"The Beautiful Here": Spring 2015 Student Post

Remembering Oscar Romero

This week's student blog post comes to us from Julie Marmion. Julie is a student at Biola University, studying Spanish and linguistics. Here, she reflects on the recent commemoration of the legacy and life of Archbishop Oscar Romero from El Salvador, who was assassinated in 1980 while giving mass.

Leah (left) and Julie (right), traveling to an organic farm.

     Two days ago was the celebration feast day of Monseñor Óscar Romero. Perhaps his legacy is unfamiliar to you, but as the Catholic Church prepares for his canonization, I encourage you to carefully consider his life as an example for living out Jesus’ mission for justice. Romero was the archbishop of El Salvador during the late 1970s in the midst of great governmental violence, yet despite the impending peril, he found strength to speak out against the violence, torture, poverty, and disregard for human dignity. Although he was assassinated, his message planted a seed of hope among the people of Latin America. 

     I cannot begin to understand the situation of the oppressed, but my experiences here in Latin America have put a face to the issues and injustices about which I have learned. Although I had previously learned about the fight of the Sandinistas against Somoza in Nicaragua, living and conversing with a family who had experienced the revolution gave me a personal connection to the situation. It wasn’t just another group of citizens fighting for liberty; it was Chilo, Isella, and Eric. It was the beautiful face staring back at me as we enjoyed our Sunday morning breakfast of Nacatamales.

     Similarly, having listened to the life story of Elmer, a speaker who lived in the same framework as Romero, I began to recognize the devastating effects of poverty on the human beings it infects. These interactions do not permit me to deny the reality of such injustices nor the necessity and power of Romero's courageous opposition to them. In resisting the patterns of brutality and destitution, Elmer suggests we be intentional in forming relationships with the marginalized and in standing with them in solidarity, which Romero declares to be the mission of the church. 

In the documentary “Romero”, Rutilio Grande, an influential priest and advocate for human rights, professed, “How can I love God who I don’t see if I don’t love my neighbour who I do see?”  

     This causes me to reflect on my attitude with respect to the oppressed and my responsibility as a Christian. Sometimes we get caught up with other aspects of faith that we ignore Jesus’ vision for society—a Kingdom characterized by love and justice. This vision still lacks completion. Thus, we as Christians ought to offer ourselves as instruments in God’s triumph over injustice as we follow the example of Jesus and those such as Óscar Romero who shared his vision.

Nicaraguan Host Families

One of the things that really sets a semester at LASP apart is our focus around placing students in host families throughout the semester. Very few days are spent living in an environment with just members of the group, and we do so a proposito. Our goal is that students will connect in meaningful ways with their hosts, and become true members of a family, not just a guest in a home. Many students cite their host family experiences as that which impacted them the most during their semester at LASP. Check out our latest semester update to see what I mean (and maybe read a quote YOU wrote alumni!). Pura Vida.

 

Mission Statement Monday: Looking back...

Our first Mission Statement alumni post comes from Tim Honchel, who was a LASP student in Fall 2009. Follow Tim as he reflects on the semester abroad experience that introduced him to author (LASP friend & speaker) Elmer Hernán Rodríguez Campos and helped him find the path he is on today. You can read more about Tim's translation work here.

  After a transforming short-term mission trip to Honduras when I was 16, I knew that I wanted to do something different with my life and help change the world for the better. For a long time, I thought that meant becoming a missionary in Latin America, which prompted me to study abroad through the Best Semester Latin American Studies Program in the fall of 2009. My three months with LASP confirmed my convictions to do something out of the ordinary and gave me the tools, insights, and confidence I needed to get started. The experience also shaped those convictions in a way I would have never anticipated.

Experiential Learning
I came to LASP with a set of conscious and unconscious expectations, only to find that each day was an adventure and that I never knew what to expect. I had wanted to learn more about Latin American culture and life. Now I was immersed almost full-time with a Latin American family, observing and experiencing the ins and outs of everyday life. I had wanted to improve my Spanish so I could communicate better. Now I was finding that language was more than a collection of words and was allowing me to connect with people that I could barely relate to before. I had wanted to learn about Latin America in the present day, but I was also learning about the historical forces that have shaped and continue to shape the region. I had wanted to learn about poverty and how to help people escape it. Now I was meeting and hearing the stories of people who had been poor their entire lives. I was also meeting people who had very few material possessions but lived such rich fulfilling lives that they were redefining my perspective of poverty altogether. In summary, I discovered that my education included, but could go beyond the information contained in textbooks.

Seek First the Kingdom – Be Open to Critical Thinking
The lectures, experiences, and relationships from that semester in Costa Rica challenged me to question things I had uncritically taken for granted, to explore possibilities that I had never considered, and kindled a desire to understand other people and the world we live in. I was drawn back to Jesus’ teachings about the Kingdom of God and reminded that the world (even much of the Christian world surprisingly, including myself!) did not operate by or think highly of the principles he described and modeled.* I realized that I still wanted to change the world for the better, but the best way to start doing that might be to first make some changes in myself.

Find out more here.

Learning Never Ends – Global Awareness
I returned home committed to learn more about the Kingdom of God and the things that might be preventing us from living it out. I wanted to take at least a year to intentionally explore this ideal, this way of life. So after graduating college, I traveled through Central America and was welcomed with generous hospitality in every town I visited. I also saw how the products we enjoy are often made possible by importing natural resources and cheap labor from countries that have been allowed no other choices. I then moved back to the US, to a predominantly African-American urban neighborhood, where I became aware of my own unconscious racial barriers and fears, the numerous challenges facing American minorities, and was able to develop genuine relationships with people whose backgrounds were often very different than my own. Next, I went to work in a US oilfield and came to understand the effects, implications, and dependence of our economy and way of life on the world’s ecosystems that we are a part of and that sustain our basic needs; and the tendency to use economic policies and war for control of foreign resources. I interned at organic farms and enjoyed learning how to live more simply and work with others to more directly meet our basic needs. Finally, I helped translate and publish the powerful story of Elmer Hernán Rodríguez Campos, one of the friends I made during my time at LASP.

Where I am Now
I’m still on this journey and it’s one that has rarely been easy and will likely take my entire life (or longer). Learning how to sail in seemingly uncharted waters, living in a US culture when I have fairly different values requires a lot of my energy. There is plenty of stumbling and uncertainty, which as I learned from my experiences at LASP, can be an opportunity to grow even more. Instead of material wealth and convenience, I’ve found my wealth in deeper relationships, better health, personal freedom, and the knowledge that I’m learning how to live in a way that can hopefully make the world a better place. I’m doing something different with my life after all, and I’m now able to use my life experiences, planning skills, and business education to offer practical help to other groups and individuals that want to do something different and are trying to figure out how. This service is one way I try to give back and also how I earn a humble living. I love being self-employed.

Appreciation
My friends and fellow students, even though they came and left with various interests and goals, all benefited and grew from their time at LASP. I’m personally grateful to LASP for inspiring me to look deeper, ask questions, think critically, step out of my comfort zone, and work towards making my goals a reality. Three months of transformative learning has gone on to impact my entire life.

*Perhaps we do this because following Jesus’s teachings would require us to acknowledge the source of most problems and renounce that which we love most: ourselves. It is easier to reinterpret these teachings or place the focus on less demanding passages that require small sacrifices, postpone life’s meaning until after death, and put the blame on others. It takes courage, trust, and humility to admit that we are hurting others to benefit ourselves and then learn to change our ways.

Spring 2015: We've only just begun...

Our first student blog post of Spring 2015 comes to us from Jon Thornton. Jon is a Junior at Wheaton College in Illinois, studying Communications and Anthropology.

The beautiful opportunity to experience a new culture, to learn from a new perspective; just two weeks in San José and we LASPers are settling in poco a poco.

    The city of San José is located in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, a highly elevated area of the country surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. In other words, the views are striking. Taking the bus home, one might look over a downward slope of red, green, and grey-roofed homes to see a distant mountain shrouded in clouds. However, one may also struggle trying to explain this same view in Spanish. Language, basic communication even, has been a consistent challenge. If Spanish is the language of love (as so many ticos insist), then we LASPers have just re-entered the awkward, sometimes-daunting phase of pre-teen romance.

Our group is eleven strong with the women leading the men by one (6 women; 5 men). We come from schools and universities all across North America, from the Southeast of the United States to the Northwest of Canada. With majors ranging from Spanish to Biology to Religious Studies to International Politics, our small group is about as interdisciplinary as a group of eleven can be. Each person brings her own context into conversations to make the learning process very interesting. Also, we like each other, which helps a lot.

     However, it is not simple to describe in a blog post the new relationships, new information, new understandings, etc. that come with this type of “abroad” experience. Gallo pinto, its taste and its importance, can’t fully be described in a sentence or two. The lessons we are learning through dialogue with our Costa Rican friends and family and professors is difficult to relay in text without omitting a great amount of valuable detail (please ask us about these lessons). What can be said is this: the study of Latin America and of Spanish challenges us, as North Americans, to think outside our own context. It forces us to pursue the intricacies of our own life actions and their impact of the world at large.

     This is the beginning of a semester we all know will pass too quickly. As relationships with our families deepen and opportunities for cross-cultural dialogue increase, we pray that we would be receptive to the truths God reveals. Please think of and pray for us as often as you can, so that this semester would be a reflection of God’s glory. More to come…. LASPers Spring 2015

Welcome to Spring 2015!

Hola and a special welcome to our Spring 2015 students and their "followers"! If you've already been following our blog updates, you know that we work to create a LASP Update every 2-3 weeks to share with interested applicants for coming semesters, and to keep those who love LASP up-to-date on current happenings. If you have any advice, ideas, or updates of your own to share, don't hesitate to send them our way: lasp@cccu.org We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Nicaragua: A Brief Recap

We have returned safe and sound from our 10-day study trip to Nicaragua. Students are enjoying a few extra days off to reflect and process on all the experience meant for them, and what it will signify for their future as well. Here is a short recap of our trip, look for more to come!

Last update of Core Seminar

Here is our third and last update from Core Seminar Fall 2014! On Monday we'll head to Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua. We'll be on a study trip for 10 days, living with host families for part of our time and spending many hours engaging local leaders who will give us a better sense of the history and current situation present in Nicaragua. Look for an update upon our return, and have a blessed couple of weeks.  

Dios te bendiga.