Grammar and Literature

So last week and this week I have been working on 3 different things for "school." Firstly, we have had 5 sessions of Faith & Integration where we have a speaker talk to us about something faith-related and then ask questions and meet a few times to discuss our thoughts in smaller groups. For my language and literature concentration, we have grammar and literature. We meet for grammar every day and our class is split into two groups.. I am in the lower level of the two groups, although I feel like all of us in this concentration are now pretty decent at Spanish. For literature we were given a packet with various poetry and also short book to read during our internship.


Okay so, workload-wise, it's really relaxed. For 4 of the Faith & Integration sessions, we have had readings that take about 15 minutes long to do beforehand. Also for that class, we have had two 2~ page responses due (in Spanish) about the readings and our responses/analyses.

The first lecture we had was over the context in which Jesus lived. I had already learned the majority of the information that was given through my Old/New Testament classes at IWU and a book I never finished called Who is This Man, by John Ortberg. However, I enjoyed the session and gained some new insights about contextual evidence through parables. For example, in one parable Jesus describes a man that goes to the town to get workers and then keeps going back every hour throughout the day- in the end, he pays them all the same wage (the wage of a day's work). However, while the parable has a very strong point, we are able to see interesting contextual information through the fact that the vineyard owner was returning back to town throughout the day and there were laborers still looking for work. Dr. Irene Foulkes, who gave the lecture, explained that during this time, there was a labor crisis in the Roman empire which is why there would be people waiting around all day in hopes of finding some work. Anyway, I thought that was a cool nuance for reading the Bible's parables.

The second lecture was about liberation theology. As I understand it, liberation theology is essentially the theology that believes that poverty and major inequality are not God's will and that it's our job as Christians to fix the vast inequalities. And that we are called to have "incarnational" ministry, getting our hands dirty, just as Jesus did.

The third lecture was given by a white missionary that has been living as a missionary for over 60 years. He is a very well respected theologian (evidently), very well respected missionary, and very well respected professor. His story was awesome and the man is a character for sure. He's participated in some 'big' things and even told us that during a meeting with Fidel Castro, Fidel asked if any of them could explain their opinion on the book of revelation, of which John Stam had studied greatly. Dr. John Stam (or Dr. Juan Stam in Latin America) has acquired a very 'Latin American perspective' after living here for so long and he has seen some incredible things in his life. He has also just finished the fourth part (I believe) of his bible commentary on Revelation... and it is supposedly "incredible." So that's cool..

The fourth lecture was actually today and was given by a homosexual guy from Costa Rica. He told us his story- growing up knowing that he was gay but also wanting to be religious and having a relationship with God. He grew up Catholic and later became Pentecostal. He had some girlfriends but eventually had 'relations' with another guy during this same time and began to plan his suicide. A few months later he took (as he said) about 20 sleeping pills hoping to go to sleep and never wake up. He woke up in the hospital and evidently they put him on more sleeping medicine because he had 'overdosed from something'. After a week of being in a coma-like state, he was better and decided to confess to his pastor about being gay. He had an exorcism performed on him but a few days afterwards, he realized that nothing had changed. He felt he had to leave the church because it still was not accepting and after 8 years of being churchless, he felt that God wanted him to start a place for the LGBT community in Costa Rica. He currently runs a community type thing (I guess it's kind of a church?) that is open to all people and functions like a church. Also, he has been with his current male partner for 13~ years. Definitely an interesting and beneficial time.

Tomorrow we will have our 5th lecture over "An evangelical view on service and missions." The readings for this lecture were very anti-service/missions because of the long-term harm that is often caused. I'm more or less excited for the lecture though.


As for grammar, the class has been great. The profesora is very intelligent- I would say she definitely has more linguistic knowledge of English than any of us have. She's also a very good teacher. It's been a lot of fun and I feel like I've learned a lot just over the past week and a half.

Literature hasn't been bad either. The poetry has been really good although at times a bit hard to initially understand. Also, the work load is spread out really well so that I am not really under much stress. We have one 3-5 page paper due on Friday, another one due sometime during our internship, and then a like 5-6 page paper due at the very end of our internship.

As for my internship.... On Monday I will be taking a bus with one of my suitcases (leaving the other one at the LASP offices until we end the internship to come home) and traveling up to where ever it is I am going. As far as I know, I am going to be working on an organic farm. The family I will be with has a mother, father, daughter (19) and son (25). I'm a little anxious to meet them and settle in again but am obviously excited as well.

Peace!