International Missions Coordinator, but in reality I do just about everything for them- grant writing, volunteer coordination, journalism, website management, accounting, marketing, research, etc. It should be a challenging job with a lot of variety, so it is a pretty good fit (except for the fact that I work by myself much of the time). I'll deal with it though. In January I am probably going to head down to Bolivia for a couple of weeks to get a feel for the ministry. That will be a great part of the job! I am also moving into an older house in Riverside that I am going to fix up over the next year or two. It's already in pretty good shape, but there are a few changes I can make to really increase the value. I'll be living with Josh Wigdahl and one or two other guys.
But before I move in, I'm heading to London for a week! That's right, Led Zeppelin awaits. For those of you who haven't heard, I was lucky enough to get tickets to the once-in-a-lifetime show (only 10,000 people out of 25 million people who registered got tickets). My friend, Phil Johnston, is coming along with me for the ride. It is going to be amazing, but right now I am in a state of shock or disbelief. It is one of those things that is so big that it just doesn't seem real to you until the moment it happens. One week until I leave...
back home
Well, I'm back in Wichita now. It has been a crazy last few weeks. Brian's sister, Sarah, came down to visit our last week in Honduras, so we spent a lot of time traveling on top of getting everything packed up. Then Brian left and Jason and I went on a short trip up to the Caribbean with our friends Aurora and Quique and their whole family. We went to the beach, relaxed and generally had a good time. Then we came back, packed up, said our goodbyes and flew out the following day. It was a very bittersweet time because I was excited to be heading home, but I was pretty sad to be leaving Honduras and all of the people there.
When I got back to Chicago I spent some time looking for a car and I saw a lot of my family and friends who live there. I eventually bought a nice Nissan Pathfinder that I found for a really good price and I loaded it up with a bunch of my junk that I had left with friends while I was gone. Then I drove back to Wichita last Friday- and my long journey back home is complete. Now I'm spending my time unpacking and trying to figure out what I'm going to do next. I'm looking into different job opportunities and generally trying to decide what direction my life is going to take now. I'm probably not going to go back to school right away, but instead get some job experience and get a more specific sense of what I want to do. So that's where I'm at right now. It looks like I'll be in Wichita for the next month or two and after that, who knows...
done with school!
Yesterday was the last day of classes for our school, so now I have completed my first year of teaching! We still have a year-end recuperation test next Saturday (where kids who failed can take a cumulative test to pass the year), but that shouldn't be too much work. After that I will have to stay around for another two weeks cleaning up and doing other odd jobs to finish out the year, but it should all be pretty easy. After work ends I am staying around for a few days to travel with some friends and I finally fly home on June 28th (back to Chicago for a few days, then to Wichita after that).
Right now I have a mixture of emotions- it was sad to see all of the kids go and to know that I won't see many of them again. I've invested a lot of emotional energy into them this year and now it's over. I hope that I touched their lives in some way. Now I'm looking to the future- excited to return to family and friends and also trying to figure out what I'll do next. I am pretty sure that I want to head back to graduate school and it looks like I might be able to start this fall. There are several programs in Chicago that I am looking into which deal with Nonprofit Management and there is one that has a dual degree with Christian Ministry as well. I think that studying something like that would be really useful in whatever direction I end up going- whether it be a NGO, a ministry or some kind of nonprofit (and either in the States or overseas). So I'm going to keep checking into my options and we will see what comes together.
But for now, I'm going to continue to make the best of the time I have remaining in Honduras. I continue to improve my Spanish everyday and I am still playing a lot of music. This weekend I'm playing in church again and next weekend I'll probably be playing in a local club with another band that I'm in. Hopefully we can squeeze out a few more shows before we all leave...
the decision
Last Thursday I talked with the director of the school about the possibility of coming back to work next year- I was trying to get all of the info I could in order to make a good decision- and she ended up telling me that I needed to decide by Monday (four days from then). So I went home and began to mull the decision over in my mind. I went back and forth, but by the time the weekend was over, I had decided not to stay another year. There are a variety of factors that influenced my decision and taken all together, I really felt like it was best for me to go. Most of my friends are leaving, teaching is not what I want to do as a career (and it has been difficult), things at the church are not going so well, and I want to be closer to my family and friends in the States- all of which are fairly good reasons in and of themselves.
So, as of right now, I don't know what I'm going to be doing this next year, but I trust that God will open something up, because He closed this door down here. It is possible that I will be back in either Wheaton, Wichita, or Tulsa... but it all depends on what job opportunites open up. My hope is that I will be able to go back to grad school the following year (although I don't know exactly what I will study yet).
In other news, last week was fairly busy as well. We had Tuesday off, so we went to a national park near Tegus, called La Tigra, which is actually a cloud forest (kind of like a jungle). We hiked to a waterfall and had a picnic lunch- the waterfall was a little disappointing, but it was still worth it. Aurora and Quique and their whole family came, so that was fun. Wednesday was my birthday and so we had a "suprise" party at our house. There were probably about 15 people there and we had lots of pizza, cake and even a pinata! It was my first pinata ever- Eyore, the donkey from Winnie the Pooh- and it was a tough little sucker! I really had to beat the crap out of it to open it up.
Thursday our band had practice and I gave Joel, the drummer, a ride home afterwards- which ended up being a long ways and I was low on gas. I got within half a mile of the gas station (there aren't as many here as there are in the States) and the car died on me. I pulled off the road and started to run to the gas station to get some gas (I was running because it was dark, on a lonely highway, and I am a gringo), but the problem was that I was still in my dress shoes... needless to say, I stepped in a pothole and twisted my ankle. I eventually called some friends for help and everything turned out fine... but it was a little bit of an embarassing night.
Semana Santa and beyond
So Jason and I headed over to Guatemala for Holy Week to visit my cousin and his family. It was our first time visiting a neighboring country to Honduras (although we have been to pretty much every part of Honduras), so it was interesting noticing the differences between the two cultures. We spent the week just hanging out with Brian and Jenny, and their two daughters- Ellie (4) and Lena (9 weeks). They are in the process of adopting Lena, which is why they are in Guatemala now. They live in Antigua, which is a small, touristy town outside of Guatemala City, and it is a huge destination for Semana Santa. Tons of people from all over Central America go there as sort of a Catholic pilgrimage and participate in Processions of icons around the city. It was fun just to participate in the general atmosphere of the place and to see the processions and the carpets (alfombras) that they make out of sawdust. One day we went on a day trip and hiked an active volcano that is close by. We got within 10 meters of a river of lava! It was amazing. We got up to the top when it was getting dark, so everything was glowing! If you want to see pictures from the trip, click
here (I'll put up pictures from the volcano soon).
Recently, I've been playing a lot of guitar at church, which takes a lot of time, but I've had some great experiences. A couple of weeks ago, our church worship band opened up for a really well know Latin Christian singer in front of over 4000 people. We just put out a CD of original worship songs that our music pastor wrote, so we played songs from that. People really enjoyed it and we even got an encore as the opening band! Besides that, I've been playing at the church for regular services and I'm starting to play in another rock band with some teachers from another school. Right now we're working on getting some shows set up at different clubs around before summer comes.
Thursday I got another haircut- the first since my students shaved my head last fall. I decided to go with something distinctively Latin, so I got a faux-hawk/mullet type haircut. I think it turned out fairly well. Check out the pics:
The major thing that is on my mind right now, though, is the decsion about next year. I have several options that I'm thinking through and several doors that have been closed recently. I might move back to the States and do some sort of construction while I continue to figure out what direction to head in life (maybe Wheaton, Wichita or Tulsa). Or I might stay here and teach another year. People would really like for me to stay here, but I have kind of decided that teaching isn't what I want to do with the rest of my life... so I'm not sure whether it would be the best career move. But it is a great ministry (that i get paid to do) and I could continue to learn Spanish and enjoy living in another country. So I would really appreciate all of your prayers while I try to decide where God would have me next.
God's peace to all of you.
Off on another trip
I don't have much time to write, but I wanted to update you guys a little bit. I have been REALLY busy recently- we had the teacher's retreat, then Nathan came, then we went on a three day field trip around the country, then grades were due, we parent teacher conferences and now we have the whole week off! It is for Semana Santa(Holy Week) and so Jason and I are leaving tonight on another trip. My cousin, Brian White, is living in Antigua,Guatemala for the next six months and so we are going to visit him for the week. We're taking an overnight bus tonight- it leaves at 10PM and gets in at 11AM the next morning. So it could be interesting. Right now we are going to watch a futbol (soccer) game at the National Stadium. One of the local teams from Tegus is playing (Olympia), so we're going with some friends. I'll keep you updated...
