Mission: Urban

Posts fromThe Elledges

Our team has a lot of unknowns ahead of us. Nate and Deb summed it up well in their last prayer update. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, or if you don’t receive it, you can read it HERE.
The last several years for us have been unknown after unknown after [...]

Today was a pretty normal and very relaxing day. Nothing in any way strange or culturally stressful happened today (yippee!). So, I thought it’d be a good day to make a list of “things I did today that I probably wouldn’t have done if we lived in the U.S.” Enjoy.
- watched Saturday morning [...]

You hear a lot, as a student of ILE, that learning Spanish may not be God’s primary purpose for bringing someone here. I think the first time I heard that I knew it was going to be true of my experience. The past month or so, I’ve been struggling with culture shock issues, [...]

Leading up to and since returning from our short trip to California last week, I’ve been insanely busy, going pretty much non-stop. And since I really need to get to studying and don’t have a lot of time to put together a thoughtful, meaningful post right now, let me just post something that’s quick [...]

I’m thankful for our training in cultural adjustment.  Stage 1, where you think everything is wonderful, has come and gone.  I remember thinking that our old, ungrounded stove that was prone to shock you was…quaint.  But now, I think my rose-colored glasses have been replaced by smog-smudged ones.  Please don’t get me wrong, I still [...]

A few weeks after we moved here, I remember feeling very frustrated one night with the food we were eating (which wasn’t anything that Jil had made, by the way). It wasn’t that the food was really bad or anything, it was just that it was different. And even though I’d even tried [...]

My daughter thinks Jesus is a doctor she met once. I’ve utterly failed as a missionary and I haven’t even made it through language school yet. Granted, she’s only 2 years old, but still. Each night when I lay her down, we have a bit of a routine, where I’ll tell her [...]

This trimester I am doing the same FARO program that Brian is doing. So far, I absolutely love it. I have some very kind and very-willing-to-help people on my route that I talk with twice a week. All of them work in or own a store of some sort in our neighborhood [...]

The other night, as I was diligently working on my conversation homework, a Tico came by to hang out with Rich. He’s part of Rich’s FARO route. They had prearranged to meet on Tuesday nights at our house. When Gustavo arrived, I talked with him for a few minutes, but quickly [...]

Language school is hard. The school part is hard in its own right, but what’s really hard is everything else. The perceived competition; the irreplaceable loss of fellowship with your closest friends; the inexplicable absence of virtually every adequacy or ability you thought you had; the constant and unrelenting stress of living in [...]