On our bookshelves

A community that reads is a community that progresses

You might think that in the midst of this time of life, we don't have much time to read. Well, as it's turned out, we've been reading like crazy! We're continuing our pattern of reading good fiction out loud to each other, which has recently included Philip Gulley, John Grisham, The Red Tent, and Stones from the River. We're also slowly working our way up through Spanish literature, having graduated to "chapter books" (Harry Potter #1 for Alan and La Teleraña de Carlota/Charlotte´s Web for Beth). Beth has memorized La Mochila de Dora (The adventures of Dora the Explorer) from having read it to neighborhood kids about a million times. By the way, if you want to help us augment our collection of books for our neighborhood :), here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1J4QJAVK7ENUY/

Alan has lots of opportunities to read in preparation for his classes, including stuff by John Paul Lederach and John Driver, as well as reading about liberation theology from one of the sources, Gustavo Gutierrez. Beth is trying to wade through various books and articles on Nicaraguan history, politics, and current events. She just finished The Death of Ben Linder and a pamphlet called The Relevance of Anabaptist Nonviolence in Nicaragua Today--2 contrasting ideas about US citizen involvement when there is injustice perpetrated by our government. We have both been enjoying articles in the journal Mission Focus, as well as trying to read some Spanish articles on the theme of "mission." This has been partly out of our own interest, and partly because on Saturday we are leading a discussion with the Brethren in Christ Biblical Institute on the theme of "A vocabulary of God´s mission." The Secret Message of Jesus (by Brian McLaren) and Called to Question (by Joan Chittister) have also been a part of our thoughts and conversations recently. For the most part, we continue to recommend Brian McLaren--he synthesizes and makes accessible the thoughts of lots of good thinkers in this book (though we found the chapter on the peaceable kingdom pretty anticlimactic after the provocative, prophetic tone of most of the book).

We have been able to appreciate the gift of communication in lots of ways through this experience. Sometimes after a day of using all our mental efforts to communicate our ideas to people in Spanish, it is extremely refreshing to write and converse freely about theological concepts in our native language. We are glad to be doing this together.