Mediagua

Wishing everyone a happy (almost) Thanksgiving!! We will be celebrating here tomorrow with members of the Congregation, Notre Dame community and other people from the U.S. who are working in Holy Cross schools/missions in Santiago.  We are going to celebrate Mass in English, which will be interesting because many of us don't really know the new Mass parts yet, not having celebrated Mass in English in quite some time . . .

Our fundraising campaign to donate a "mediagua" house to a family in need in Santiago finally ended after several months of collecting and counting coins from each class every day.  Together, students, parents, professors, and other school employees raised a little over $2,000 to purchase a mediagua, which is a two-room, pre-fabricated house constructed of wood panels.  They are typically used to provide emergency housing solutions after natural disasters or to give an inexpensive house to homeless people and are really meant to be temporary solutions.  However, they often become permanent homes due to cycles of poverty, lack of jobs, etc.  We donated the house to a family that lives about 15 minutes from the school.  They are a couple in their early 40s with 9 children, the oldest is about 18 years old and the youngest is 4.  They were living in a very small, two-room house that was on the point of falling apart due to termite infestation.  All of the kids slept on two bunks beds in a tiny little room.  In the Mom and Dad's room there was a bed, and a giant television almost too big to fit in the room...the family was very proud to have it.  My initial reaction was to want to scream at them, "why do you have this ginormous television when your kids don't have enough to eat and you can't pay your bills???"  But then I reminded myself to try to listen deeply first without judging, perhaps with a bit more compassion and an open heart to place myself in this family's story of cyclical lack of education and the pressure of trying to raise 9 kids.  The parents told me that they have tried several times to go to the local government and have still not received any kind of help. 
The campus ministry team brought along about 10 high schoolers to help construct the home over a 2-day period.  I let the high school boys worry about most of the heavy lifting and instead played with 4 of the little girls who stayed home to watch the construction ;)
Once again, I was humbled and heartbroken by these lives, these hidden realities of resilience and suffering, that border my own and which call me to renew constantly my vocation to work in some small way for a more just and compassionate society.  The girls were stick thin, timid at first and then carefree and starving for affection.  The first day, I brought along some sidewalk chalk just in case the kids were going to be home.  They had never played with chalk before, and we used up all of the 8 sticks the very first day creating a chalk village outside of the house, complete with a pizza restaurant, a school, a church, and a police station. 

 

 

The rest of the day, I tried to keep inventing things to do...decorating plastic soda bottles, outdoor races, hair-brading, spin the bottle dare challenges, hopscotch, and hangman to try to teach all of them (including the 3rd and 2nd grader) the alphabet and how to put together words in order to read....how thankful I am to have grown up surrounded by a bunch of creative cousins who were always playing outside!!

After seeing the situation of the family, we organized a last-minute food drive in the school in order to get the family enough rice, sugar, milk, spaghetti, oil, etc. to last for awhile.  Also, shout-out to MJ and Nicole Lehman for the NickyNicole donations they sent awhile back...we have been able to use the donations for different events the entire year and gave some to the girls as well...they were so excited and thankful!

 

 

Here are some more pictures from the construction...

 

 



Mini update: One year anniversary!

Thought I would just write a quick update on what we have been up to recently here in Santiago:

A few weeks ago, we organized the school’s first “Semana de Beato Basilio Moreau” (St. Basil Moreau week).  The idea was to use the week to help the students learn more about the founder and charisma of the Congregation of Holy Cross.  We were able to put together a video using some clips that a friend and I filmed when we traveled to visit the work of the Congregation in Lima, Peru, clips from Notre Dame that one of the old OLMs filmed and a recorded interview with one of the Chilean priests who spent 6 months with the Congregation in Uganda, Africa.  Each grade watched the video and discussed the video in their religion class.  The biggest event of the week was the St. Basil Moreau Expo.  All of the classes in the elementary school (kindergarten-6^th grade) had to research a different part of St. Basil Moreau’s life and mission, while the classes in the middle school/high school had to research the work of Holy Cross in different countries around on the world.  On Thursday, the students set up stands with pictures, food, information, music, etc. and we invited different people from the Congregation to walk around and judge the stands.  The students, as always, went all-out in their presentation.  Here are some pictures from the event (hope that you especially enjoy the pictures of the class that researched the University of Notre Dame!  I was dying of laughter watching them cheer and shout "Go Irish" which sounded like "eeeerrrreeeeeshh" because they pronounce our "i's" like "e's").

 

This past Saturday, a group of about 60 students and parish members participated in the Caminata de San Alberto Hurtado, one of Chile’s two saints.  Saint Alberto Hurtado was a Jesuit priest, lawyer, and social worker who spent his life fighting for a more just society and dignified work for all, especially the most poor.  He actually volunteered at our Parish (Nuestra Senora de Andacollo) when he was a teen!  Groups from all over Santiago and surrounding communities participated in the Caminata, carrying banners, singing songs, and dousing people in “chaya” (little pieces of paper confetti) as we walked 8 kilometers to the Saint Alberto Hurtado sanctuary where the beloved Chilean saint is buried. 

Chaya!!!

One of our Holy Cross seminarians with a group of teens from Parroquia San Roque (another Parish of the Congregation in a different part of Santiago)

My good neighborhood friends, Sabina and Tatan, came to join us for the Caminata!

 

This week, we are preparing once again for our school’s Fonda, which will kick-off the month of September and the preparations for Chile’s most important holiday, Fiestas Patrias, September 18^th.  Just like last year, we will start the celebration with a Misa a la Chilena (“Chilean Mass”) complete with traditional songs and dances, and then everyone will proceed to the school to buy food from different stands and watch school groups perform various dances from all of Chile’s diverse regions…how different it feels this year to actually have an idea of what is going on!!   

 

Other than that, the other big news is that Mike and I officially reached our one year mark as overseas lay missionaries in Chile on August 2nd.  Hard to believe!  On the one hand, it has gone by insanely fast, and I am baffled when I think about all of the things that have happened, the lessons learned, projects completed, people who went from being strangers to friends, school retreats, students, colleagues, and housemates who have come and gone, and the amount of bread and avocado that I have consumed (...had to throw that in there!).  At this time last year, the people of Santiago were out in the streets, banging pots and pans, and marching in mass to show the government that they were tired of the unequal and expensive educational system.  Holy Cross was preparing to celebrate its 75th anniversary at St. George's College and to ordain its newest Chilean member of the Congregation.  In our little house on Pasaje General Armstrong, my 3 housemates and I were just getting to know each other and to figure out what our community would be like.  Blair was introducing Mike and I to EVERYONE at Andacollo, while we frantically tried to remember everyone's names, tag along to a bunch of events where we had no idea what was going on, and figure out how we were going to fit it to the school environment and Holy Cross community.  How much has changed since then!  Now Mike and I are only 2 in the house (with no new OLMs coming this year!), and we feel at home in the school, in the neighborhood, and among the members of the Congregation. 

It is somewhat overwhelming to look towards the last third of this experience.  On the one hand, it feels like the end will be here before I know it, and I am doing everything to avoid that end.  On the other hand, I think about all of the classes, retreats, Masses, mission trips, meetings, and other events that lie ahead in the coming months, and there seems to be so much to get done that the end is still far away.  The experience has developed from being an exotic new journey to being a true life and ministry, in the most literal and challenging meaning of the word.  Exhilarating and fulfilling on the one hand and completely exhausting on the other--and always with the slight feeling that with so much to get done, as a missioner, you are never doing as much as you could no matter how hard you try!  But even as I look to the future with some uncertainty, reflecting on this past year in Chile, I can say for certain that the decision to come here has produced much fruit and definitely sown many seeds in my life, and hopefully in the lives of others as well. 

 

Many small "yeses"

Where to even start after so much time of not sharing anything that is going on here?!  Whoops....But I made a promise that I would actually force myself to sit down and write something this weekend...so, here we go.

The months have literally been flying by as I have found myself becoming more and more immersed in my ministry/life here.  Friendships have deepened, responsibilities have doubled, and as everyone who has ever worked for the Church knows, the events, projects, goals, and daily tasks are never-ending.  Being an overseas lay missioner has really been a crash-course way to understand what Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew: "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few."

Looking back to the start of the school year in March, it made a HUGE difference to begin with everyone instead of arriving in the middle of the year, starting classes right away, and trying to remember 1,000 new names.  I experienced my first "teacher emotional moments" as I saw many of my students return and remained in awe of how much the little ones had grown and changed over summer break.  Even more emotional when I found that they remembered things I had taught them when we started class again, woohoo!  This year, I have two 4th grade classes and two 5th grade classes.  It has been especially rewarding to work with the 5th graders because I had both classes in 4th grade, so, from the beginning, they were already accustomed to my teaching style and expectations.  That is the part that has made teaching a lot easier.  The most rewarding part has obviously been the opportunity to get to know them better and accompany them in their learning process and personal growth.  I don't know what it is this year--maybe because I've been in the school for a longer period of time, or because Chile is helping me to open up more as a person and maybe give God a little more room to work--but all of the students have seemed to open up to me much more this year.  It is a very touching experience and has motivated me to continue to do a better job.
In terms of my work in Pastoral (campus ministry), my responsibilities have definitely increased as the Pastoral team has realized that I am typically a pretty competent person...and what I lack in skills I try to overcompensate with a driving desire to do things well (...not to mention that dang Notre Dame perfectionist attitude, which is really not good because only God is perfect....but sometimes, it can help to get the job done!).  Anyways, I'm just going to do a little bullet-point list explaining some of the things I have been working on this year in Pastoral.

1.) Misiones (missions): After finishing our third year in the community of Cardonal last summer, we started off the year in search for a new community to send our missioners this summer.  For me, the search for a new place ended up being another lesson of how God really has His hand in everything and definitely has a sense of humor.  For those of you who have read my other blogs, you will remember how I went to the islands of Chiloe with another group of missioners and Franciscan nuns.  Well, back in March, the Franciscan in charge of the missions celebrated 25 years of religious life, and invited me to sing in the choir for the Mass.  So, with a bus-load of people from Santiago, we drove to Paredones (her home town) to celebrate the Mass and meet all of her family and friends who live there...including her niece, Monserrat, who went to Chiloe with us and stayed in the same house as me.  Go figure that a month later, we are in a Pastoral meeting and P. Alfredo (the head of Pastoral) says that we are going to go visit Paredones to see if we can mission there over the summer!  So, the team drove down in May, met the Parish priest, went to 3 outlying rural communities that are going to be the actual communities in which we will mission, and visited the rest of the afternoon with the family of the Franciscan nun who (in the typical Chilean manner of hospitality) made us a delicious 5-course lunch!  Over the summer, we will stay at the school in the town of Paredones and travel 15 minutes to reach the 3 communities.  Monserrat was ecstatic that I will be there over the summer, and I feel so blessed that everything worked out so incredibly!

The church in Paredones destroyed in the earthquake.  After two years of making small repairs, the community is still working to slowly accumulate sufficient funds to fix the chapel.

The chapel in one of the three communities where we will be missioning.  The community is called "El Calvario" (Calvary)...how fitting ;)

Community center in Querelema...I'm pretty sure that this is the community in which I will be working, but not 100% sure yet!

2.) Delegados Pastorales:  The "delegados pastorales" are the campus ministry delegates from each class at our school.  This year, I have been working with the elementary school delegados pastorales with Sister Saturnina (the Holy Cross nun in charge of the elementary school section of Pastoral).  We meet at least once a month to talk about how things are going in the classroom with respect to morning prayer and the different solidarity campaigns and other events that Pastoral puts on throughout the year.  In April, we organized a weekend retreat at the Holy Cross retreat house in El Quisco (beach town about an hour and a half outside of Santiago) for the delegados pastorales from 4th grade-Seniors in high school.  It was the first time that we had ever planned a retreat for the D.P. (especially for a group with such a range of ages), so we were kind of nervous to see how it would result, but it ended up being one of the best retreats we have ever done.  It was so amazing to witness the way in which the little students interacted with the high schoolers, the ways in which they were able to listen and share their experiences in the school, and the bonds that they formed across grade levels.  One of the best moments for me was getting to teach all of the students how to play "Peek" --a card/prize game that has been a favorite at our Scott family reunions :)  My cousin Luke generously wrote out all of the instructions for me so that I would remember all of the rules of the game!  I think that the Pastoral team thought that I was crazy when I was trying to explain the game in our planning meeting, but in the end, all of the kids ended up LOVING it...the rest of the retreat, I would hear them start to shout...peek, Peek, PEEK, PEEEEEKK!!

Playing Peek!

One of our activities the last day of the retreat was to do a picture "scavenger hunt" in small groups, thinking about the type of outlook that a delegado pastoral has on the world and what perspective they show to others.  I'm pretty sure they were just having fun in this one!

Attempting to take a group picture at the end of the retreat...final result, chaos, as usual :)

3.) Niños Misioneros: This year, Sister Saturnina and I started a group of children missionaries--the idea was to start to get the younger ones who just received their First Communion last year to start thinking about service, social justice, and the way that they live out their faith on a daily basis.  There are about 12 fifth-graders in the group.  One day a week, we meet to either talk about a theme or to go serve in the clothing distribution center at the Andacollo Parish.  It was so funny and cute to watch the kids the first time we took them to the clothing center.  The elderly ladies who work at the center asked the kids to fold and sort a mound of clothes that had been recently donated.  I don't think many of the kids fold their clothes in their own house, but they were doing everything possible to try to be the best workers.  The ladies were getting a kick out of watching the kids try to organize themselves.   Of course we tried to explain before going the importance of being respectful because the clothes would be going to real people in need and there might be people in the center while we were working.  But of course, kids will be kids, and when one of the students pulled out an enormous pair of underwear, lifted it in the air and shouted "LOOK, it's EXTRA, EXTRA, EXTRA LARGE!!!!" we were all dying of laughter.  

4.) Jornada Vocacional (Vocation's retreat): In May, we organized a day-long retreat for about 30 high schoolers in which we invited priests, sisters, deacons, seminarians, and other religious from all over Santiago to come and share with our high schoolers about religious life and discerning vocation.  It seemed like a great experience for the kids to demystify and humanize religious life.  This is a picture of me leading one of the ice-breaker activities during the retreat...it goes "When I say Kangaroo...Kang Kang Kangaroo.....When I say Michael Jackson....Michael, Michael Jackson!" and so on with different dance moves....

      
4.  Semana de San Andres Bessette (St. Andre Bessette week):  Two weeks ago, Pastoral organized and ran a whole week dedicated to St. Andre Bessette.  Each course (kindergarten through high school) participated in a trivia competition, classroom decorating competition, and solidarity day.   It was really an over-the-top production.  Each day, different courses competed in the library until their was a winner between the four 1st and 2nd-grade classes, 3rd and 4th, 5th and 6th, and then first and second place out of all the 7th grade-Senior classes.  During each round, the contestant representatives from the courses had to answer several questions from 3 obligatory categories: St. Andre Bessette, Basil Moreau, and Religion or Holy Cross Congregation.  Then, they could choose to answer questions from pop culture/sports/math/Chilean history, etc.  There is really probably no better way to get them interested in that information than to do a "Who wants to be a millionaire" style competition complete with sound effects and music :) Then, at the end of the week, all of the courses participated in a "Solidarity Day" in which some of the older grades left school for several hours to visit nurseries and homes for the elderly, and other grades were paired with the elementary classes to share, do activities, and play games.

The classroom-decorating competition.  St. Andre worked for 40 years as the doorman of a Holy Cross school in Montreal, Notre Dame College.
 

6th-graders dressed up and ready to play with students in the 2nd grade during "Solidarity Day"

Some of the juniors who left school to volunteer at a nursery.

The awards ceremony the last day of the week

During one of the elementary school competitions.

5th-grade students dancing during a break in the competition.

....surprise, surprise...they asked me to dress up as a doll to MC the kindergarten competition.

5.  Apart from these activities, I continue to take different courses on retreats each Thursday, sing in the school Masses on Saturday, and help with morning prayer.  Right now, we are also preparing for a Confirmation retreat.  About 40 of our high schoolers are going to be confirmed on July 6th, so keep them and their sponsors in your prayers!

......are you still reading???  If so, I'm impressed.

 Anyways, that is a little bit about what I have been up to in school.  It's hard to believe that I've almost been here one full year.  It has been a time of richness, and I feel like I have changed and grown in many ways.  It is a beautiful thing to allow God and people to affect you, challenge you, open your eyes to different realities, and change you in small ways.  Sometimes it really hurts as well.  And there have been moments of pain, sadness, and loneliness in the ups and downs of living far away from family and friends in a different culture.  Difficult moments.. moments of questioning and hard learning which, ultimately, weave themselves together to form one great lesson of learning how to trust in God's plan and action in my life...and, of course, His great love. And through/within/because of all of this, discovering that deep Joy which can motivate ,me to keep going each day and provide me with the strength and desire to keep smiling at others.  The challenge, at least for me, has been to keep stepping outside of myself and be vulnerable--especially in my relationships and conversations with others.  I have decided that I think it is a very good thing if I know that it is going to hurt terribly when I eventually leave because it means that I am doing my best to love them.  There is definitely a temptation to put up barriers because both sides know that, most likely, one day goodbyes will have to be said.  But I am always reminded of Mother Teresa's saying to "love until it hurts" because if it doesn't hurt, then we're not really loving. 

A dear friend mailed me a copy of  "Come Be My Light," a book of Mother Teresa's writings, which I have been slowly reading over the past weeks.  What a blessing it has been to be able to read her words describing her journey as a missionary--lots of accompaniment, solidarity, and inspiration...to know that it was difficult for her, but that her constant motivation was to always say "yes" to God, even when she couldn't see where He was leading her.  Many times, I have also felt like my work as a lay missioner here has been one big experience of trusting blindly, and so I am trying to learn how to say "yes" to God in many small ways as well...in the many encounters and conversations with students, co-workers, neighbors, and people in the street...in the infinite opportunities to be more patient and compassionate with others...in accepting projects or responsibilities that would normally scare the heck out of me, or in accepting embarrassments and failures with a smile.

It is a challenge for all of us to say "yes" to God in many small ways throughout the day because I know that we can trust that through our many small, seemingly insignificant "yes's", God can do something beautiful and great. 

Learning to Receive

Well, I'm back in the city getting ready to start school again after a beautiful experience on the second set of misiones that I went on and, in general, wonderful days of "summer vacation."  The experience of missions on the Butachauque islands of Chiloe were incredible given the very unique culture of the people, the beauty of the landscape, and the different religious celebrations, house visits, religion classes, and overall time spent getting to know the people...not to mention getting to know the other missioners better (an amazing group of people!).  As I was reflecting on the experience and wondering how I would ever be able to capture or share what we did throughout the 2 weeks in words, my thoughts seemed to keep wandering to ideas about discipleship, community, giving, and receiving...so that's what I'm going to talk about, and hopefully I will be able to share some things about missions in the process.


Perhaps one of the secrets of discipleship is learning how to receive.  As people trying to be good Christians, we often focus on giving…we organize food programs, spend time volunteering, plan social gatherings, and run different programs for kids, youth and adults.  Giving makes us feel good, feel accomplished and gives us a sense of mission and purpose.  Giving is good—the Gospel is full of passages that specifically command us to give our clothing, food, time and talents to our brothers and sisters.  But what about receiving?  How often do we really choose to recognize the gifts of others and allow ourselves to receive them?  Jesus did this all the time, but we often only choose to highlight the passages where He was the one doing things for others.  We forget that Jesus and His followers did not have homes, did not travel with food or sleeping provisions.  Jesus even told them to leave their shoes and clothes behind.  In other words, Jesus and his disciples were experts at receiving from others.  They counted on the people to give them a place to stay and food to eat—to welcome them into their homes and communities.  Jesus didn’t ask the people to come to his home, or a specific building in the community—He went to them.  Why did he do this?  Our Gospel is a Gospel of communion—an intimate sharing of being one family, one living body of Christ.  Let’s think of who we invite into our homes: typically our families and our closest friends…maybe once and awhile friends of friends or people that we’re not really acquainted with.  How often do we welcome or invite strangers into our homes?  Often we don’t need to.  In the world of affluence, where community centers, big churches equipped with all sorts of meeting rooms, safe parks, coffee houses, hotels, and restaurants are abundant, there is really no need to bring people to our houses.  In poor communities, usually the opposite occurs.  There are no other spaces to congregate, so the home is the place of welcome, sharing, conversation, and hospitality.  You may ask, “so what?”  What difference does it make if I have a conversation, meeting, prayer service, meal, or gathering in a church conference room or a coffee shop rather than in my house?  Well, I am beginning to think that it makes a lot of difference and can help us reflect on where Christianity has come and where it is going because it touches the core of that crucial, mutual, communal interaction of giving and receiving.

It has been my experiences in Latin America, at my home now in Chile, and especially my experiences on misiones that have been making me reflect a lot on this concept—this crucial part of our Christian history.  After all of these experiences, I remember marveling at how incredible it was that, in only a few weeks or a couple of months, I was able to form such special, deep relationships with the people I met.  What always impacted me the most during and after the experiences was the hospitality of the people and their willingness to welcome me into their families and communities without even knowing who I was or really understanding why I was there.  I experienced the same thing on misiones.  Before leaving for the island, I remember our formation leader telling us that when visiting houses, we should never say no to a family’s invitation to drink mate tea or to eat…no matter how many cups of tea we had already had that day, how full we were, or how poor we could see that the family was.  He said that, especially given the culture of Chiloe, to decline (even if done in the most polite way) would be very insulting and rude.  Our job was to receive and to be grateful.  Before my time on the island, I don’t think that I actually understood how difficult this would be sometimes, nor how important it was for the people to be able to give or share something with the missioners. 

There were about 60 houses in the community I was in, spread out all around the island.  I felt that, as a missioner, I was constantly receiving.  In almost every house we were invited to eat and drink as we talked—mate, juice, soda, coffee, tea, chicha, bread with jam or honey, plain bread, bread and eggs, fried dough, seafood soup, potato patties, sweets, cookies, curanto and apples.  We were invited in even when the people were working, had just started to eat lunch as a family, and even once when family from out of town had just arrived and were still unpacking their belongings.  Everyone made time.  Most visits, we would talk for an hour or more.  Actually, we did a lot of listening—a lot of asking questions.  We talked about the health of the animals, how the potato crop was this year, about the wind, the rain and the sun, about loved ones who died in boating accidents, about old aching bones that are tired of cutting wood to keep the oven going, about doctors that visit the island far too little, and about family histories and stories.  The very first house visit I went on, I found myself lifting a 100-year old man out of bed onto a makeshift toilet to go to the bathroom.  The two 70-80-year-old women that were caring for him were hardly strong enough to do it themselves, and were very thankful that visitors had come to the house just at the right time.  Talk about an intimate encounter—one that certainly humbled me and moved me deeply…to be trusted with the care of this old man, to see the silent gratitude in his eyes and his feeble attempt at a smile.  It was a powerful shared encounter between strangers that would have never happened if we hadn’t gone to their home and if they hadn’t welcomed us into their family.  At another house, we spent an hour looking at every page of 6-year-old Tomas’s kindergarten notebooks (oh yes, there were 3), talking to him about what he had learned and admiring his coloring.  At the house of Kathy and Maricel (2 kids who attended the religion classes that we did at night) we spent time playing with 6 new puppies as we drank mate with their grandma, shared her pain over her old fingers which are permanently bent sideways after so many years of cutting wood, and tried to feel grateful rather than guilty when invited over and over again to eat bread which the grandma cut and offered, apologizing that it was old and stale, but it was the only thing they had in the house.  I remember wondering what I could say as a “missioner” to this woman who has known great sacrifice and hard work every day of her life—who welcomes strangers into her house and offers them everything she has, giving even from her own need.  She is the poor widow in Mark 12:41-44 who gives the few coins she has while others give only from their abundance or what’s left over.  Perhaps I gave her an ear to listen or a few encouraging words, but more than anything, I was called to receive.  In Acts 20:35, Christ says, “There is more happiness in giving than receiving.”  If this is true, maybe the greatest service we can offer our fellow man is to receive and allow him the happiness of giving.  What a reversal of the typical image we have of discipleship!  As disciples, we are called to recognize the gifts of others and help them to realize those gifts by opening up our hands and our hearts to receive them.  That certainly seems to be what Jesus was all about—the Son of God left it up to people to choose to take care of Him or not.  He wandered around with nothing so that other people could have the experience of God working through them to care for other members of the Body.  Sure, these intimate moments of communion—of giving and receiving, of dependency and hospitality, of trust and gratitude, can happen anywhere.  But reflecting on all of this has just made me think about how it seems that the majority of us have moved very far from the original model of Christian community and maybe even construct barriers to it in our “always prepared, self-dependent, back-up-plan, time management” attitudes that rarely provide a space for God to bring us into communion with others and thus help us to know other people in our great family.

So, once again, what was going to be a blog about misiones seems to have wandered more around thoughts about giving, receiving, discipleship, and having encounters with people/friends/strangers in the more intimate spaces of our life.  But hopefully something made some sort of sense in there and illuminated a part of misiones in Chiloe.  As always, I’m going to put up some pictures with descriptions to perhaps tell more of the story.

Getting on the boats to head to the island

The 7 different communities where the missioners were working gathering to celebrate the Feast of St. Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria in Nayahue

Processing to the chapel to for Mass

Curanto: a typical food in Chiloe. It is traditionally prepared in a hole, about a meter and a half deep, which is dug in the ground. The bottom is covered with stones and heated like a bonfire. The ingredients consist of shellfish, meat, potatoes, milcaos (a kind of potato bread), chapaleles, and vegetables.  Each layer of ingredients is covered with nalca (Chilean rhubarb) leaves

An encounter with some cows while walking to visit houses :)

Grandma Rosita: she has been bedridden for 2 years but still has such a wonderful sense of humor and outlook on life.  She also makes the big wool socks that are on the bed!

The chapel in my community, Metahue.

With the kids from the community after religion class.  Everyone brought a snack to share!

The man whom I helped to go to the bathroom my first house visit ended up leaving the island by helicopter a few days later.  His family gradually sold most of their land and stuff in their house to be able to fly him to a hospital.  Many people from the community showed up to say goodbye.

One day in religion class, we talked about the Rosary and how the different mysteries can help the kids think about their own lifes as well.

The kids' depictions of the Joyful Mysteries: The Annunciation and The Visitation

The Birth of Jesus and the Presentation in the Temple

The Finding of Jesus in the Temple

Tending to the graves of family members after the Mass for the Deceased that we did in the community.

...it's the simple things in life :)

Playing with Kathy's puppies!!

Eating hot dogs and noodles during a little party the last day of religion class.

Preparing the peas for the food after our community's celebration of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Polishing the wood of our community chapel in preparation for the celebration.

The ladies of the community helping Scarlet get ready for her First Communion! 

Receiving the communities with music, flags, and the statue of our patron Saint on the boat ramp

There were 8 kids in total that we helped to prepare to receive their First Communion