Have you ever been so far from the path you have set for yourself that you end up astray? In Nicaragua, we used to have a class trip at the end of the school year. When I was 12 years old, the teachers decided to go to a wonderful beach, San Juan del Sur. A lot of tourists go there for surfing. It was an amazing trip. My classmates and I decided to go deep into the ocean. Catch the waves, that shouldn't be an issue if you know how to swim, which I didn't. Needless to say, I got caught by a second wave I didn't see coming, and I started to drown. I remember the darkness, despair, and hopelessness of sinking. Amazingly seconds felt like minutes. Thankfully someone came and pulled me out. Unfortunately, that has not been the only time that I …show more content…
have felt like I was drowning. "From the depths".
The word "depths" is not commonly used in the Old Testament. The word has both a literal meaning of the depths of the sea and a figurative meaning, such as spiritual or emotional distress. In the past sea or waters were symbolic of Chaos. Chaos in our society is defined as a state of confusion, lawlessness and disorder. I’ve been meditating on this concept—chaos. Have you ever experienced it? When life goes on, but you are stuck in a dormant position, just standing by. We can be the cause of chaos or it can just happen. I’ll give you an example: A few weeks ago in Nicaragua, university students decided to march about an issue, they were met by brutal government groups and police that sought to oppress them. They were atrincherados, entrenched in the National Cathedral. It was total chaos. They started posting their whereabouts in social media, writing their names on their hands. They thought they would be killed. Chaos, no direction, no order, stuck, no …show more content…
hope. In this Psalm we are not sure who the author is, though some theologians like John gill believe it to be David while he was persecuted by Saul or Ezra, some others believe Solomon might have been the author. This we know for sure this person was in distress, tired, and weak. This prayer is so genuine and pure. He was in pain, in despair, ultimately crying out to God. This Psalm is one of the fifteen Psalms in the series titled A Song of Ascents. The New Interpreter's Study Bible states that this Psalm was likely used by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, or as part of festal celebrations, in other words festival celebration like Passover, Pentecost. This Psalms were songs, sung by people, learned by heart. In their way from exile to Jerusalem. Hispanic culture is well known by our oral traditions, expressed through storytelling, poetry, riddles and even dichos (sayings) or consejos (advice) such as: • “Camarón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente”.
A sleeping shrimp will be swept away by the current. It is very similar to the English saying: “You snooze you lose”. • My grandmother loved this one: “Dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres.” Tell me the company you keep, and I’ll tell you who you are. Hispanic families every time we meet, we share stories about grandparents and family members. This helps us to develop a strong sense of belonging and unity. As immigrants in a new country those stories become the only attachment we have with our country of origin and they are cherished and shared. Passed down from generation to generation, to make sure they will know and keep their heritage. Just like in exile for the Jewish people. In other Psalms we can usually find a historical background; however, we don’t have any hints in this Psalm. Topics of this Psalm are lament, confession, waiting, hope, and
redemption. This Psalm is for people like us; people in distress, crying out to God, being honest about who we are, accepting, taking responsibility and action, and finding rest in God's redemption, grace, with the courage to hope for a day where there will be "no more crying and no more sorrow." There is a song by Casting Crowns, called “Oh My Soul” that says: “You are not alone. There's a place where fear has to face the God you know” This song describes the idea around this Psalm. We can for sure relate to the author. Have you ever felt hopeless? Where do you turn when things are not going well in your life? We are the church of Christ in this world, there is darkness around us, circumstances that are out of our control, that shatter our light, our hopes. Do we pretend, or do we cry out to God? When we are desperate, do we really care about how we look? Do we care about how we are perceived? Are we willing to come to God and talk to God about our issues? Sometimes the hardest thing for us is to accept our humanity and limits. There is no need to pretend or hide our hurts. Sometimes what we need the most is for someone to tell us, "I've been there, I have done that. But wait there is forgiveness, there is hope." How wonderful is our God? God can turn dust into a work of art. There is nothing that we can keep from God. God loves us. One of the things that I love about this Psalm is how it starts on a low note and goes all the way to intercession and gives hope to the author and God’s people. Oh Israel keep the hope, God has great power to redeem, God will vindicate us. I was talking to a friend that is going to a rough patch in her life, we talked about our losses and trials and suddenly we talked about waiting, and survival mode, yet knowing that God hears our cries. In the same act of losing control of our lives, we can also find solace in knowing God hears our cries and gives us hope. What a Friend! What a Savior! How willing are you to use your own scars as a way to connect with others? If God is for us, who is against us? When we find ourselves in the depths of pain, sorrow, and distress, waiting is not in our nature. However, I don't know about you but those times of waiting in the midst of trials are the moments where I have felt God's grace and love at work. "Out of the depths", how are we reacting in our darkness? Where do we find our hope? This week try to be the light for someone else’s darkness. Find a saying or a proverb of wisdom that has been pass down in your culture and family and try to share it with at least one person this week. Something that will bring hope, to someone’s life. May the Lord Jesus Christ find you in God’s presence, crying out and interceding for those in distress. God bless! Congregation background: Lakeside is a multicultural church, we translate sermon simultaneously in Spanish every Sunday. Our congregation is intergenerational with the majority of our member over 50 years old. We have been blessed with a welcoming church, to our Hispanic community. We even have a Hispanic ministry that helps our community with basic needs and translation. We are located in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It’s a rough area but awesome in potential and ministry. We have an average of 100-130 attendees. We have some challenges, which are normal. A lot of our Hispanic member come from a different denomination and cultural background. Our Anglo members are conservative, traditional, but loving. It’s a challenge that’s good to have.
A family who is from a different culture and race and the obstacle they encounter from others but that does not stop them from doing what they want to do. Margarita and her family have a dream of winning a race, the swimmer encounter tiredness and weakness when she was swimming, but she never gave up because she had her family there to cheer her and even pray for her. That is what Latinos do; we pray for each other and help each other
In fact, Bacallao and Smokowski found that, “Latino families' external boundaries often become rigid to preserve culture of origin beliefs and norms” (53). Interviewees in their study responded well to their family’s perseverance; ultimately resulting in the younger generation becoming more open to practicing certain Mexican customs while incorporating the American lifestyle. Moreover, according to Bacallao and Smokowski, “Adolescents said that practicing these traditions and rituals helped them preserve their Mexican cultural identities, their history, sense of familism, and ethnic pride even as they experienced stress and pressure to assimilate from social systems outside of their homes” (Bacallao and Smokowski 62-63). This study demonstrated that in order to entice the younger generation, to not abandon their roots completely, sacrifices from both generations were necessary; particularly sacrifices having to deal with losing part of their ancestor’s culture in order attain prosperity and make their family’s adaptation less
To understand the Nicaragua Contra one must understand the Sandinistas, and who the Sandinistas took power from. Nicaragua has been invaded by the United States eight times starting from American adventurer William Walker’s “filibuster” of Nicaragua . Augusto César Sandino was the first revolutionary who used arm forces to drive United States out of Nicaragua . Somoza had Sandino killed and took control of Nicaragua. The Somozas and his sons oppressively ruled and amassed wealth with the support of United States. Because of the Somozas corrupt rule a rebel force would rise up which called themselves Sandinistas after Augusto César Sandino. Latin American countries urged United States to remove Somozas from power or the Sandinistas would take
Revolution – a radical change or replacement of a governmental establishment, political system, or society created by the people who are governed. In the República de Chile (Republic of Chile) and República de Nicaragua (Republic of Nicaragua), a revolution was supposed to bring a new and fresh outlook onto the country unfortunately, with every plan there are obstacles. In spite of the sizeable differences, the revolutions that occurred in Chile and Nicaragua share common traits of failure to consolidate themselves with their power and rebellion. In Chile, the journey to socialism drew its motivation from the oppressed and for Nicaragua; the incapability to centralize power came from an authoritarian point of view. Despite Chile and Nicaragua’s common traits on handling a revolution, they bring their own favors to the table.
Family is the most important social unit of Hispanic life. It is a close-knit entity that includes immediate and extended family members. Typically, the father is the head of the family and the mother rules the house (Clutter, n.d.). Vacations are usually taken to relatives’ houses to promote togetherness in celebration of birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, and communions. In times of need, the family is the first line of aid, and Hispanics typically live with their parents until marriage. While this deviates from American ideals for individuals aged 18-35, it actually provides young adults the opportunity for future success because so much money is saved from greatly reduced housing costs (Williams, 2009).
As a traditional, collectivistic cultural group, the Latino population is believed to adhere deeply to the value of familismo. (Arditti, 2006; Calzada, 2014). Familism is an emphasis on the importance of the family unit over values of autonomy and individualism”. (Santistaben, 2012). Family is considered to be the top priority in the Latino culture. Comparatively, at times, this isn’t true of our busy, work devoted western culture. In western culture we think of our family in a nuclear sense made up of a: mom, dad, and siblings. Conversely, Hispanic culture focuses on the whole extended family including aunts, uncles, grandparent, and cousins. Their culture believes having close connections with the entire extended family benefits the development of their children. The entire family helps the child by giving them differing levels of social and emotional support. (American Home Resolutions,
Nicaragua The area of Nicaragua is 50,193 sq. ft. mi. The Nicaraguan highlands, with an elevation of about 2000 ft, cross Nicaragua from the northwest to the southeast. Several mountain ranges, the highest of which, the Cordillera Isabelia, reaches an elevation of more than 6890 ft, cut the highlands from east to west.
The book of Psalms is a collection of prayers, poems and hymns. Ultimately Psalms can be categorized under three main literary genres: laments, praise hymns, and thanksgiving psalms. Laments which the majority of psalms falls under are meant to be used in broad fashion rather than to relate to one set situation. Praise hymns are to praise God and all of his Glory. Last, thanksgiving psalms are to thank God for responding to our needs. In addition there is a natural breakdown of the Psalms into five main sections. Psalms was written over many centuries by many different people with King David being the main contributor. In addition to David we see the following contribute: Moses, Heman the Ezrahite, Ethan the Ezrahite, Solomon, Asaph, and the sons of Korah. Upon examination we find the oldest psalm (90) and the latest (137) are sometime apart. The latest being around 586 to 538 B.C. It is concluded that some person (albeit unknown) must have started the compilation around 537 B.C. Psalms is the longest book in the Bible, it includes 150 individual psalms. Key topics include God, his creations, war, wisdom, justice, worship, judgement, and sin. Some Major events that take place in Psalms include : The glory of God and the dominion of man, Praising God for His works and words, Psalm of the Good Shepherd, Psalm of the Great Shepherd, Psalm of the Chief Shepherd, The wedding Psalm, Psalm of life and the Psalm of
born on January 18, 1867, in Metapa, Nicaragua, would immerse himself in various forms of literary study and exploration. In books of poetry and prose like Azul and Prosas profanas, Darío introduced the writing style known as modernism, which would be highly influential. He also worked as a journalist in Spain and France for La Nación. He died on February 6,
The Nicaraguan Revolution was one of the darkest times the country of Nicaragua has been in. Around 53,000 people lost their lives over the 30 years it spanned. At first the citizens were tired of their dictator, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and demanded change. He was corrupt and that lead to him being very unpopular with his citizens. Many shifts of power happened during this time with many rebel groups. Most of the citizens suffered extreme poverty and battled inequality through these years along with an unstable government due to a poor economy and bad farming seasons. (Nicaraguan Revolution). Although the Nicaraguan Revolution was devastating it was not a true revolution because it did not follow the steps of a revolution and not everyone benefited from the change due to still having inequality, limited civil rights, and having a whole other revolution after the first one ended.
Family, the people who raise you, support you, and take care of you. Hispanic Heritage places great importance on family, since they are loyal and respect their elders. By doing so, people with Hispanic
After 17 years of having Ecuadorian blood running through my veins I have come to fully embrace and love what it means to be Hispanic. More than anything else, my Hispanic heritage has taught me the value of family and the perseverance one must have during all stages of life. The world I come from is very family oriented; every weekend is a family reunion, where my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandma join to cook together, listen to music, and spend time talking with one another. Though we do not abide to the nuclear family model, having so much family around has provided a support system like no other. There is constant motivation and hope propelling me to never stop at anything but success. I get my fair share of these motivational
One day my family was at the lake for a weekend and we all decided to go on the boat. So we packed up all of our stuff and went out on the water we drove to a cove where the water was shallow. So i jumped in and I touched to the bottom it felt like mush and at the time my dad did not look to see how shallow it was on the boat because our boat has a sensor on the bottom of it where it shows you how deep the water is and he did not look at it and our boat sits really low to the water because it is a yacht and it sits about 4 ft down in the water and we did not know that it was only around 10 ft deep so we drove out of that cove. And went to another one and it was so deep it was like 50 ft and my dad's friend lived there so he dove down in the water because he had dropped his phone in the water and he said that it was really rocky and his phone was still on when he went to the bottom. So we sat with him at his
About one-third of all the psalms are laments. The Psalmist, in Psalm chapter 13, was lamenting about things that were happening to him. We don’t know exactly what was going on when David wrote this psalm, but whatever the problem was, he doesn’t talk about it right away. Rather, he talks about God hiding his face, wrestling with his own thoughts, and his enemies triumphing over him.