{"id":399,"date":"2012-08-31T13:30:18","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T17:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/?p=399"},"modified":"2012-10-05T13:39:50","modified_gmt":"2012-10-05T17:39:50","slug":"look-ma-im-floating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/2012\/08\/31\/look-ma-im-floating\/","title":{"rendered":"Look, Ma, I’m Floating!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After a somewhat warm and sweaty language session at Andrea\u2019s house, I asked her daughter Natalie if she wanted to go to the creek. There were only a few days left before school started again, and she had been begging me to go. Andrea surprised me by saying she would come, too. She said, \u201cI want to see how they swim in your land.\u201d The creek is only slightly over my head in one spot, but most of the kids are too afraid to venture into the \u201cdeep\u201d waters. Having grown up near a huge river, it seems like an overgrown mud puddle to me, but I promised to swim the whole way across.<\/p>\n

Since I was showing off, I stood on my hands, did flips underwater, held my breath for a long time and floated on my back. This really got their attention! \u201cKochih pin ati,\u201d said one Andrea\u2019s boys\u2014she\u2019s sleeping on the water. \u201cCome here,\u201d I told Natalie, \u201cand I\u2019ll teach you.\u201d With a series of giggles and shrieks she lay back with me holding her up. \u201cDon\u2019t keep yourself like a piece of wood,\u201d I said haltingly, trying to think in Nahuatl. \u201cRest yourself. Relax. I won\u2019t drop you.\u201d Slowly, Natalie began to float.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure there are kids all over the world learning to float every day, but God really encouraged my heart with this seemingly carefree moment. \u201cNatalia trusts me,\u201d I thought. Her mom didn\u2019t seem alarmed at what was happening either, but was calmly washing some clothes, occasionally glancing up at the universally common cries of, \u201cMom, look! Mom, look at me!\u201d I am positive that this wouldn\u2019t have happened last year. I\u2019m not sure it would have happened a few months ago. Our continued presence and efforts to learn are paying off.<\/p>\n

The people no longer ask us when we\u2019re going to go back to our land. We live here now. They are no longer surprised that we want to learn their language, but patiently try to help us. They share personal stories and insights into their culture, and ask about ours. They ask for favors and do favors for us in return. Their children come over to our houses simply to play, to color, or to look at pictures. God is building in our hearts a love for his people here and trust is one of the responses to that love. We know GOD is doing this. It\u2019s not common or normal\u2014most tribal groups in Mexico are suspicious and mistrustful of outsiders. We know the Holy Spirit is at work. By simply being here, being a part, and being students, we are preparing for the day when we say, \u201cWe care deeply for you and so we have something important to tell you.\u201d Please pray with us that the Nahuatl will be ready to hear and believe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a somewhat warm and sweaty language session at Andrea\u2019s house, I asked her daughter Natalie if she wanted to go to the creek. There were only a few days left before school started again, and she had been begging me to go. Andrea surprised me by saying she would come, too. She said, \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[705],"tags":[416],"class_list":["post-399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-news-article","tag-village-life","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/katie-moore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}