My Team
(From left to right: Christian, Melissa, John, Chelsea, Me, Nate & Lissy)
Our Campuses
IUTM (Chelsea and Me)
LUZ Architecture/Engineering (Chelsea and John)
LUZ Humanities (Melissa and John)
LUZ Medicine (Christian, Nate and Lissy)
LUZ Sciences (Melissa and Nate)
UNICA (Christian, Lissy & Me [not anymore though])
On Wednesdays and Thursdays Chelsea and I go to IUTM. We've been mostly connecting with students that Chelsea and the previous summer project (short missionary trips lead by Cru) had met over the last year. IUTM is very much Chavista (supporters of Chavez), as shown by the red paint scattered throughout the campus. A student who looked like he was in his thirties stood in line in front of me at the comedor (cafeteria) with a lady who appeared to be his significant other. As I spoke in English to my friend Obi, the guy turned around and started speaking to me. I was able to answer his questions (that I was American, I don't speak very much Spanish, and that it's very hard to learn) until he asked me whether I was Chavista or not. I could clearly see he was. I tried my best to act like I had no idea what he was talking about since I didn't want to make him angry. To be fair and honest, I didn't have much of an opinion on Chavez. I've purposely distanced myself from American politics, so I have absolutely no desire to emerge myself in the politics of another country. But the man wouldn't let go so easily. He shortened the question to this "Chavez.. Good or Bad". And I shortened my answer to "I don't know".
For the past 4 weeks I have also been working on a campus called UNICA. It's a smaller artsy-type campus that is easy to get around. We've had plenty of great conversations lead by Christian, who is the only Spanish speaker out of him, Lissy and I. Each day we were on campus, Christian would lead us in conversation and Lissy (mostly) and I would chime in here and there. Although it seemed that everyone we talked to were girls. Every person on UNICA who was a Christian interested in joining our group (and the few we lead to Christ while there) was a girl.
Every. Single. One.
Every. Single. One.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the girls that we've gotten to know at UNICA. They've really been great and I've enjoyed spending time on campus with them, but I started to realize more and more everyday that I wasn't supposed to be there. It had crossed my mind several times while feeling quite useless in what were all Spanish conversations. The one day I went to UNICA with Christian and Lissy and the first thing we did was meet up with a girl who Christian wanted to follow up with. While that was happening, Lissy was catching up with a girl who spoke English (this girl seemed to only like Lissy. She may have had a distaste in guys). I can't express to you how useless it feels to not be able to really contribute to either conversation. Couldn't speak Spanish and was cold shouldered from the other conversation. As much as I loved the students I met on UNICA, I just couldn't stay. I felt more secure in this decision when I evaluated my options of being on a different campus. We had 3 on UNICA and the other two campuses for those days had just 2. It just seemed to make more sense to have the larger number of staff on the bigger campuses (Engineering or Sciences). My choice will probably be Sciences.
Activities and Goals
Every week we go on campus to meet with students we know or to share the gospel with others. Often times there are students there who are part of Vida Estudiantil. We assist in helping them do events and activities on campus such as prayer times, Bible studies, and outreaches. Our goal is to see the students take leadership over aspects of the ministry as they begin to grow and multiply.
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