One Body

This past Sunday was the celebration of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, uniting them in God’s love, and inspiring them to continue to live out the message of Jesus Christ. As I sat there listening to the Gospel I was able to picture the apostles. At first they seem confused on how to continue living out Jesus’ message of love. However, upon receiving the Holy Spirit, their confusion
subsides, and they are transformed into people of hope and given the strength to go out and preach His message.

Do you remember those emotions that came as you were returning home after your year of service? It may have been an emotional departure, as you had to say goodbye to the people and the place you grew to love. Many of us may have been confused as to what comes next, or wondering how to honor the experience and keep it alive. Much like the Pentecostal transformation of the apostles, we too, returned to our homes confused, and afraid, seemingly unaware of how or when God might infuse us with the same strength and hope the Holy Spirit laid upon the disciples.

What is remarkable about Pentecost, is that the Holy Spirit did not descend upon the apostles one at a time, in solitude, but together, and as a community of believers. As alumni, we form our own very unique and extraordinary community of believers. We have, together, witnessed the gospel through our experience in Ecuador. We have fallen in love with the people we walked with, and have had our hearts broken by the deprivation that surrounds many of them. We have together learned how to live
simply, receive hospitality, become people of service, and together we have learned how to search for the face of Christ in those we are with.

Cor 1:12 tell us, “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body”. We are many parts, for certain. Separated by the different years we volunteered, separated geographically, and by the different fields we have entered. Yet we are one body. One body which seeks God, and hungers for justice.

Let us not forget the body of which we form. May we continue to challenge and inspire one another. And in those moments of asking ourselves what our experience in Ecuador meant for us, and how we can live out what we learned through it. Let us pray that we trust in God’s answer to us that “I will show you the most excellent way.” (Cor. 1:31)

Connect with other alumni in your area. And pray for the new volunteers who are preparing to depart for Ecuador. Also, let us pray for the current volunteers, who will soon be entering into our alumni community.

Courage & Wisdom

As we move into our ninth month in Duran, I struggle more and more with the idea of leaving. Just last week, I had a long talk with my boss and mentor, Patricia McTeague, about the possibility of teaching at Fundación Nuevo Mundo for another six months. Our conversation was part of a longer discernment process that began a couple of months ago:

While the volunteer year ends in August, schools in the coastal region run from April to January. Uneasy at the thought of leaving halfway through the school year, I began to contemplate staying until early 2012 a while back. Despite my original inclination, I was torn. For one, I had already accepted admission to law school in the U.S. and was unsure if deferring was prudent. Perhaps more importantly, friends and family had already expected to have me back home this year, and I would be straining a number of personal relationships as well.

After thinking about and praying on this decision for some time, I decided to ask Pat if staying was even an option. She said it was, but that I should talk it over with those close to me first.

Immediately after our meeting, I wrote to my parents. I knew they had been wary of my decision to come here in the first place, so I explained the situation in detail, and asked for their insight. That evening, I gave them a call. Emotions ran high, and we talked for over an hour, parsing the pros and cons. They both felt strongly that law school was the place for me to be come August, but they also felt it was my decision to make, and that they would support me either way. I was unsure what I felt.

The following morning, I got an email from my father. He had said little the night before. In writing, he explained that he had been too worried and surprised to say much, but thankful that I had come to him for advice. That being said, he still thought that I should resume my studies in the fall. Having visited me in February, he felt that I should not let pass the opportunity to develop a critical skill set necessary to address many of the concerns I have encountered during my time in Ecuador.

It was difficult to read this, but I too recognized that in a couple of months it would be time for me to go. I simply was not ready to come to terms with this, for being here has been a true blessing. Indeed, the past nine months have been a difficult, but blessed, learning experience:

It has been hard to sit with friends and neighbors as a witness to situations of overwhelming injustice. It has been hard to see so many lives shaped more by social, political, and economic conditions than by individual decisions. And it has been really hard to recognize that despite my intentions, my actions may have done more harm than good. But for all the hardship, it has been a privilege to be part of a project that works so effectively at providing tangible educational opportunities for many that have been less fortunate in the natural lottery of birth.

I don’t sleep well these days, for I am unsure how I will remain true to the experiences, relationships, and people I have encountered here once I leave. I know I will continue to seriously engage broader questions of education and opportunity for years to come, but I am still unsure how I will seek to address similar situations of inequality in the States, and eventually my native Dominican Republic. In a lot of ways, I don’t know that I can answer this yet. Instead, I trust in seeing through the opportunities that have come my way. In the meantime, I continue to wrestle with these questions, and pray for the courage and wisdom to live my way into the answers.

The Violence of Love

"Easter is itself now the cry of victory. No one can quench the life that Christ has resurrected. Neither death nor all the banners of death and hatred raised against him and against his church can prevail. He is the victorious one!

 

Just as he will thrive in an unending Easter, so we must accompany him in a Lent and a Holy Week of cross, sacrifice, and martyrdom. As he said, blessed are they who are not scandalized by his cross.

 

Lent, thus, is a call to celebrate our redemption in that difficult combination of cross and victory. Our people are well prepared to do so these days: all that surrounds us proclaims the cross. But those who have Christian faith and hope know that behind this Calvary of El Salvador lies our Easter, our resurrection. That is the Christian people's hope."

 

Oscar Romero, March 23, 1980

The Violence of Love

(In: Lenten Longings...Let Yourself Be - page 39)

Chicos de la Calle

The Proyecto Salesiano "Chicos de la Calle" (Salesian Program for Street Children) is a prevention and intervention program for street children with a presence in cities throughout Ecuador. In Guayaquil and Duran, the program currently operates 3 shelters for boys who are at-risk or have been living on the streets, and 4 outreach and prevention centers for at-risk boys and girls from some of the area's most impoverished neighborhoods. In addition to economic hardship, many of the children who participate in the program have experienced abuse, abandonment, or neglect at home. Their neighborhoods are often home to high levels of drug abuse and gang activity. The program aims to get and keep kids off the streets and offer them social, educational, and spiritual alternatives.

The first RdC volunteers began working at the "Nuestros Hijos" shelter and vocational school in Duran in 2008. Currently, volunteer Beth Awalt (AJS) serves as an English teacher to the 8th and 9th grades and assists in the social work office. Volunteer Jessie Eisemann (AJS) teaches 7th grade English and accompanies boys in the vocational workshops. In addition, this year RdC volunteers have joined the teams at two of the prevention centers. Jenn Zocco (Mt. Sinai) works at the Casa Don Bosco center and Jeff Wallace (Mt. Sinai) works at the Bastion Popular center.

Beth:
Whether our days end with a jam session on the guitar, watching an intense soccer game or catching up inside the chapel, Jessie and I always leave Chicos with lots to share. "student thrust an iguana in my face today!" "dyed his hair blonde!" " actually let me use the drill machine!" " learned how to sand and lacquer!" " you see what the initials on his shirt stand for?" Usually, after we go through the funny stories, we start to reflect on what the boys have actually been teaching us. I´ll never forget sitting in the kitchen one day as a student asked me, "Señorita, what have you learned so far from us?"

The most inspirational lesson I´ve learned in Ecuador so far, particularly from the boys at Chicos, is the importance of accompaniment. One student asked me to accompany him to the office, so he could finally get the three notebooks he needs for class (he´s been without them for a few months now). Another student asked me to accompany him to visit his sister, whom he hasn´t seen in 9 months, to reconcile their relationship. Yet another student asked me to accompany him on a walk, as we chatted about his life at the shelter and at home. These moments of accompaniment come in all shapes and sizes, but I´m learning how important it is just to be present with someone. That companionship can be offered or asked for, in easy or difficult situations. But what this year, this placement, is continuing to teach me is that we really cannot learn how it feels to live in this shelter. But we can be present to the boys, listen to them, go with them when they need us. And that translates to all relationships, understanding how supportive my family and friends at home and here have been during this time, and constantly striving to accompany those I love in their struggles and joys. I may not be able to fix everything, or anything, but I can be a loving presence, and often that accompaniment is more than enough.

Jenn:
In additon to the shelters, Proyecto Salesiano Chicos de la Calle also has several after-school programs for kids in the surrounding neighborhoods. This year I am working with Casa Don Bosco´s refuerzo escolar (after school help). Every afternoon begins with a lunch, which for some of the kids may be the only meal they eat on some days. After lunch we have for homework and recess. The after school program seeks to reach the families and children with the most need. As such, part of my job has involved going into poor neighborhoods to publicize the program The reality for many of the kids is that if they are fortunate enough to go to school, therey may not be anyone at home who is able to help them with their homework. As volunteers and teachers, we try to be this consistent support for the children. The kids I work with range in age from 6 to 16 and come from varying levels of education. One day I could be helping a 15-year old learn to read while another day I might be teaching an 8-year old division. Though attendance depends on the week, there are a core group of about 30 kids that come regularly and I have enjoyed building relationships with all of them!

Jeff:
The Oratorio Diario in Bastion Popular run by Chicos de la Calle is comprised of different parts. There is a refuerzo where students aged 6-14 come for homework help, as well as a Patio where the students play soccer or other games. The educadores teach workshops for the students ranging from a bisuteria workshop, where students learn to make bracelets, to a music workshop, where students are taught about the basics of reading music and given music lessons, usually on the guitar. All of these parts become a safe haven for student to be off the street and have fun with other kids their age in a safe and loving environment. My role as an educatdor has been multi-faceted. I teach workshops in English and music and in an effort to keep the students interested in my English taller, I tried to have a soccer game with them in English by teaching them commands such as "Pass it"or "shoot it!" The members of the community who walked by probably did a double take, because the kids were yelling "Pass it!" or "shoot it!" all over the Patio, using the commands the entires half hour we played. It was a little success I took home with me that night. Overall, this worksite challenges me and helps me grow, but most importantly helps me become a more rounded and whole person who learns to love others as Christ does.

Jessie:
Working at Chicos is easily the most life giving part of my day---my role is to serve as a mentor in the tallers, and then twice a week I teach english to two classes for forty minutes. This job is seemingly simple. I technically do not actually do anything. I serve as a listening ear and have the opportunity to share my life while learning abut the lives of these incredible boys. All of them have gone through struggles that I will most likely never encounter in my lifetime and their stories, struggles and realities are unreal...yet the insane amount of resilience that they show is so moving. This job has showed me the true power of love---these boys often dont understand the concept of being cared for...and so often do not realize their own worth---but I have seen the effect of simply loving them, and being there with them. They have really warmed up to me and I have seen improvements in their outlooks. I can only hope that we can keep moving forward in these relationships and that they can continue to see that they are people of dignity and worth, and that people do love them. My time spent at the shelter and being with the boys there made me realize something---I may not be able to change the world--in that sense I can only be part of the process---but I do have the ability to change the world of one person, simply by loving.

Viva Ecuador

During the past couple of years, I have had the opportunity to speak about Rostro and my experience in Ecuador to parish audiences in Chicago through the Missionary Cooperative Plan (MCP). I know that most people reading this can appreciate the life changing impact that our time in Ecuador played (and continues to play) in our lives. Being back in the U.S., I sometimes struggle to maintain a deep “connectedness” with Ecuador and our friends there. Introducing Rostro’s mission and representing our wonderfully dynamic group through the MCP program has helped keep Ecuador and our mission front of mind and heart. It has forced me to further reflect on the things that made my experience there so great, and it has challenged me to continue striving to live our lifelong vocation to “be the faces of Christ”. It was difficult for me to pick one personal experience to convey during my limited minutes with these parishes. What I finally settled on was the raw, genuine, intense, both human and divine, connectedness I experienced with fellow volunteers and our brothers and sisters in Ecuador- and what I continue to experience when I truly commit myself to furthering Rostro’s mission here. Rostro has set my heart, soul, and mind on fire. I know it has done the same for so many others. We have a beautiful message to share, and I’m grateful for the open hearts that have received it and been moved to contribute both financial resources and prayers to help us continue our mission! Viva Ecuador, y viva la misión de Rostro de Cristo!

First Day on the Job

For those of you that aren´t aware, Thursday was a crazy day. In the morning, Megan(my boss) left for a long awaited vacation to California. Now, because of my job as logistics coordinator, I was left as ´el jefe´ of the other volunteers. That day, as you may have heard, there was an attempt at a coup. The whole country´s police force decided to go on strike because of an issue of how they were going to be recieving bonuses. This escalated into the police trying to take the president out of power and having him being trapped inside of a hospital surrounded by thousands of angry police officers. That morning i had taken Christina to the doctors office beause she was really sick(we just found out that it is typhoid(am I secretly on Oregon Trail?)) Christina had been sent home with an IV and I was also in charge of helping her and making sure tht she got her meds(they taught me how to give her meds with a serynge through her IV).So, it was about 1030 in the morning when I decided that we needed to get everyone back home or at least know that they were safe and I had to call everyone to tell them that all afterschool programs were closed until further notice. The entire country was without police and because the military is currently undergoing a retooling, no one was in charge. There were people burning tires and edifaces of the president all over, people were looting, the bridges and highways are closed due to police blocking them with protesting and burning tires, the busses aren´t safe to go on and I have poor Christina hookednup to an IV.

So I called everyone to stay put at their work sites in Guayaquil until we figured out a plan. Wellington(one of the guards) and I drove over to the Chicos de la Calle shelter(a shelter and school for streeg kids ) and picked up Jessie and Beth. Along with them we had a truck bed full of 12 kids that needed a ride into central Duran because the busses were too dangerous. We got them back home and I called Jeff in Monte Sinai and asked him to pick up all of his housemates from work and take them home immediately. Then, after figuring out where everyone was and that everyone was safe at their worksites or at hiome it was time to find a way to get people home, which is hard when you are in the middle of a Coup and are frantically trying to pull every Spanish vocab word you can remember out of your head. I starded recieving phone calls from Helen at the Rostro de Cristo office in the US to get updates on the day. It took until 5pm until we had figured out how to get Tierney, Tasha, Brendan, and Jon home. They all worked in the middle of Guayaquil and were pretty much trapped by protests and closed bridges. We sent Wellington and another guard to go get them. They took the long way around the bridges, which took about two and a half hours both ways. Eventually we got everyone home, made grilled cheese sandwiches, watched Good Will Hunting, and passed out.

The attempted coup is now over. Police are back on duty, but it still isnt safe to go out by myself. The hospital just opened up a couple of hours ago. Christina is still really sick, but is off here IV(which I had to remove without any instruction on how to do so). Things are slowly getting back to normal and we should all be resuming work on Monday. Megan is returning on Thursday and our next retreat group just cancelled(I think that parents were all freaking out). I´m sorry I still havn´t gotten pictures up. I felt like this was a little more interesting to write about.

Orientation Comes to a Close

So our two week Ecuador orientation is coming to a close and I´m getting ready to start the real thing. We spent the first week with last year´s volunteers getting to know our neighbors, learning the bus routes, and visiting possible work sites. We gave last year´s volunteers a sad sendoff at the end of the week and made a trip to the beach for some much needed rest and relaxation. We visited a few more worksites at the beginning of this week and also had an all day scavenger hunt all over the city of Guayaquil in order to get to know the city better and practice the bus routes. We were split into groups of four and had to travel to different parts of the city and outlaying areas and take a crazy picture at each of the locations. We definitely provided some entertainment to the Ecuadorians who laughed as a bunch of gringos created a human pyramid on the sidewalk. They were all very eager to help us find where we were going...even when we didn´t ask for help.

We spent yesterday and today deciding on where we would like to work this year. I decided on Damien House for my morning job and Semillas de Mostaza (mustard seeds) for my afternoon job. Damien House http://www.thedamienhouse.org/ is a non-profit clinic for people with Hanson´s disease (formerly known as leprosy) run by Sister Annie, a lively nun from Brooklyn, New York. The clinic serves both live-in patients and outpatients. My main tasks throughout the year will be helping Sister Annie run the foundation, translating for visiting medical staff, giving tours to visiting student groups, and keeping the patients company. Semillas is an after-school program run by our foundation which provides homework help, fun activities, educational talks, a banana, a piece of bread, and a vitamin to the kids in our neighborhood. I will be running it along with 2 other volunteers and an Ecuadorian staff member who is about our same age. Attendance can vary from 40 kids to 115 per day, so it will probably get pretty crazy.

A few other tidbits- I was awoken this morning when my bed was shaken by an earthquake. That was pretty crazy considering it was the first earthquake I´ve ever felt. The epicenter was far away and there was no damage anywhere near where we are, but it was enough to send everyone running out into the kitchen in bewilderment. Also, I will finally be moving into my house this weekend after almost a month of living out of a suitcase. Up to this point we have all been living together in one of the retreat houses, where student groups stay when they are visiting. It will be nice to finally get settled, especially since I will be starting work on Monday. A few days ago we recieved a somber reminder of where we are living, as we were startled by the terrifying screams of a women in a domestic dispute and the loud cries of her children. (we found out later that no one was seriously hurt.) So the first few weeks on the equator have been quite an adventure. I will update you all the next chance I get.

Trembling out of Bed

Trembling out of Bed
I experienced my first earthquake this morning! That goodness Jenn and Marita woke me up, or I would have snored straight through it. We must be pretty far from the epicenter because it was just a minute of minor shaking. What a way to start the day! Aaron and Jeff made us girls (who tend to take advantage of every moment of shut-eye) eggs and toast this morning. We are enjoying our first day off today - the Duran volunteers are discerning their job placements as a group today. We Monte Sinai volunteers got to listen in on the discernment process last night. They have to work out as a group of 11 who will work at each site for the mornings, then divide into three afterschool programs, designating the directors and logistics coordinators. Diffucult task. Needless to say, I am delighted to be sitting in the Cyber right now.

The last few days, we have been exploring the different work sites. My lucky housemates got to accompany me (aka translate for me) two 3 hour long orientations for Hogar de Cristo. Needless to say, we now know a lot about this organization. It looks like I am going to be running the EKG clinic for the time being. (Not nearly as grandiose as it sounds). I had one 5 minute run-through on how to run a test on a machine with make-shift suction cups that are haphazardly taped on. My ´clinic´ is in the back of a classroom, behind an office divider. What have I gotten myself into this time...haha. I am also in charge of organizing a variety of ¨projects¨ throughout the year. The education department sends representatives to schools to identify families and kids who are struggling. If there are medical issues at home, I get to join the team to visit the home and develop a case, explaining the situation, and present it to Hogar de Cristo in hopes of getting free health care in the area, food baskets, etc. This will definitely be the hardest, but BEST part of my job. Most kids who perform poorly in school or stop attending school do so in order to work (often selling water, candy, or newspapers in the streets). Women are often left home to raise kids, while men are either working or out of the picture. Even if the man is working, the money often times does not come home. The situations get even tougher when there are developmental disabilities, infectious and cronic diseases, etc. Lack of sanitation, dirty water, and low nutrition cause many of these problems. The new clinic at my work place will hopefully be finished in two months. (In Ecua time, it could be another 6 months). However, they are interviewing doctors next week - so the situation looks promising! The will have ginecology, emergency room, minor surgury, dentistry, and general medicine services. My supervisor (Veronica) wants to train me in some surrounding clinincs to get a feel for the environment before our clinic starts up. Veronic and Dolores are in charge of me for the year. They are incredibly warm and friendly and super patient with my Spanish. It is going to be a phenomenal experience, no matter what I end up doing.

My four housemmates have sweet placements as well. I think I mentioned that Marita with be working with the San Felipe school right down the street from us. Jenn will be working with the Casa Don Bosco -- a street kids program in Guayquil. She will be organizing after school programs, doing some social work, and possbily teaching a few classes. Jeff will also be working with street kids, similar to Jenn´s placement. He is a phenomenal guitar player, so has much to offer in those respects. Aaron is working at a small medical clinic called Sonrisa Naranja (Orange smiles). Two Dutch doctors started this clinic two years ago. As they bring stories home from their placements, I will be sure to share them with you!

We only have four days left of orientation. Two days ago, we had the big bus quiz. It was a 10 hour scavenger hunt through Guayaquil and Duran. Megan (our in-country coordinator) was waiting in the middle with pizza and cake (Tres Leches!!). We ended at Las Peñas, a lighthouse downtown, which looks over the entire city. The day wore all of us out. But gave us a much needed tour of the city.

This was a short update, but I will have more coming soon.

Thanks for reading

Darkness Has Not Overcome

A trip to Ecuador,
south of the United States;
11 students, 3 staff,
1 God ready to fill our plates.

We hopped on a plane,
dreaming what God had for us as we roam;
Secretly wondering, ‘How we could survive a week,
without our cell phone?’

Touching down in Duran’s sticky hot mess,
The bugs make our group squeal;
We ride home in silence, taking it all in,
not sure how we should all feel.

Shacks with no floor, kids with torn soccer balls,
a muddy and unpaved street;
Intense poverty, like nothing I’ve seen,
leaves me squirming in my seat.

While hearing strange noises,
I lay thinking in my bed;
How would people here receive us,
silly fears dance in my head.

Yet, our neighbors welcome us in
with words from God above;
We lounge in their hammocks, play games,
and receive this rich love.

How could our new friends, choose to lavish us Gringos,
they live with so much less;
Where do they find their smiles of joy,
what gives them reason to radically bless?

As we dig deeper we unveil the source of their joy,
comes not from anything we see;
Rather they are dependant for provision from above
and through God’s community.

They live tightly knit with family,
defying U.S. laws of ‘personal space’
For they are stronger together,
a picture of God’s sovereign grace.

Our group marvels as we find God
alive in our hood;
However, the full picture
would soon seem much less good.

One child in particular
made our reflection headline news;
For he had spent the afternoon with us,
while wearing two left shoes.

Another stands out
in the way he looked at our faces;
“I want to play soccer,” he says,
“but I’ve got no laces.”

Corrupt government structures,
with mayors that have great greed;
That promise clean water, install pipes,
yet fail to succeed.

This leaves all the poorest people
on the streets at 5 in the A.M.;
Screaming ‘AGUA, AGUA,’
praying the truck will stop for them.

It’s a paradoxical tension
that we are all trying to fight;
We experience the darkest mess,
yet we see God’s light.

People with Hanson’s disease,
alone and rejected by all of society;
Yet there’s a sister with compassion,
who creates a warm space to heal their anxiety.

Boys wandering the streets
begging and sniffing glue;
A rich community and shelter,
a place to start their lives anew.

A woman living by drugs and standing water,
her husband drunk and long departed;
A warm welcome, fresh fruit, hospitality,
and a powerful new connection is started.

Kids wearing donated clothing,
looking tattered and torn;
Yet their simple smiles of joy,
seem to overcome all that we mourn.

We ask God together,
‘how is this possible… how could you allow this?’
These people are amazing
and need not be dismissed?

Jesus you heal lepers,
God sends his people to restore;
Now we see this clear suffering,
and we ask ‘HOW MUCH MORE?’

It takes great faith
to look in the face of intense grief;
And proclaim, ‘We believe you are good God,
help our unbelief.’

This pain we found in Duran,
struck a chord deeply in each hearts;
Now we return home,
hoping we will do our parts.

Living in the United States,
this trip is challenging our story;
Calling us to turn our lives
from striving for our own glory.

Our lives are geared towards doing,
our self worth wrapped in a to-do list;
Yet it seems God wants relationship
to be the reason we exist.

How will we respond to God
after He has expanded our world view?
Will we shrink back to former selves
or seek the face of Christ at A.U.?

Guaderia

In the soft morning sunlight the Arbolito guarderia seems to shine with excitement and wonder. The children rounding the corner with their parents catch a glimpse of their magical oasis and grow in excitement knowing that once they cross the purple threshold they enter into their very own special place. A place where the children are cared for on an individual basis, where they are given nutritious food and snack, where they have access to an education as well as a healthy environment in which to grow, and most importantly where they are treated with love and respect. At times I too have to stop myself and think “wow, this guarderia really is top of the line.” So for those of you who worked at the guarderia, or passed by it every day, or maybe knew a child who went there, know that it still is a peaceful, loving and positive place in the Arbolito community.

Now although I say that the guarderia is a peaceful place I would like to stress that I do not mean that one will find themselves at peace while inside the walls of the guarderia. In fact it's quite the opposite and rightfully so since 60 children, ranging from ages 2-4, will leave you drained of everything you have both mentally and physically. There is never a dull moment, and you can never let your guard down at the guarderia. Just the other day I was helping Diana, the maternal teacher, cut out classroom decorations while the children played with play dough. As we were working we heard a loud crashing noise from the bathrooms. We both stopped what we were doing and looked around the classroom to see if it was one of our “ositos” could have been making the noise. Within an instant Diana jumped up from her chair and ran to the bathroom.

Seconds later I heard Diana scream, “Eric, no!” When I ran to see what had happened I found Diana standing in the last stall with tiny 2 year old Eric. She had him by the hands with a shocked looked on her face, Eric had a mischievous grin. Diana looked at me and then pointed to the toilet. When I popped my head in I saw that the heavy porcelain toilet bowl lid had been cracked straight down the middle. Apparently Eric was lifting and then dropping the lid as hard as he could until it broke. Luckily nothing happened to Eric but now the guarderia is down one toilet and all the teachers are unsure of what to do with the “terremoto” that is Eric. The latest idea was to put a short leash on him and have him always connected to Diana, but that didn't seem to go over to well with some of the teachers.

The story of Eric is just one of many from my morning job at the guarderia. It seems as if every day the children are perfecting their mischievousness and shenanigans. If anything gets me out of bed in the morning it’s the knowledge that I will most likely come home with another endearing story about the chaos that is the guarderia.

Back in Ecuador

Wow, am I really here? Again? A little over a year ago, I was at orientation at John Carroll University, preparing myself for the journey ahead surrounded by my newly introduced community mates and other Jesuit Volunteer International volunteers. I began to think to myself, ¨God bless the JVI volunteers. They are giving up two years of their life to do service. I could never do that.¨ Well, as the season of Thanksgiving invites us to do, I can not help but thank God that I am back in Ecuador, surrounded with some of the people that taught me so much about life, myself, and the world around me and will continue to challenge me in these three aspects. At the same time, this year is a bit of a different experience; altered community, new living arrangements, new job, new pace of life, new obstacles to hurdle, new excitements and new rostros de Cristo.

One of those excitements has been my time with Hogar de Cristo. Currently I am working in the microfinance department in which low interest loans are granted to groups of ten to thirty women who live near one another. The women, in turn, are to use the money and invest it in a business. My mission/ job here so far has been to help with little odd end jobs around the office, accompany other employees as they support the women and visit their respective businesses. Hogar de Cristo serves to roughly 4,800 women in the microfinance department alone from the Guayaquil branch.

One of my blessings is that I have been able to work beside a Hogar de Cristo volunteer, Felix, who is volunteering two years of his life. Felix is from Spain and already has been here for eight months. Currently Felix and I are working on ways that we can have more contact with the women, or rather, a way that we can get to know them outside of their businesses because we know there is more to them than their business. Therefore we are working on a survey with questions that should open the door into conversations about their lives and at the same time prove to be a reliable assistance to the microfinance department. The basic principle at hand is that of the mission of Rostro de Cristo, to accompany the women and ´be´ with them.

As for living it community, it remains one of those aspects I could not live without. We have picked up where we left off by continuing to support and challenge one another. The temporary housing unit we are staying in is cozy to a point where it is a bit too cozy at times. Tracy and Amy share a room and Carolyn and I have a bunk bed in the other room. While it is a challenge, it is also a friendly reminder that thousands of people all around us share one room cane houses and how truly blessed we are.

While we live about a 30 minute bus ride away from Monte Sinai we have all started to immerse ourselves. On Friday mornings I am working as a physical education teacher at an elementary school that is ran by nuns from Colombia. I only teach three grades for a half hour each, but attempt to teach the kids some positive ways to deal with their restlessness which in hand becomes a big help for the teachers. On Saturday afternoons I am working with one of the nuns and we teach first communion to roughly twenty kids. The chapel where I teach is not in Monte Sinai but part of the same parish. So far it has been a fantastic experience and I am so amazed at how much I have seen my faith grow, continue to learn things and develop a deeper understanding with the kids as my teachers.

As the Thanksgiving season now shifts to Advent, I am still left being thankful but now more attentive to the birth of Jesus. Ecuador helps me practice being intentional with my faith so that I can be present to all that is happening around me.

Life as a Second Year Volunteer

Life as a second year volunteer has been an exciting whirlwind of activities and progress since we stepped foot in the Guayaquil airport that emotional September evening.  We hit the ground running with our new partner organization, Hogar de Cristo, as the first several weeks were spent learning the complex infrastructure of the corporation before starting at our perspective work-sites.
 
I have had the blessing to start working at La Casa de Acogida, a shelter for battered women and children of extreme domestic violence. As the shelter is less than a year old, I have had the exciting privilege and freedom to develop the placement by supporting the many needs of the house.  From the beginning I have formed a very supportive role with the children by implementing systems of structure and discipline in the shelter, preparing educational activities, enrolling them in school and helping them with their studies.  As this role develops, I look forward to fostering stronger relationships with the women by helping the psychologists with various workshops on self-esteem, health, the cycle of violence, etc...  Since the shelter is still growing and expanding, I also have the opportunity to help with more administrative aspects and learn how to organize and run a shelter efficiently.  The has been a great variety of work at the shelter and it has been keeping me on my toes as a settle into a comfortable place with the women. 
 
Our progress in Monte Sinai has been slowly progressing as work and travel to and from the neighborhood take up much of our time, but fortunately I feel that our presence has steadily increased in the past few weeks.  I have started teaching catechism classes before mass on Sunday mornings with Tracy, and have had the good fortune to spend time with many of the families through the church and the children of our classes.  Also, we have started to get to know some of the families closer to where our house will be as we have been spending time with a group of Colombian nuns that run a elementary school a few blocks from our house.  So far I have felt welcomed with open arms and cannot wait to spend more time with some of the wonderful families that we have met.  As construction of the house has recently started, the anticipation is bursting for when the day comes to move to Monte Sinai.
 
All in all, the experience to start being in a new community and work sites with Rostro de Cristo has been such a blessing.  There have been bumps in the road, and moments of smooth sailing as well as tears and laughter.  I greatly appreciate all of the support and prayers that I have felt from the greater Rostro de Cristo community stateside as I have been fortunate enough to take part in the expansion of the Rostro de Cristo community in Ecuador.  God bless and Feliz Navidad!!

The Meaning of 'Gracias'

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I have been thinking a lot lately about gratefulness. It occurred to me on Tuesday during a very fruitful Spirituality Night led by my community mate Danny that the word ¨gracias” literally means “graces.” I can’t believe that after all of the times that I have used and heard that word, I had never come to that realization before. Graces. I love that. It’s like when we thank someone, we are acknowledging a way that they allowed us to more fully encounter God’s grace and also wishing that God’s grace surround them and accompany them. As I approach the three month mark of my second year here in Ecuador, I feel joyful and very thankful for all of the opportunities I continue to have to witness grace in the people that surround me.

It feels like such a blessing to be back in this place where the whole-hearted “Gracias” spoken after sharing a meal with you seems to place a seal of confidence and sacredness around the conversation shared; this place where people say “Gracias por la visita” when it was in fact them who offered you their most comfortable chair and stopped whatever they were doing to give you their full attention and probably even serve you a heaping plate of food; this place where people greet each and every person in the room they just entered with a kiss and a smile, even if it is a meeting, perhaps to say – your presence and our interaction is considerably more important than whatever business we are trying to take care of right now. In this second year I have felt a heightened awareness of the fact that Ecuadorians are sacramental people. They do see God’s grace in everything. Being around this so much leaves a U.S. American like me starkly humbled, and of course, thankful.

I encounter so much grace and sacredness through my volunteer position in the Pastoral Ministry Department of Hogar de Cristo. One of the main initiatives of the department is to work with women in the surrounding parishes to develop base faith communities. Throughout the past few months I have been accompanying these communities that meet bi-weekly for faith formation and faith-sharing. The Pastoral office is such a fun place to be, too, because the women we serve are always dropping in to work on little projects or just to talk. I love being with them - listening to them talk and engaging in conversation with them about faith, justice, and ways that they themselves can be agents of hope and change in their neighborhoods. It is energizing. To me, these women are glimmers of hope in sections of the city that otherwise look quite bleak. One of my favourite moments was when a twelve old girl participating in a meeting about dignity said, “Sometimes in this country they tell me that because I am a girl, I can’t. But I know that I can.” Grace.

Last week, we went to visit the site for the new house, Casa Tomas, and it is going up! It has been at times hard to feel like a part of the neighbourhood in Monte Sinai while living outside on the Perimetral, about a thirty minute bus ride away. As things often are in this country, the process is slow. But after a few months of heading in each weekend to spend time in the parishes and begin to make relationships with neighbors, I am feeling so excited for us and for volunteers in years to come to grow with this vibrant community. We have been going to church and teaching catechism in the parish Bautismo de Jesús which is headed up by Fr. Colm Hogan, an Irish missionary priest from the Society of St. James. He has been a phenomenal support for us, and he is dearly loved by the members of the three chapels that he serves in the area. The largest of the three, Iglesia Corpus Christi, where we attend Mass on Sunday morning, recently started using a beautiful new bamboo church building. The lovely space reflects the energetic worship that occurs inside. I have been singing for the past few Sundays with the youth choir, Hijo de David, which is made up of committed and VERY talented teenaged musicians and singers.

The neighbors I have met in Monte Sinai are beautiful, hilarious, faith-filled, humble, and welcoming people. Are you surprised? Of course not. We have left more than a few houses smiling and saying, “That family is totally going to be friends with Rostro volunteers for years to come!” One of the families I have gotten to spend the most time with is that of Jhonny and Rosa and their two kids, Diego and Domenica. Jhonny is the night guard at the church and spends seven nights a week there on duty. He is laid back, with kind eyes and a big belly that shakes when he laughs. His wife Rosa has a gorgeous shy smile, and she giggles at just about everything we say. Our first visit there, Carolyn and I watched Diego and Doménica as they constructed a Sponge Bob año viejo, about two months ahead of time, and we shared a cola and conversation in plastic chairs out front. I looked around in that moment and felt home. What a blessing.

In conclusion, I am joyful here in the northern part of Guayaquil and feel God working in my life in so many ways. We have, of course, continued to see the ugly part of the culture and the way unjust systems oppress the very same people that we are coming to know and love. But the face of Christ is alive and shining bright in the homes and churches that we have been blessed to enter. I think I realize more and more every day what a grace it is to be part of this Foundation that has helped us to grow so much as individuals over the years and to encounter Christ more deeply. What a grace it is to be connected by this shared experience that is so much bigger than any of us. Thank you for your continued prayers as Rostro expands into a new place. I wish you and your family many graces in the coming holiday season and always!

It’s starting to feel right

It’s starting to feel right. It took a little while, I must admit – two months of homesickness (and not just for friends and family in the states anymore), learning new buses, new smells, a new routine, getting used to living my life in Spanish again . . . but here I am, finally.

Things are moving slowly – no big surprise considering this is still Ecuador. I am still negotiating my place at work with Hogar. We are still waiting for the house, although we have seen some progress in the past few weeks. I don’t think that big piles of dirt have ever put me in such a good mood. I can’t wait until I can say that I actually live in Monte Sinai. Patience is a virtue, and is the lesson that God has been trying to teach me these past few months.

My favorite time of the week here are the weekends (anyone else know that feeling?). Because we don’t live very close to the new neighborhood, we haven’t been able to spend time there during the week – extreme bummer. So, we take advantage of the weekends. Friday morning through Sunday afternoon, it is pretty certain you will find us wandering around Monte Sinai. We have become great friends with a community of nuns who live a few blocks from where we will be living soon and run a small elementary school in the neighborhood. They have taken us under their wings, introduced us to families, fed us, and let us use their home as our satellite place to rest on the weekends between house visits. I have also started teaching catechism there with them on Saturday afternoons. I have been given a group of 20 or so kiddos between 9 and 13 years old. Its nice to be in educator mode again.

So, everything is new – new faces, new stories, new questions, new relationships, but something about it is strikingly familiar. Spending hours in conversation, walking house to house in the sun, hugs, kisses, playing with kids, sharing struggles, laughing – oh man do we laugh. It’s Rostro. It’s comfortable. It’s home. It’s why I came back to Ecuador for another year. The families I have been getting to know are wonderfully welcoming (again, no surprise there). The nuns have helped us out by explaining a bit about who we are and why we are in Monte Sinai in the first place, and between the four of us here, I think people know what we are about (or should I say Who we are about?). And, all in all, it seems that they are excited about having us around. It looks like Rostro really fits here. When we are in the neighbors houses, or when we are at mass, it is impossible to not feel God’s presence. He brings me such peace in the moments when I’m not really sure what I should be doing to best serve Rostro. He has filled my last two months with challenges and grace. Those two tend to come in an interesting pair.

All in all, the time here is full. I think of you all often, which sounds strange considering many of us have never met, but your legacy, the work you have done, or better put – the way you have been in Ecuador – I carry that spirit with me in a profound way in this new year. Being a part of this new step for Rostro makes me think about everything that past volunteers have done to get us to this place. Thank you so much for your prayers and for continuing to hold Rostro in your lives.

Some Thoughts on Advent

Hello! Happy Thanksgiving a week late, and happy Advent to you all! It's hard to believe that we are already in the midst of the holiday season. It feels very strange - and sometimes lonely - to be spending my holidays here in Ecuador, to be preparing for Christmas when it's getting hotter and sunnier every day, to hear Spanish carols pouring from cane houses, to be celebrating advent in Spanish at the misa, to be celebrating here with children whose biggest - or perhaps only - gifts might be the etch-a-sketch and sunglasses they just received from their sponsorship program, 'Children International.' Yes, it's incredibly strange. And yet, I am discovering, it is also a beautiful, beautiful blessing.

With Advent beginning last Sunday I've been reflecting on what Advent and Christmas mean here, in this time and this place. And with every day and every reflection I am finding myself more deeply thankful to be spending Advent here, in a world in which the message and reality of Advent and Christmas suddenly seem more raw, more real, more applicable, more possible. I wanted to share a few reflections...

Entering the Advent season here has prompted me to consider that this world of poverty and injustice that I am surrounded by here in Ecuador is a world very similar to that into which Christ was born. Monday night as my community was praying with Luke's annunciation story, I couldn't help but think that one of my young neighbors, sweeping the dirt floors of her small wooden home, might make a very appropriate Mary, and her young son playing on the floor at her feet might then make a very appropriate Christ child. Yes, this world is the same desperate, oppressed world into which Christ was born, a world of poverty and violence and corruption and gross inequalities (all things that also exist in the States but that have reached such proportions here that they can't possibly be hidden or ignored).

I have been considering, too, this idea of waiting, and what it means to wait in solidarity. I am waiting, as we do every Advent, for Christ's coming, but that seems to take on a new significance here. Here I wait with my friends and neighbors, with my students, with the patients at Damien House, and with the beautiful children who make my life here so joyful. Together we pray 'come Lord Jesus,' come into our hearts and our families, come into our communities and our country, enter into our entire world. Come Lord Jesus, we pray, and turn our world upside down. May the last be first and the kings pulled from their thrones and the rich sent away without, as you have promised. Come Lord Jesus and lift up the little ones you loved so much, here in Ecuador where those little ones, the simple and the weak and the poor, fill the streets. Come Lord Jesus I pray, together with my neighbors, and together we wait in hope.

And I know that this is important too, that we not only wait but that we do so in hope. This can be hard, especially here. Many days our world seems incredibly broken, irreparably shattered. It seems hard to conceive that even Christ could put it back together again. Hope is sometimes hard to come by. And yet as I pictured the annunciation the other night I found myself brimming with esperanza. What an incredibly long time, I reflected, the Israelites were waiting for their Messiah. And who could have ever imagined that that Messiah would enter the world in the way that he did, born in a stable, out of wedlock, the son of a carpenter and a young, insignificant girl in Galilee, destined to become the friend of sinners and the champion of the downtrodden and powerless. As Christ's birth, life, and death have shown us, God's time is not our time, nor are his means our means. And as Christmas inevitably comes after Advent, we wait in hope that Christ's world-turned-upside-down must inevitably come as well. This waiting, of course, does not mean idleness or indifference. I firmly believe that Christ's world is slowly breaking into our own, that our own attempts to love and to work for justice and peace help to bring his kingdom slowly into reality. And yet as we struggle through the day by day, when progress is far from apparent, we Christmas is God's present to us, his promise that, as Oscar Romero tells us, love must win out - it is the only thing that can.



And that is where I leave you today, on a thoughtful note. Thank you for reading my ramblings and my thoughts. Whether or not they meant much, this is where my heart is right now. I know I have said nothing of my comings and goings; I suppose that will have to wait until a later email. Know though that I am thinking of each of you, holding you all in my heart! I am thankful for you all :)

A lot, a lot of love is being sent your way from South America -

Hello from Ecuador!

This is my attempt to keep my word and try to stay in touch more
regularly. Perhaps then I can keep my notes a little shorter and more
manageable... thanks to all who actually made it through my last
message! Very impressive.

So here is some of the news from here in Duran, Ecuador:

I have been back for a week from my vacation in Baños in the Andes
mountains - which was incredibly beautiful - and I am so very happy to
be settling back into a routine and to be able to spend time with my
community and with our Ecuadorian neighbors. As usual, there have been
emotional highs and emotional lows, days where I am smiling all day
and days where i might start crying at the slightest things, but I'm
realizing that is life here in Ecuador - the emotional swings are
incredible and there is very little middle ground. Sometimes I feel
like I might explode but all in all i am so thankful that I am feeling
here - really and truly feeling things and experiencing things and
living things with my whole heart.

And I am growing - I think my heart is stretching and my faith is
growing and I am learning to open myself and empty myself a little
more every day.

To talk more concretely, an interesting fact, I suppose, is that we
are experiencing an energy crisis here in Ecuador right now. We are
coming up on the rainy season, which begins for real in January, and
usually during the transition from rainy season to dry season it will
begin to rain, little by little, as January approaches. This year,
unlike most years, there has been no rain as of yet (it has not rained
here in Guayaquil a single time since I arrived here in August), and
they are not forecasting rain for a while. This means that the rivers
are very very low, and although I don't completely understand it all,
much of the country's energy comes from hydroelectric power. Anyways
with this power shortage they are rationing energy by shutting off
power to certain parts of the city at specific times every day. For us
in Duran, the power goes off from about 7 in the morning to 10 every
day and then again at night from 6 to 8. We are well situated to deal
with the lack of energy because we generally still have water due to
the way our plumbing is set up (another thing I dont fully understand)
and we have a gas stove, so especially in the morning, lots of times I
don't even realize that we don't have power. At night though it is a
little more tricky, as it gets dark every night at 6. It's a little
dangerous to be wandering around at night without light - the other
night I tripped over the dog and almost fell on my face - and we are
also often cooking eating etc in the dark. It was an adventure at
first and a little annoying now but we are becoming very adept at
living with a combination of headlamps, flashlights, and candlelight.
The energy shortage is forecasted to continue for the next 2 months so
I'm sure by the end then we will be experts at surviving sin luz.

In other news, I love teaching more every day. A lot of it I think has
to do with finally feeling like I know what I am doing, at least a
little bit, and also getting to know my students a little better and
earning their trust. As I type this I just got out of an hour and 20
minute class with my high school seniors. We just started discussing
the idea of 'us' versus 'them' in our modes of relating with people,
and today we discussed racial stereotypes within the United States and
here in Ecuador. We started out discussing the legacy of segregation
in the US and I explained to them 'Brown versus Board of Education,'
and from there we were able to have a really great discussion on
racism, including whether or not we might all be 'inherently racist,'
simply because of our background and our fear of the unknown, the
'them.' Sometimes I feel like trying to get my class to talk can be
like pulling teeth and sometimes it is so hard for me to get them to
think critically but I think the discussion today really resonated
with them, and I think we all walked out of class with a lot of things
to think about. And it all seems like such a blessing to me, to be
able to discuss issues like this with students in a culture different
than my own, in a culture where i am actually the 'them,' and to
really feel that genuine interest and the understanding, to know that
we are all growing and learning together. What an amazing blessing.

i think I'm going to leave it at that today - - hopefully if I stay up
to date with these notes I will be able to continue sending a few
paragraphs at a time instead of entire chapters :)

Once again thank you for all of your support and your prayers and your
love. Thinking of you all as the holidays approach. I wish i could be
there to celebrate with you but i will be holding you in my heart.

Mande?

I've been planning to write this next update for a while now but it hasn't happened. I feel a little as though I have been waiting for inspiration to strike, but it hasn't been coming. The problem isn't that I have too little to report on but rather too much... how can I even begin to explain life
down here?

In the end perhaps I will have to settle for sharing a few snapshots of my daily life:

First, let me introduce you to the most used word in my vocabulary: ''¿¿¿¿Mande????'' As in, 'i have no idea what you just said to me. Could you repeat it, possibly in a much slower manner?' The language is coming, poco a poco, like everything down here, but that doesn't mean I don't make a fool out of myself 3,415 times a day... At the same time, I have to be thankful for the patience and understanding my Ecuadorian neighbors and coworkers show me.. Its so very humbling (which I am trying to embrace!).

Speaking of humbling, as a gringa down here, I am allowed a certain number of faux pauxs, I am pretty sure that I am far exceeding that number. There are so many cultural norms that I just don't understand, and that's if I am even aware that they exist. Im sure the neighbors get a fair amount of laughs at us, many times when we dont even know. And THEN, if the language isnt there to defend yourself with... well it can be frustrating. And yet this is such a great opportunity for growth... I was reflecting the other day about how hard it is for me to be bad at something. I am scared of messing up, of falling on my face. And yet in a sense, that is what I am
forced to do here (very literally in fact... I have fallen on my face once, in one of our afterschool programs, haha! I still have the scar on my knee to prove it. It made for a good joke for a while). It is inevitable that I will make a fool of myself; I do it every day. And yet I have to get back up, and keep trying. I am learning that even when you fall, life goes on. You pick yourself back up, patch your knee back together, and try again... possibly with a slightly better grasp of your own brokenness and your own limitations. And it is the knowledge of my brokenness, my limitations (and my horrible horrible awkwardness in so many situations!!) that teaches me compassion towards others when they, too, inevitably fall.

Another very present reality of my life - - the million and one hugs and kisses I recieve daily. Ecuadorians greet each other with a kiss on the cheek (well, for the most part - - - women give each other kisses on the cheek, and guys give girls kisses on the cheek, but guys greet each other with a very manly handshake). Why don't we do this in the states? It's wonderful. But this doesn't make up a quarter of the hugs and kisses I recieve daily, because most of all they come from the kids... Sometimes all
I have to do is step out on the street and I am bombarded by 15 hugs. Kids from Semillas de Mostaza, our afterschool program, kids from the soup kitchen where I like to stop by and chat, kids from Nuevo Mundo where I teach. Sometimes I have no idea who they are or where I possibly could have met them but they greet me like we have been best friends for years. The children here fill my heart with joy... and most of all, with love. I want to introduce you to Abraham, Luis, and Carmen, three kids from Semillas. Every time I pass their house I am guaranteed a 5 minute hug, and then
another one, until I've been hugged for 20 minutes and I'm impossibly late to wherever I'm going (I have to admit that sometimes I go out of my way just to pass their home). And then there's Veronica, comes to Semillas as well. She is eight years old but because of malnourishment she looks like she's four.... but she is one of the most embracing, loving children I've ever met. She calls me 'preciosa' and insists on giving me a hug and a long wet kiss every time I see her. And Wellington, the 8 year old son of a neighbor, who goes to Nuevo Mundo, where I teach. This morning I took him to the cyber to practice the ´computacion,´ like his dad wanted... Basically I just helped him to send emails to past volunteers: ´´Hola, soy Wellington. Como esta alla? Te extrano. Ven a mi cumpleanos el 25 de Diciembre. Ciao.´´So cute!

Final snapshot, perhaps, should be of my community. Every morning we scatter off to different worksites, sometimes we see eachother at midday, some people work together in the afternoon. Most nights, no matter where the day took us, we come back together for dinner and prayer. It is hard work. Sometimes I just want to be at the neighbors,
hanging out. Sometimes my community mates are driving me crazy. Sometimes I have no desire to pray.... and this goes for all of us, of course. It takes a lot, a LOT, of intentionality, knowing that in signing up to take part in a ´´christian community,´´ we have committed ourselves to relationships in which we dont just pass with a
smile and a hello in the hallway but rather we have a responsibility towards one another, we hold one another accountable. Truly trying to live as a community, sometimes little decisions get turned into big ones. The other night we had a 30 minute discussion on how much cheese we should buy - - really. ´´Is it a luxury item, how much can we afford,´´ etc etc. Yikes! And recently we had a perhaps more serious
discussion on alcohol and what role it should play in our experience here, given our differing backgrounds, given our intentions for the year, given the prevalence of alcoholism in Ecuador and the effects it has on our neighbors. What might be seen as an individual decision in the states caused some arguments and even some tears, and the issue eventually evolved into the question of how accountable we are to each
other as a community. It was intense! What a sense of accomplishment, though, when after numerous, long discussions, we reached a conclusion that everyone felt okay with, especially when the conclusion showed how we are growing to support and to trust one another. When I signed up for this experience in Ecuador, I thought the community living would be the easiest part.... it may turn out to be the hardest! The
hardest things, though, generally end up being the most rewarding. I
am incredibly thankful for my community here.

A Beautiful Day

It´s a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon here in Ecuador! The first
draft of this note was composed from the hammock on my front porch,
where the shade hid me at least from a bit of the heat. Right now we
are in the coolest part of the year for Ecuadorians and lots of
mornings it is cloudy and cool, but when the clouds burn off it gets
really warm. This morning there were no clouds and the heat started
early, promising a hot, muggy day. I think I probably sweat my body
weight in water every day here and so I am trying hard not to imagine
what its going to feel like January through April, when the rainy
season hits, promising muggyness and mid90s to mid100 highs every day
(I am praying that I can become accustomed to the climate!)... The
heat makes me feel lazy, and I am taking a day off after a long week.
Some of my community-mates are off visiting a neighbor, and others are
planning to go watch a soccer game later today, but I think for me the
plan for today is to get a big of breathing time in, to catch up on
the notes to family and friends, to do some laundry and to relax so
that I can start the next week running!

Perhaps I should begn my update by sharing my worksites with you all.
To be honest, they came as a surprise even to me! As we started the
discernment process, I felly expected to feel drawn towards one of the
two medical placements, an AIDS clinic and Padre Damien´s, a hospital
for people with Hansen´s disease (leprosy). I did like both of those
sites, and could imagine myself working at either one of them, but
ultimately I felt called in a different direction. In the afternoons,
I am going to be teaching English (the last thing I expected - or
wanted - to do coming down here!) in a school called Nuevo Mundo (new
world). In the mornings, I am our new ¨community outreach worker,¨and
I will also be spending a day a weeek at Padre Damien´s, letting me
fulfill my medical interests too, and affording me a possibility to
participate and translate durng the times that medical teams from the
states come down to work.

Let me tell you a bit more about my two placements, though, and about
why I am so excited. Nuevol Mundo was founded 30 years ago by Pat, and
ex-nun from the States, and Sonia, her Ecuadorian partner. In the
morning, it provides a high-quality, bilingual education to wealthy
students of Guayaquil. From the money they made with the morning
school, 25 years ago the two women were able to found the afternoon
school, where I will be working. This afternoon school provides the
same quality education to intelligent, highly-motivated studenbts from
areas such as the neighborhood in which I live - students who
othervise would have no access to a quality education. The afternoon
school will open doors to them which would never have been possible
otherwise. I will be partnering with an Ecuadorian teacher to teach
fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, and we will split the classes and
teach the same material. I truly feel called to this position but at
the same time I´m feeling pretty nervous about my teaching abilities
(or lack thereof!). Keep me in your prayers...

The main emphasis of my morning site is to further Rostro´s
relationship with the communities in which we live, as well as doing
some extra housekeeping stuff for Rostro. The exact form this position
will take is still a work in progress, but it may end up looking
something like spending Monday visiting neighbors in the AJS community
and Wednesday in Arbolito, doing some accounting and errands for
Rostro on Tuesday, Nuevo mundo planning on Thursday, and going to
Padre Damien on Friday, as well as working at our local soup kitchen a
few days a week, visiting the sites at which my community-mates are
working to familiarize myself with their services and to be able to
refer people in the community to those places, etc. The variety and
the room for creativity in this placement really appeal to me, and
most of all I am excited about the conversations with my neighbors,
about the opportunity to share and to accompany and to learn.

I feel like this note is running long but I´d like to share one more
thing with you all before closing, a moment that I fould to be
particularly powerful and meaningful to me. On Wednesday I went to
Mass with two of my community mates at their worksite, el Proyecto
Salesiano chicos de la calle. This program, or ¨Chicos,¨as we call it,
is a home and school for boys that were formerly living and working on
the streets of Guayaquil and surrounding areas. The gospel for mass on
Wednesday morning was the one about how ïts harder for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven.¨I´d
heard the passage a million times over back in the States, generally
sitting in an air-conditioned church, surrounded by other
estadounidense churchgoers, many of whom, like me, led a very
comfortable life. What a change, then, what a contrast, to listen to
this gospel passage surrounded by those we in the states would easily
define as the poor - boys that had left their homes to live and work
in the streets! You don´t get much poorer than that. And then came the
homily, in which the priest, the man who runs Chicos, proceeded to
tell these boys just how rich they were - rich in abilities, rich in
opportunities. Here, he told them, you are rich, because you have the
opportunity to get an education. Here, he said, you are rich because
you get three meals a day. Here, you are rich because you have your
own bed to sleep in, while many sleep 3 or 4 to a bed, or have to bed
at all. Once he had firmly established how very rich these boys were,
he proceeded to chastise them for the times they didn´t do their
homework, for the times they didn´t bathe or present themselves in the
best manner, for the times they weren´t grateful for that which they
had been given. More emphatically than I had heard in any homily in
the states, he told these boys that from those to whom much had been
given, much was expected........... It certainly put a few things in
perspective for me. I feel as though I have been given the world.

I want you to know that I am thinking of you all, and that I hope that
everything is going well for you! I can´t believe that summer is
already drawing to a close. I hope those of you who are heading back
to school, whether in the form of student or teacher!, are feeling up
to the task... I´m sure you are all going to do great :) I am
incredibly thankful for the notes I received in response to my last
email - keep them coming, por favor! I am missing you all, and it
makes me feel just a bit more connected to you all at home.

Sending you an incredible amount of love, straight from this tiny
internet cafe in the middle of Ecuador to you, wherever you might be
in the States. I am grateful for you all!

Touching Down

So after two weeks of orientation in Cleveland, I'm a week and a half
into my incountry orientation in ecuador... a few more days and that
should all be finished and i will be, i hope, VERY well orientated by
that point!

We spent our first week here living in the retreat house, where high
school and college kids stay during their immersion trips here.
Saturday night we got split into two different houses, as Rostro has
two separate houses where volunteers live in two different
neighborhoods. We will still, hopefully, be seeing a lot of one
another but the split determined who we would be living with and
spending time with on a daily basis.

I'm now living in the Arbolito community with 5 volunteers, an there
are 5 other volunteers in the Antonio Jose de Sucre neighborhood.
Arbolito is the newer, less developed and visibly poorer of the two
neighborhoods. I live on a dirt road in a very urban area. Many of my
neighbors live in cane houses. In the AJS comunity, the roads are all
paved, and the houses, for the most part, constructed of cement. And
yet they all face the systemic issues. Lack of running water, poor
education, children going to work to provide for their families. And
the list continues, always multiplying, kind of like the holes dotting
the tin roof of the home of one of my neighbors. I can only imagine
what the rainy season must be like.

And yet.... dont want this note to be full of shocking descriptions
of the poverty around me. I do want to give you a bit of a picture, a
bit of a context in which to place this year for me. To complete this
context, though, I might have to introduce you to the friendly faces
of Wellington, Eduardo, Omar, Isidro, and Elvis, our guards. To
Ricardo, Diana, and Aide, the Ecuadorian staff of Rostros after school
programs. To Joseph, Daniel, Elvis, Junior, the funny, welcoming
teenage boys who serve as "ayudantes" in the afterschool program in
Arbolito. To Kiki, the party crazy but wholly warm and welcoming woman
who is active in the local church, to Nanci and Patricia, who welcomed
us into their homes, to Sister Annie, who runs Padre Damiens home for
people with Hansens disease, to all of the beautiful, beautiful
children who come to our afterschool programs.

Its funny, this past week has been very different for me than if Id
come here as a retreatant, one of the high school and college kids we
host for a week or two. For example, weve been visiting different job
sites and discerning where we might fit for the next year. The home
for street children, the AIDS clinic... these arent just passing
visits, something to see and soak in about Ecuador... these are
possible job placements for me. Visiting peoples homes, I am not so
much marveling at their poverty as seeing them as my neighbors, as
potential friends. Meeting people on the streets, I smile and say
"buenas" and think "wow. this is my community for the next year." In
sum, I suppose this week has felt a lot less emotional and a lot more
pragmatic than one of those whirlwind tours. I like it. Every day, I
feel incredibly thankful to be here.

I promised myself, and you all, that Id keep this short. I have to
apologize already...

Please keep me in your prayers, as we will be discussing job sites and
deciding where we will be working over the next year within the next
day or two. You all, of course, are continually in my prayers.

Gracias a Dios

I spent last weekend at Playas Beach with my community and with 2 former volunteers, Mike and Jill, who flew down to direct our last community retreat of the year. Our last retreat...the fourth out of four...so hard to believe. I remember loading up the van in November to head to Crucita or our first retreat of the year. What a different place I was in then! At that point, I was looking ahead with a mix of excitement and weariness at the 9 months that still lay ahead of me. Somehow, I blinked, and it became June. Now I find myself looking back over the last 11 months with a full heart. I have felt so many emotions, and really have been transformed by the reality I have lived here.

The weather was beautiful at the beach. Breezy and cool at night and sunny but not suffocatingly hot during the day. On Saturday morning, I was sitting on the beach, looking out into the big, beautiful, breathtaking ocean. I mean really...the sight of the blue, green, white, turquoise, sparkling waves; the feel of the fresh, crisp air brushing over my goosebumpy arms; the INMENSITY of the water stretching out to meet the blue sky...it gets me everytime. I love praying on the beach. I was sitting there with my journal in my lap, and suddenly my pen just began to go. This is why I love journaling. I am never really sure what's coming when I sit down to write, but it is always therapeutic. As I was reflecting, I was really aware of the cool air around me and how I felt on the beach. My mind starting wandering back to all these times in my life when I had felt similar feelings...shivering in my towel before swimming lessons at the Fairfield pool when I was little, being on the beach with my family on many different occasions, being in Daytona with college friends (although that was a little less calm, haha), and other times this past year in Ecuador. I felt so happy in my heart thinking about those times, but also a little sad, because I know they'll never be back in the same way.

I started thinking a lot about family, and what a gift it is. I've been thinking about this even more than normal since Grandpa Pete died in April. I think about how much I miss my family. How much I miss my Grandpa Pete. How he won't be there when I get off the plane in August. I think about how much I miss the times when we were younger and all together. My mind wandered and I randomly thought about the day that my parents dropped me off at college. I tried to remember how I was feeling during that time. I remember the night before leaving, sobbing with my mom in the kitchen. I remember feeling empty, scared, and excited all at the same time. What a milestone that is in our lives in the United States! I don't think I really understood at that moment just how much my life would never be the same. Since then, I have only lived in my parent's house for a few months at a time, I have traveled a lot, I have found myself in Ecuador for 2 years, and who knows where my life will go from here. How could I have predicted any of that as I lugged my pink and purple comforter and new laptop into Marycrest Hall room 793 at UD in 2004?!

It's just crazy how life happens. I wrote in my journal as I sat on the beach: "I wish we got little warnings growing up -- Hey, stop arguing with your brother! Someday you won't be living in the same house anymore! Hey, stop complaining about what your mom made for dinner! At least you're at the table with your family and at least there is food on that table! Hey, get off of instant messenger and go downstairs to be with your family! Appreciate where you are NOW! It's not always going to be like this! ... The whole family being together, eating dinner together every night, weekend trips to grandparents' houses, family vacations -- what a special time of life that really is. I am so thankful to my parents for giving us all of those times. Looking back, I wish somehow we understood in those moments just how special they really are. I feel like we do get little glimpses of understanding, but it really is impossible to grasp how deeply special moments are while they are still happening."

As I wrote this -- the lightbulb went on. I am SO bad at wishing away experiences as they happen. I am always looking behind, looking ahead. I live through moments but wait until later to REALLY cherish the goodness in them. I am sooo good at being nostalgic. But often times in daily life, I focus on the negative, I long to be where I am not, and I just don't realize the beauty happening right before my very eyes! I felt like God was speaking to me directly in that moment -- Tracy, BE GRATEFUL. For where you are, for the people you are with, WHILE it is happening! I smiled. What a good reminder to receive, especially at this point in my year in Ecuador. Since that retreat weekend, I have felt a real sense of joy in my heart. I find myself looking around at the people I am with -- I mean REALLY looking at them, with loving eyes and a grateful heart, and saying a short little silent prayer -- Lord, thank you for these people. Thank you for this moment. Thank you!

I have much to be grateful for. This last month has been wonderful. The retreat was a really rejuvenating experience. My morning work at Redima has been very fulfilling although in some ways disheartening. Melissa and I started a support group for people living with HIV and AIDS. Last week, we had the second group meeting. I was nervous, because I wasn't really sure what the group would actually do for people. I was moved speaking with one of the men before the group started. He told me just how much he appreciated being able to come to this safe space and share his feelings. "My wife knows I have HIV, my mom knows, and I have one other friend who knows. Otherwise, it's not something you can talk about. My job would fire me if they knew." I am so grateful that we are able to provide a safe space, and I am so grateful for all the ways in which these people teach me about life. I was moved watching the way the members of the group supported one another.

Teaching at Nuevo Mundo is wonderful and difficult and hilarious as always. This semester, I am a little more comfortable and prepared in the classroom. I think I have finally learned that asserting my authority and disciplining does not make me a mean person, haha. The other day I even gave my students a pop quiz when I knew none of them were paying attention to the lesson. They were so mad, but it was actually kind of fun for me. haha! In general, the kids are such a joy. I love their hugs and jokes and laughter. They also still give me lots to laugh about. Last week, we were learning about adjectives and comparative sentences. They were each coming to the board to write a sentence like "Tracy is taller than Rosalia, " for example. Adriana was wagging her hand furiously in the air, ready with her sentence. I called on her, and she skipped to the board and wrote, "Lissette is easier than Lisbeth." (Lissette and Lisbeth being 2 other girls in the class!) Turns out she thought that "easy" was the word for rápido (fast)... oops! haha! I love my job!

As usual, I have been spending all the time I can with my neighbors, who continue to impress me with their will, kindness, and generosity. After 11 months together, I feel very close to many of the families. In many ways, this is beautiful, but it is also hard. As we get closer to the families and they trust us more, they tell us more and more about how difficult their lives really are. The problems of alcoholism, abuse within families, extreme poverty, infidelity in marriage, rape, inadequate healthcare...they have all become very much more real and personal. My worldview is challenged every single day.

Despite the challenges in life here, my friends and neighbors continue to be joyful! This past weekend, Gina and I went with our guard Eduardo Lunas to visit his hometown of Pedro Carbo. We went with Nancy and Eduardo and Wellington and a few of their other relatives and stayed in his sister Mirella's house. The city was small and very poor, but super animated - especially this weekend. Every year, they have a huge festival for the feast of Saint Peter. We went out with the whole family and danced to a live cumbia band from about 9 pm until 3 am. Gina and I were definitely the only gringas in sight! It was a wonderful weekend. The Lunas family welcomed us in like were blood relatives! My hips and calves hurt like mad today from all that dancing, but it was totally worth it!

Tomorrow is my 23rd birthday, and I really looking forward to celebrating it here. Jenny is cooking me shrimp for lunch, and I could tell that the ladies at my morning job are up to something! At night, I am having dinner with my community, and then Abrahan is having a little dance party for me. Mostly, I am feeling so humbled by all the love I feel from all those around me, and I can't wait to spend my special day with them.

We have about a month left living in Arbolito, and so we are all feeling a sea of emotions. I have finally begun to process and understand many of the things I have been learning this year about faith, the world, and myself. I know I will be reflecting on those lessons for years to come. I am bursting with excitement to be home for awhile, and I am also feeling a deep sadness about leaving behind all the friendships I have made here. Like I said earlier, I am working on just living day by day, moment by moment, being grateful and soaking up all the goodness as it comes!

May God bless each of you with peace and happiness everyday! Thanks for reading as always!