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24 photos from Guatemala

April 30, 2013 — 3 Comments

Though our recent trip to Guatemala was primarily focused on meeting the people of La Limonada and doing our best to tell their stories, it was also Katie’s first time in my home country, so I was grateful we could stay in the country a few extra days.

As you know, we had a remarkably talented photographer among our ranks during the bloggers trip. But I did take my iPhone along with me, and managed to get some Instagram photos in La Limonada and later in the week in Panajachel and Antigua, during some sightseeing with Katie.

Since not all of you are on Instagram, I thought I’d share 24 of my favorites from our trip to the beautiful country.

View out the front door, Lemonade House

Tita Evertsz during orientation, Lemonade House

View from window of Limon Academy, La Limonada

A colorful sink, Limon Academy

T-shirt commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

Stairway in Mandarina Academy, La Limonada

Colorful wall, Mandarina Academy

View of La Limonada from above

Otto, a shoemaker who trains and employs young men getting out of gangs

Some Guatemalans get mausoleums, others get these

Katie with our sponsored child, Cristian, working on a puzzle

Good things happen in a house on this street in Guatemala City

Iglesia de San Francisco, Panajachel

Reading in a hammock, Panajachel

Contemplating the menu, Sunset Cafe, Panajachel

Lake Atitlan was mostly cloudy, but the volcano finally showed itself

Our hotel in Antigua gave us this very impressive and archaic key

Cross and candles, Antigua

Mary and Jesus in a convent courtyard, Antigua

Brunch at Doña Luisa’s, an old family favorite, Antigua

Fountain in a courtyard, Antigua

Iglesia de San Francisco, Antigua

Morning coffee at Cafe Condesa on Plaza Mayor, Antigua

The famous Santa Catalina Arch, Antigua

For more where these came from, feel free to follow me on Instagram.

In Culture Antigua, Guatemala, Instagram, La Limonada, Panajachel, photo essay, photography

Repaso: January 18, 2013

January 18, 2013 — Leave a comment

1. Writing in the morning
Roxana Robinson shares her morning writing routine in the New Yorker:

On a good day, I’m caught up by something larger than myself, held in the light by some celestial movement. For a brief charged time I may be irradiated, able to cast a shadow version of something I only imagine. The shadow will never be the bright true self that I know exists, but it will be as precise as I can make it, as real, as sharp, as beautiful. I will cast this shadow into the air, where it may never be seen, or where it may be seen at a great distance, and only by one person, someone I will never know. The point is to cast the shadow out into the air. I start in, tapping at the keyboard, setting down words, hoping that the light will catch me up.

2. Whispers of faith in literature
Gregory Wolfe, editor of Image, had a nice piece in the Wall Street Journal late last week:

Today the faith found in literature is more whispered than shouted. Perhaps a new Flannery O’Connor will rise, but meanwhile we might try listening more closely to the still, small voice that is all around us.

3. Fixing (or failing to fix) Haiti
Last Saturday marked the three year anniversary of the big earthquake in Haiti, and AP reporter Jonathan Katz has an important new book out about what has gone wrong in the recovery process. The Economist also has a piece taking a look at the situation, and it’s not flattering:

Billions of dollars of aid were pledged to Haiti after the earthquake, amid much talk about “building back better” and working with—not around—the government so as not to perpetuate the “Republic of NGOs”. But according to reports from the Centre for Global Development, a Washington think-tank, and the UN Special Envoy for Haiti, many aid pledges were unfulfilled. And in practice, most of the money that was disbursed went to a handful of international bodies, which mainly spent it on temporary relief (tents, shelters, water-tankers and so on) and the salaries of expat staff. Grand schemes to remake Haiti came almost to nought, partly because they lacked local input: outsiders have finally come round to the view of many Haitians that what is most needed is speedy and cheap housing.

4. 125 years of National Geographic
The Big Picture has a collection of photos from National Geographic dating back to the early 1900s to commemorate its 125th anniversary, which was this Sunday.

5. Dynamite
If you haven’t heard Sandra McCracken’s new record Desire Like Dynamite yet, you need to. Read this great interview with her, and watch this acoustic version of one of the new tunes.

Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!

[Image credit: National Geographic via The Big Picture]

In Repaso Desire Like Dynamite, development, Gregory Wolfe, Haiti, literature, National Geographic, photography, relief, Repaso, Roxana Robinson, Sandra McCracken, writing

Repaso: October 19, 2012

October 19, 2012 — 4 Comments

1. Why every city needs a Central Park
Because Katie is related to the designer of Central Park (he was kind of a big deal) and because I have fond memories of visiting the place on different occasions, I was especially interested to read Howard Freeman’s piece for This Is Our City this week:

For many of us New Yorkers, Central Park is our shared backyard, a place where we sleep and read, play sports, and (illegally) barbecue. (But who’ll tell the cops?) Residents and visitors alike have found in it an urban paradise that we couldn’t imagine living without. That word—paradise—comes from an Old Persian term for places that are “positive, harmonious and timeless.” From pairi + diz, it means a “walled enclosure” or garden. As humans, perhaps especially as Christians, we are drawn to the idea of a walled garden, a sheltered escape from our daily lives and an invitation to renewal. Creating shared paradises like this, though, is a vocation that Christians have tended to ignore, or only to engage from behind the scenes.

2. Ron Sider retiring
Ron Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, announced this week that he’ll retire next summer. His work has meant a great deal to many, myself certainly included.

3. If eyes could speak
My friend Scott Bennett has a great new gallery of photos featuring children from Brazil, Costa Rica, and Guatemala over at the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers.

4. The Christian case for cities
Kaid Benfield in The Atlantic Cities had a (very long) review of The Space Between, the new book by pastor and urbanist Eric Jacobsen. Incidentally, it was fun to notice that the church building in the top photo of the article is where Grace DC (the church I attended while I lived in DC) meets:

Central to The Space Between is the concept of shalom, which we usually translate simply as “peace” but which he believes contains much more meaning, including restored fellowship, human flourishing, justice, and relational wholeness for everyone. Jacobsen argues that, while each one of us carries a longing for shalom deep within, much of our recently built human settlement “bears not the slightest hint of that blessed condition that is described in the Bible.”

5. Interview with Kim Jung Il’s grandson
The Wall Street Journal posted a fascinating and surprisingly candid two-part interview with the late North Korean dictator’s grandson, Kim Han Sol, conducted by former UN Under-Secretary General Elisabeth Rehn. Parts of it are in ~~Finnish~~ Swedish, without subtitles, but the interview itself is in English. The first part is below, and the second half is here.

[Photo credit: bluntdelivery.com]

In Repaso Central Park, cities, Elisabeth Rehn, Eric Jacobsen, Frederick Law Olmstead, Howard Freeman, Kaid Benfield, Kim Han Sol, Kim Jung Il, Latin America, North Korea, paradise, parks, photography, Repaso, Ron Sider, Scott Bennett, The Space Between

Repaso: Angels & war; Christians in Egypt; art & the common good; God & Twitter; Latin American literature

June 8, 2012 — Leave a comment

1. Photography, angels, and memories of war
The New York Times’ Lens blog has a piece on Guatemalan photographer Daniel Hernández-Salazar, along with a slideshow of his work, documenting the country’s recent past:

Daniel Hernández-Salazar has made it his life’s work to remind his fellow Guatemalans of a painful history many have tried hard to forget. From his pictures of the country’s civil war, a genocide that claimed the lives of some 200,000 people, to the exhumations of clandestine graves and the cries for justice after the murder of a bishop who championed human rights, he has been there to record and remind.

2. Christians and the future of Egypt
A few months ago I met Ayman Ibrahim, an Egyptian Christian and PhD candidate at Fuller Seminary. This week he wrote an article for EthicsDaily.com about Egypt’s presidential runoff between a candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood and the former prime minister from the old regime, and he considers what it means for the country’s Christians:

Most Egyptians feel that they are left with two choices, each worse than the other. The people of Egypt – my people – want to live honorable lives without thinking much of political power or dreaming of wealth. Yet I know of more than 100 Egyptians, mostly Christians, who have decided to leave Egypt and filed for asylum. They claim they are persecuted in Egypt. However, the way I see it, they fear the future.

3. Art for the common good
Art historian Dan Siedell has a fascinating piece at Q Ideas:

I have spent my professional life working in or with art museums as an art historian. These wonderfully complex institutions exist because their founders believed that art is a common good: that the work done in the privacy of an artist’s studio, emerging from an artist’s distinctive experience of the world, is not only worth sharing with others but worth making it part of a community’s public trust. Art enriches our lives by reminding us through such ordinary materials as oil paint and canvas that we are more than our own ordinary materials. Art deepens and broadens our humanity, which we receive as a gift to be shared with others.

4. God and Twitter
The New York Times has an interesting story about how big-name Christian leaders have disproportionate influence on Twitter, leading one of Twitter’s senior executives to move from San Francisco to Atlanta to be able to hob-knob with this key demographic a bit more easily.

5. Latin American politics and literature
Peruvian novelist and essayist Mario Vargas Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010 and is one of Latin America’s most well-known authors, was recently featured on PBS’ NewsHour, talking about Latin American literature and politics.

Watch Writer Mario Vargas Llosa on the Importance of Literature on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

[Photo credit: Daniel Hernández-Salazar via nytimes.com]

In Repaso art, Ayman Ibrahim, Christian, Dan Siedell, Daniel Hernández-Salazar, Egypt, Guatemala, history, Latin America, literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, New York Times, photography, politics, Q Ideas, Repaso, Twitter

Repaso: Poverty defined; photography saving cultures; visions of Quito; redemption for Fidel; NYC church ban

February 10, 2012 — Leave a comment

1. How do you define poverty?
This one was posted last October but I stumbled upon it again this week and thought it would be worth sharing here. Chances are good that if you’re asked to define poverty you’d speak almost entirely in economic and material terms. That’s certainly part of any full definition, but when HOPE International’s Chris Ordway surveyed a “saving circle” of 20 men and women in Rwanda who are classified by standard definitions as being poor or very poor, their answers were very different from what you might expect. It’s interesting food for thought in considering what poverty truly is, and by extension, what possible remedies might look like.

2. Can photography save indigenous cultures?
Jacob Maentz, a photographer based in the Philippines, has a post at the Visual Peacemakers blog about the Katutubong Filipino Project, which he started. It seems like a very worthwhile project. Here’s a blurb:

For indigenous peoples who depend on the forest for their food, pharmaceuticals and peace of mind, taking away their land, as history shows, will diminish their way of life… The Katutubong Filipino Project aims to bring about awareness of the Philippine archipelago’s indigenous peoples’ by visually documenting their slowly disappearing cultural heritages… Strong photographs can cause people to stop and think for a moment letting them generate emotions about a subject while getting a glimpse into a different world. Likewise, photographs have a way of showing our common humanity, despite our many differences, and can help people unite and generate respect toward each other.

3. Visions of Quito from Ecuador’s most iconic artist
Jordi Sanchez-Cuenca has a post at polis (“a collaborative blog about cities across the globe”) introducing us to the work of Oswaldo Guayasamín (1919-99), an Ecuadorian painter of Quechua descent who wove his politics into his art, and now makes me really want to visit Quito:

Besides being Ecuador’s most famous artist, he was also a politically active intellectual who supported the causes of the poor and victims of slavery, exploitation, wars, famine and other tragedies on the continent… Most of his pieces express a profound sense of sorrow, which can be interpreted as a condemnation of the suffering that millions bore because of social injustices and wars. Despite this, his art is strikingly beautiful.

4. Redemption for Fidel Castro?
Brian Dijkema writes at the Cardus blog about something that, if true, would be extraordinary for Cuba:

Fidel Castro is a thief and a murderer… But rumour has it that Fidel is contemplating a return to his old faith. As with most news from Cuba, it’s difficult to determine the veracity of these claims, but an Italian newspaper quotes his daughter Alina as saying, “Today he is more interested in the fate of his soul than the future of Cuba.” Let us hope and pray that this is true. Let’s hope that he embraces the true fidel.

5. Tim Keller on NYC schools’ church ban
I was curious whether Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, would weigh in on the controversial decision in New York City last December banning churches from renting space in the city’s public schools for use on Sundays, when the buildings otherwise stand empty. He spoke out this week about the churches affected:

Redeemer has many ties with those churches and their pastors, and our church community invests time and resources to assist them to be good neighbors in their communities. Let them be those good neighbors. I am hopeful that the leaders of New York City and the legislators of New York State will see the value of a society that encourages all spheres of culture—the church, government, education, business, etc—to work together for human flourishing.

[Photo credit: Chris Noble via BarefootArtists.org]