Entering Easter Posted on April 8th, 2007 by

Entering Easter
Global Missions Newsletter for March and April by Justin Haaheim

Dear Friends and Family,
Happy Easter! I hope you’re well, and I hope you’ve had a good day today with your own friends or family. I’m fortunate to have been able to spend a week in the end of March with my older brother Jason who came down to attend a friend’s wedding. It was really good to see him, and good to have someone close to me down here to see where I call home.

One of the things I really value about these newsletters is the ability to be frank and honest about my feelings and experiences. That rawness, as I write about both the really fulfilling and the really emptying moments here, is something that I think has helped me to be honest with myself, too, and through that to feel more centered — even in the rough times. That said, I’d like to write this months newsletter in two pieces representing two forces that I feel have been really stretching me this month — not always for the better.

Violence
In all places. In objects. In systems. In people. In myself. Violence has dominated a lot of my thoughts in the last month. The violation of being mugged at knife-point last month has made me kind of sick with a mix of fear and anger in a way I definitely didn’t expect. I think if you had asked me beforehand, I would’ve said that being robbed would be frustrating and saddening, but something that in the end I would move on from when I got over not having the material things that I lost. But the truth of it is that the much greater impact to me has been what has come days and weeks afterwards. I guess I never anticipated psychological repercussions of what in some ways doesn’t seem like THAT violent of an event, but since then I feel like I see through this lens of violence. I think about it, and I anticipate it. I walk through Retiro where I was robbed and I half clench my fists. I walk by people on the street that dress or look or talk like the people that robbed me, and I imagine how they’ll rob me. I imagine fighting back. I walk through the barrio San Pablo to La Lechería feeling the weight of all the people looking at me. Sometimes I just want to scream back at the eyes that watch me — that always seem on the verge of tearing me down. I want to scream that I’m tired of being singled out, I’m tired of expecting violence, and I’m tired of my own violence. Maybe more than anything, this is scary to me because I never thought I had this kind of violence in me. It reminds me again that I am broken. I am not the invulnerable person I thought I was. I am not cool and forgiving like I imagined being.

Connection
Last month I started volunteering at an orphanage called “La Casita” in a near-suburb of the capital, and if violence is one force that’s overwhelmed me in the last few weeks, connection with the kids from the orphanage and powerful amounts of love and affection are the opposing ones. The orphanage is one of the many in the Greater Buenos Aires area that struggles to stay afloat financially, but it’s something I’m prone to forget as I spend time with those kids. Money or not, what they really need is love. They need people to care for them. When I walked in the door the first day one of the boys (they’re all boys) came up to me and wrapped his arms around my waist, burying his head in my shirt. He’s a kid that is actually pretty alpha-maleish and kind of a “tremendo” (rascal), but he still periodically comes back for hugs — just to wrap himself around someone. It’s a powerful sign to me of how much he and the other kids just need attention.

Really, I feel like they just need someone more to *be* there with them. Initially we had talked about me doing some teaching or tutoring or formal music-type things, but after spending my first week there I requested with the administrators there that I just stay kind of “unassigned”. I want to be able to be for those kids whatever they need me to be.

Volunteering at the orphanage has been a pretty significant contrast for me from my volunteering at La Lechería. While I’ve enjoyed my roles at La Lecheria and my relationships with the people there, my experiences at the orphanage have made me realize how task-oriented my volunteering at La Lechería has become. One of the fundamental principles of the ELCA’s idea of being a missionary (which they call “accompaniment”) is that your presence wherever you are should be just that — a presence. While it’s true that on some level being present and “accompanying” still involves doing things, the problem is that when we become too oriented towards *doing* we lose our sense of being, and that above all things is something we have to hold on to. My time with the kids at the orphanage has reminded me that I am enough just as I come to them — without projects or programs. I don’t feel evaluated or validated there based on anything but my presence. I’m really thankful for the chance to volunteer there, and I’m grateful that I can be something to those kids and give them what they so desparately need not by any convoluted effort on my part to fix what’s wrong in their lives, but just by being me.

It’s a beautiful, fall Easter Day here in Buenos Aires. Pedro tells me there’s a “viento sur” (south wind) that’s cooling things off. He told me this morning about how one tree out in front of our house will start to lose its leaves in 2 or 3 weeks, but how the other won’t lose its leaves for a full 2 months. I’m happy to be here.

Still, the last four or five weeks have been hard for me — even beyond the violence in and around me. A couple of new incidents of being verbally and physically harassed (kids getting in my face and threatening me, grabbing my arm, etc. — I’m still ok) as I walked to La Lechería crossed a line for me and have kept me from going there until I can find a safer way to get there. I’ve been trying to keep busy with things at church and some of my own things (reading, practicing music, etc), but having so little stability in my day-to-day life here brought me to kind of a break-down point a few days ago.

For a little while now I’ve thought about sending out prayer requests with my newsletters for the people and situations in my life here, and I’d like to start this month. I hope these will be a meaningful way (for whoever wants to) to focus your thoughts and prayers for my time down here. Let me know.

For me, I’d ask for support for my own prayers: I pray for stability and for healing in my life. I pray that, as the season of Lent seemed to come with violence, frustration and disorientation for me, that now in Easter I might find peace, renewed relationships with my friends and places where I volunteer, and a healthier relationship with the violence that remains around me.

As another request, please pray for the kids at the orphanage “La Casita” — that they may get the care and attention they need and deserve.

Finally for the last prayer request, a little story:
Last night I watched “The Passion of the Christ” at a church in the capital, and was pretty subdued as I walked to the bus stop to head home. I decided, inspired by the movie, to look for a cross or cross necklace to get from the street vendors along Avenida Cabildo. I saw that one guy had a few on his blanket on the sidewalk and started asking him how much they were. The guy stood up and started talking to me in English, which I usually resist (for practice, and since a lot of times their English isn’t very good), but he actually spoke really well and with this great Irish accent. We ended up getting into almost an hour long conversation where we talked about our respective lives, work, politics, movies, etc. He told me about growing up in Uruguay, and about traveling to Brazil with his family. He asked me about where I’m from and what I’m doing here.

At one point he said to me as if it were a bit of trivia, “You know what, man? There are only two kings in the world. In all of history, only two kings in the whole world. Elvis Presley. And Lance Armstrong.” He told me about how he had read Lance’s autobiography, and told me stories from it about Lance’s training. I told him about Lance’s cameo in the movie “Dodgeball”. Later he talked about his wife and daughter. I talked about my family, and about Minnesota and the US. It was honestly a really great conversation, and I was really glad to laugh so much after being so down from the movie. After I had paid for the necklace and started to walk away, I asked his name. He turned and said, “Martin, man. Martin Lance Armstrong!” We laughed again, and I headed on my way. One more on the prayer request list would be Martin and his family who are obviously struggling financially (he told me that they’re sleeping on the street), but still have amazingly high spirits — high enough to brighten my whole evening.

I think I’ll leave you with that for this month. Martin Lance Armstrong. 🙂

May you have a happy and fulfilling Easter season. May God bless you and keep you. Keep in touch.
Much love,
Justin

Pictures from my time here in Argentina.
My newsletter Google-group website with copies of my previous newsletters.
ELCA website with information on my program.
And my photoblog: Light-on

 

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