Student Missionaries or Missional students?

 

I´ve just finished 3 days of giving mission and cultural training to a diverse group. Some are preparing to study in Russia and China, a few of their parents came too, and others have plans to serve cross-culturally at some point in the future. 

We´re beginning to work with a University recruitment agency, and it was great to offer this training together.

 

My friend Pamela came along too, and shared her experience of befriending and supporting international students in the UK

Our Grandparents legacy

Whilst I was in San Pedro, I was SOOOOOO happy to see this!

It might not look like much .. but this is a rubbish collection - with separate recyclables and normal rubbish - which has been introduced in San Pedro recently. This is a HUGE step forward. Previously there was no rubbish collection at all  - so all rubbish ended up, sooner or later, in the Lake.
This is the work of the new mayor in the town. Recognising the contamination problem in the water, and the effect that that has on the tourist industry, the new Mayor has instigated this new rubbish and recycling collection service.

Alongside that, a new bylaw bans the use of plastic bags, straws and polystyrene /disposable plates and cups in San Pedro. Interesting this has brought a lot of interest. For many market traders and street sellers in San Pedro, who supply the traveller community with cheap food, this is a big change. For the local community too, who, like most of Guatemala, use disposable plates etc as a norm. Many would have said that a ban like this, would have been very difficult to pass (and enforce) but the Mayor introduced it using the rhetoric of 'la herencia de los abuelos' - our grandparents legacy -- a sense of recapturing the respect and value that our grandparents generation had for the nature that surrounds it. This particularly appealed to the indigenous population in San Pedro. So the law was passed, and has now been introduced. Market traders has returned to using banana leaves as packaging (or locals take their own containers to market), the restaurants having stopped offering plastic straws with the drinks and I saw a new shop in town, selling biodegradable food containers for take aways. It would be fantastic if other towns and cities could take inspiration from San Pedro, and make a change for the benefit of our planet - and everything and everyone that lives on it!

Serendipity

Last week I spent some time in San Pedro La Laguna, one of my favourite places in Guatemala. I had a couple of work reasons to be there, but also used it as a study week, reading and writing for an essay for my MA course.
It was great to be there - a wonderful place to be able to disconnect and focus (as well as start each day with a swim!).

'Don´t let the goal of your journey blind you from learning about your purpose along the way'.
That was a great quote from one of the books I was reading. It´s taken from the story of the Princes of Serendip (related by Lederach in his book, The Moral Imagination) -- which is apparently where the word Serendipity comes from -- a sense of taking notice of and being grateful for the surprising blessings which come along whilst we´re on our way to somewhere else. That is so often the experience in missions - when we have a clear purpose and goal, and yet God brings us lessons along the way that we didn´t expect. It´s always worth taking notice!