thanks, Thanks and THANKS!

The first week is done, in fact we are half way through week two, and so far the experiences (one day, one new experience; no, one day, five new experiences) keep adding up and the Ecuadorians keep smiling. They regularly express how friendly and welcoming people have been to them, and that is a good story to hear. An African proverb says it takes a community to raise a child, and I am grateful for the growth of community in my, and in my household’s lives. Here are some of the things for which Adrian, Alex, Junior and I are very grateful:

CBC – Marcy Markusa was a gracious host in speaking with us about first impressions. And then almost the entire CBC studio in Winnipeg made friendly overtures and welcoming comments to the young men.

Marie Dueck – “I found this casserole dish. My job will be to fill it and then I’ll give it to you. Your job is to empty it and return it to me, and then I’ll fill it and give it to you and you’ll empty it and …” Is she an angel or what? The guys have added casseroles to the list of best foods ever!

Judy Heinrichs  – “Do you have lunches made for tomorrow? I’ll make lunches and deliver them to the school for the boys.” Followed by Jolene Friesen a few days later. They guys have added sandwiches to their list of best foods ever!

Paul Reimer and Naomi Stobbe hosted a “Welcome to Canada” party which had the “most amazing food in the world!” and “such friendly, wonderful people.” And now the outdoor hot tub has been discovered and recorded as “an experience I will never forget.”

Theressa and Greg Vogt brought ceasar salad, PIZZA (I have never had such good pizza! Can I have just one more piece? Okay, one more piece?), a fruit platter (the blackberries in Ecuador are not as sweet) and vanilla cake with whip cream and raspberry sauce.

Cheryl Reimer-Vogt offered an invitation for Valentine’s Day dinner, where, like her mother, the food prepared is an expression of her love for others and her willingness to reach out and serve those around her.

Anne Kornelson – “I just baked some bread. Can I bring you some?” And then come four, fresh-from-the-oven loaves of incredibly delicious bread. “The bread here is so good.”

Marigold and Larry Peters – “Do you have some rooom in your freezer? You have young boys there, so could you use some bread?” (Larry runs the old church bakery) and nine more delicious loaves arrived.

Cara Hart – didn’t keep her birthday celebration (and the superbowl) to herself, but invited total strangers into her home and made them feel welcome. They had heard of American-style football, but never seen a game. The Superbowl started off their viewing experiences in about as big a way as is possible.

Stiven and David Rodriguez have waited for some time for these Spanish-speaking “older brothers,” and have they ever been a help. They spoke Spanish and English with the Ecuadorian boys upon their arrival, just when the first sleep was leaving their eyes, to welcome them here with the comfort of a familiar language. Then they helped with the initial vocabulary learing so that the guys could find their way around the house and kitchen and refrigerator. Their excitement and enthusiasm about spending time with us makes all of us feel special.

Judy and Marlowe Heinrichs for making their sand-pit, now a snow heaven, available for us to go sledding. It was the guys first “playing in snow” experience, followed by a beautifully warm fire along with hot chocolate and delicious cookies.

Jolene Friesen (again) who has provided a treasure trove of clothes to help keep the boys warm.

Kristy Zabowski has provided boots, jackets, pants … so much to outfit the boys. And she teaches them conversational English during period two of their school day and makes the large SRSS seem a little bit smaller and more familiar with her smiles and connections already fostered with her time in Puerto Lopez over the past two summers.

Evelyn who called – I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but I heard your story on the radio – and invited us for a lunch of cabbage borscht and open face sandwiches with an apartment full of neighbours (Fernwood Place in Steinbach) who will feed us, love us and pray for us.

Peter K. Reimer who called – I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but I heard your story on the radio – and invited to take the boys to a hockey game (Steinbach Pistons) and whose knowledge of Spanish will help him to explain this totally new and strange game to them.

Pat Janke who has welcomed them into her Spanish classes and is exuberant about the extra help these boys can offer to her Spanish students. It means extra work for her too, but she is happy about the dividends having the boys around offer.

So many guests showed up at the Welcome to Canada party to say hello, to say welcome here, to let these boys know they have support while in Canada. So many expressions of welcome.

Thank you so much.

Week One is almost done

The boys are finishing their last classes of the day while I am finding time to continue the story. “God is so good, when we believe, there is much good,” according to Adrian, and this past week it has been hard to find a reason to disagree. Junior and Alex are working hard in their classes (although they find the Spanish classes not as difficult as say, the kid who has lived in Steinbach their whole life). When they get home from school, the first thing they do is open their backpacks and take out their homework. Out come the papers, the Spanish-English dictionary, and the work begins. Fredy told me he had picked the first two boys for their diligent work ethic and impeccable moral character – “they will represent us well” and they are! Pat Janke, the Spanish teacher, is delighted at the added value these young men are giving her classes. The students at the SRSS taking Spanish this semester are very lucky to have this sort of and amount of additional language support.

Thursday afternoon Keven Geisheimer, from Goldenwest Radio, spent just over a half hour visiting with the boys and asking them questions about their experiences. Friday morning they all started the morning in the local radio studio with Michelle Sawatzky and then Corny Rempel. Adrian has been doing all his interviews from the start in English, and today Junior responded entirely in English as well! They are getting the hang of English and the confidence to use it. If you want to watch part of the interview you can find it at steinbachonline.com, click on view more news, and then click on the video news on the right hand side of the page (http://www.steinbachonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27760&Itemid=100393).

And the boys are proving themselves on the soccer pitch as well (do you call an indoor soccer playing area a pitch?). They played for the third time in their first week yesterday night with Adrian receiving an award for Most Valuable Player of the evening. Coaches, players and spectators have commented on the abilities they see with these boys and some coaches are already beginning to ask where and for whom they will be playing this spring, once the snow clears out.

The snow, the low temperatures, the cold of my basement have all kept the boys in scarves and gloves, but the cold hasn’t dampened anyone’s spirits. “The people are so friendly,” is a line I have heard from all three of them. Thank you friends and neighbours for building a community for these guests and making them feel valued.

Scarves from/for Ecuador

Scarves are $15 each, with over $10 per scarf going toward supporting Los Canarios food and nutrition programs, student scholarships, and some of the ongoing costs of the club. You can buy one, two or ten or 100 (and we’ll give you a deal if you buy that many). They look good on anyone, and make a great gift for most people.

For those interested in buying scarves, please contact Mark Reimer by e-mail at marreimer@hsd.ca or by phone at 204-346-1942 to arrange a time and place to meet. If you want to host a scarf party, I’ll happily come to your place with 300 to 500 scarves so there is as much selection as people want and they can buy as many as they like to support this program. Contact me and I’ll try to get a scarf, or many scarves, into your hands as soon as possible.

It’s been three days

It has only been three days, but they have been full, and wonderful. Let me walk you through what the first few days presented to the Ecuadorians in Manitoba.

Saturday – wake up after only a few hours of sleep (and drape scarves around the neck and put on gloves in the bedrooms because it is so cold inside the house! and I had my heat turned on higher than ever before) and breakfast on fruit and French Toast with maple syrop. The SRSS (the school were they will all be) was open because of a drama practice, so this allowed me to give them a tour without 1600 other people wandering around the halls and classes. This school is significantly larger than the ones these guys have attended so I was glad to be able to show them around on Saturday. David and Stiven are some young Colombian friends of mine who joined us for the afternoon. We toured around some parts of Steinbach, which doesn’t seem new or big to us Steinbachers, but is much bigger than Puerto Lopez, has many more cars and much more snow! David and Stiven helped to create English tags for everything in my house (they are fully bilingual so they will be great language learning assistants) while the Ecuadorians were busy making Spanish name tags for all the same things (so I can learn more Spanish). We had some previous Manitoba to Ecuador group participants join us for a while in the afternoon to help the boys realize they actually know people in Steinbach, and they won’t be alone while here. At 5:00 they went to watch Ryjan play basketball, and thoroughly enjoyed the excitement of their first athletic event in Canada. We finished the day with a family dinner where my nephew Zach presented them with a welcome to Canada sign and the rest of us just sort of basked in a glow of happiness radiating from them.

Sunday morning Adrian, Alex and Junior came to meet the congregation with whom I participate in church and then we were off to Winnipeg where they had their first ever exposure to indoor soccer. We watched Jonah and Jordon, both of whom were in Ecuador last summer, play with CMU against St. Boniface College in a very exciting game that saw about half of the 12 goals in the game scored in the last five minutes ending the match in a 6 all tie. From there we headed to a Superbowl party for another first – the boys have heard of the American style of football but had never previously seen a game. The evening ended with a two hour Facebook video-chat with all the parents back home in Puerto Lopez, just to catch them up on the all that had transpired after their safe arrival.

Monday was another of firsts and the earliest day ever. We all set our alarms for shortly after 4 so we could leave for Winnipeg by shortly after 5 to be interviewed by Marcy Markusa on CBC (Canada’s public broadcaster). When we arrived at the studio, we were welcomed by everyone as heroes, and told time and again what a wonderful story this was; talk about being worthwhile to get up that early in the morning! Marcy (and everyone else at CBC) treated us so well, and presented the Manitoba to Ecuador (and now) to Manitoba story so graciously and made the boys feel so valued and proud. It was fantastic to hear Adrian shout “hello Canada” into the microphone when the news person was trying to recount the news stories. He, and the other boys were so excited and happy (and cold) and were made to feel really good about being here.

And then came school – into classes at the SRSS! milling in halls with almost 1500 other students! meeting one friendly staff member and student after another! dreading the amount of work that lay ahead in ELA class, and then breathing easier when explained they were only auditing the class! making the Spanish classes in second semester the best ever offered at the SRSS! and then ending the day with two hours of playing indoor soccer with many other Latinos who are now living in Steinbach! What a day! I heard the words “happy” and “incredible” more times on Monday than ever before in my life. We’re off to a good start.

Way Past Baby Steps; Hitting the Ground Running

The final flight from Toronto was delayed by an hour, and once it landed, the boys, who had seats at the back of the plane, took a while to show up at the top of the arrival’s staircase. But arrive they did! It was about 12:45 a.m. when Adrian, Alex and Junior started down the stairs into a five-month English immersion experience of living and studying in Steinbach, Manitoba. About a dozen former Manitoba to Ecuador participants, and a few friends of ours, showed up to welcome the boys to Canada. Adrian’s English is already good enough that he can get buy without difficulty and Junior understands most of what is being said and both are really good supports for Alex, and I’ve spoken more Spanish in the past day than in the past few years (it seems), so we are all off to a good language start.

We got to Steinbach around 2:30 a.m. and I showed them around the house before we settled into bed at 3ish. When there is this much excitement in the air, it seems to counteract some of the extreme cold!

Saturday morning was spent leisurely over a long breakfast and much reconnecting the past before looking forward to what is coming. I toured them through the Steinbach Regional Secondary School where Alex and Junior will be students and Adrian will volunteer. The two boys schedule (as of now) has one specifically EAL class to develop conversational skills and work on technical aspects of language acquisition, one physical education class (afterall they are athletes), one English Language Arts class (with a teacher who every parent wants for their children) where they will work on reading and writing (with the help of Rambert Kehler, a student mentor who speaks Spanish and has a generous heart of gold) and then two periods in the Spanish class. As modern teaching uses language one to teach language two, the teacher uses English to help bridge into the new language. So, while this process is working in one direction for the English speakers, it will work in the other direction for the Spanish speakers.

David and Stiven, my young Colombian friends, joined us for an afternoon tour of Steinbach and then starting the labeling process of everything in my house with dual language tags – the word in Spanish and English – on anything and everything that will hold a sticky tab, just to help learn the vocabulary of the house. Food (thanks to the generosity of the Pugoy’s and Robsons) was a constant part of the afternoon while the boys got their orientation to their new home. To the end outings on day one, Ryjan invited them to watch his playoff basketball game, which was too good with Ryjan’s teaming coming up with a one point victory!

A family supper ended the eating part of the day, and then came the Scrabble game. These boys have access to a pretty good English vocabulary, as they gave evidence too with the words they could create with random tiles (I tried it in Spanish; it didn’t work so well for me).

In case you think food is a pretty dominant theme in this account, it is. I believe “the last supper” and all the traditions built around that image are at the heart of community. Breaking bread together is a communal act of sharing, and essentially caring about one another. I’m hoping for five months of communion with these guests in my home and with all the other visitors who I hope will come by to meet them, as well as with those who invite us into their homes, and thereby into their lives. Creating a strong community is vital for the success of their stay as they have all left families back in Puerto Lopez and for the first time ever ventured any distance from home (and Steinbach is about 3200 kilometers from home) – they need a temporary family with whom to connect while here.

Today will include meeting Prairie Wind Mennonite Church people, watching Jonah and Jordon play futsol for the Canadian Mennonite University and attending a joint birthday and superbowl party (they have heard of American style football, and that is named after their game but is not the same, but have never seen a game). And then it’s early to bed because Monday is a full day with an extremely early start.

We will leave for Winnipeg at 5:45 in order to arrive at the CBC broadcasting building before 7 where Marcy Markusa will interview the group about their first impressions of life in Canada and ask them about what they are looking forward to while living here. And after that is day one in school (these boys all just finished school on January 20th and just started their summer vacation; so much for vacation. When they return home in July, they will launch right back into classes there).

Please feel free to check out more stories to come here, or on Manitoba to Ecuador on Facebook, or send an e-mail to marreimer@hsd.ca to find out more about how the experiences are unfolding.