Spreading Holiday Cheer in Corazon

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      As some of you who follow our mission Facebook page may know, we were blessed to have a friend who traveled to St. Louis over Thanksgiving break and returned with 3 suitcases full of supplies that were gathered for us by some friends and family.  On top of the umpteen number of craft items, there was also a large quantity of trinkets and goody bag items donated by a girl scout leader.  We decided to use this as a perfect opportunity to get our own kids involved as well as spread some Christmas cheer.  So, we used some of the funds from our generous donors and purchased some school supplies, hair accessories, "hotwheels" cars, and candy.  Between those and the items already donated, our girls were able to fill up enough bags for every student at Corazon R.C. school to receive a gift bag.
     Last Tuesday, armed with lesson plans, craft supplies and gift bags, we decided to give our girls a "work day" and hopped in a truck and headed to Corazon.   The school, located in a village about a 1-1 1/2 hour drive from PG, has 59 students with 3 teachers.  The kids are divided into Lower division (Infant 1, 2, and Standard 1), Middle Division (Standard 2, 3, 4) and Upper Division (Standard 5,6).  As soon as we arrived, the girls and I (Julie) realized that this was a far cry from our experience at the school in Punta Gorda.  Here, there is a 2 room school building.  Because there are enough students for 3 teachers, the Middle Division grades have to attend classes in a thatched shelter with no walls.  We quickly learned that even the breeze could be difficult to work with in an outdoor classroom as papers and supplies were always blowing off the desks.  Unlike at the school in PG, almost half of the students here cannot afford a school uniform and probably one out of ten students could not afford shoes.  There were definitely no snacks at break time either.
     Regardless, the students were very curious and friendly and seemed very excited to have us visiting them.  Andy and I, and our girls, divided into two classrooms and rotated accordingly.  Andy was happy to get back into the classroom, as he's been working mainly with teachers here.  He gave the kids a hands on lesson using a manger scene that emphasized the real gift of Christmas and the kids really seemed to enjoy it.  Myself, and our younger two girls started with the Lower Division and began by reading them the story of Saint Nicholas with rich images on our computer.  The children were mostly familiar with Santa Claus but I don't think he visits them so their understanding of him is a bit different.  After the story we did a craft with the kids (thanks to some of our great craft donations).  Each student made a foam sticker Christmas ornament.  Although the kids may not have any Christmas decorations at home, let alone a Christmas tree, the students were really excited when I told them that they could bring the ornaments home with them.
     This was fun but for me, the real highlight of the visit was when our girls got to hand out the gifts bags to the students.  Lillian passed out the bags for the girls and Sarah passed out the bags for the boys.  The look on their face, especially the Lower Division kids, was complete excitement.  For the first time since we've moved here, I was moved to near tears by the children.  I cannot remember the last time I've seen a child this excited--one would think by their reaction that they'd just won a trip to Disneyworld. The bags were clear and the children's faces lit up as they saw their toy "trucks", rings, and bracelets.  One by one they showed them to the teacher and compared items with each other.   I made the children promise not to open the bags until later but by the end of the day there were dozens of kids adorned in plastic rings, bracelets, and playing with jumping spiders.  Even the older students were excited to get the gift bags.  One Std. 6 student asked me what a certain item was.  As I demonstrated to her it was a bracelet by placing it on her wrist, her whole face lit up and she gasped in excitement.  The students were even excited to use their new pencils and sharpeners and Emily had a great time working with the younger students as they eagerly wanted to draw pictures their new gifts and pictures of Christmas trees (resembling more of a palm tree).
     I know that being here long term for us is more about making little steps in the hopes of making big impacts for Christ.  That often means little visible reward for us. We really do strive to work with the "hand up" not "hand out" mentality but there's just something special about Christmas and the joy of giving.  The gifts that we were blessed to share with the kids of Corazon are quite possibly the only gifts that they'll receive this Christmas and for that moment, they could not have been much happier. Our girls got an opportunity to experience what real giving is about and we got an opportunity to share the real message of Christmas with those around us.  And for that, we feel so blessed.
     For those of you who have donated craft items and supplies and for those of you who have donated financially to this mission I want to take this time to say Thank You!  Each of you has made it possible for us to share with the students at Corazon.   This has been a highlight of our time here and we feel so unbelievably blessed that you gave us this opportunity.
     We would like to wish every one a very Merry and Blessed Christmas.  May you see this season as an opportunity to reach out to those in need in your very own neighborhood or family.  You do not have to travel thousands of miles away to share the gift of yourself.  You can share the message of Christmas right now, right where you are, in whatever phase in life you are in.

Photo Blog: Sunday Wood Ground Breaking Ceremony

On Thursday, Mr. Cayetano and I visited Sunday Wood RC School.  Currently, the students are spread out among 4 buildings; the preschool and Infant 1/2 are in a large thatch while the Standard Six is borrowing a non for profit organization's wooden building.  The principal, Calistro Bo, has been very successful in securing resources for his school.  Currently there are two major construction projects here.  The first is a new preschool building behind the main concrete structure funded by Rotary International (I think).  The second is the reason for our visit today; ground breaking ceremony for a brand new 3 classroom structure funding by Social Investment Fund (SIF), the largest funder in the country for social improvement projects. This was quite a big deal with several distinguished guests, each with their own entourage.  After the ceremony, all guest were invited to the Alcalde's house (village chief) for a caldo feast with all the trimmings.  Caldo is Mayan chicken soup and today it was served with cassava, yam, and both blue and white corn tortillas.  Sorry but there are no pics of the meal.  My hands were messy since caldo is traditionally eaten without the help of utensils.  Here are my photos and additional commentary...

The students and staff went to great lengths to decorate for this monumental event.  Balloons, streamers, and this awesome archway made from palm leaves braided together.

Sunday Wood's school library.   A small building with mismatched shelves but I am always impressed with how neat  and organized it is.  Would like to see a couple of tables with chairs...

Students lined up waiting for the ceremony to begin.

This building will become the new preschool.  There is a partnership in which the community provides certain materials and/or labor while Rotary covers much of the cost.

Today, workers were building the concrete septic that will service the  preschools bathroom system.

Newly cleared plot of land that will be the location of the ceremonial first dig.

Mr. Calistro Bo, principal of Sunday Wood RC School.

Students holding the Belize flag for the singing of the National Anthem.

Students signing the National Anthem and gathering to see the presentations.  Unfortunately, the rains forced us inside shortly afterwards.

Joe Cayetano addressing his constituency.  He never misses an opportunity to put his knowledge of Kekchi language to use.

These students performed a poem and dance to show their appreciation.

Mr. Cano is the director for SIF, the organization funding the building project.

Honorable Peter Eden Martinez, Belize's Minister of Human Development and Social Transformation.  Evidently, this was one of his pet projects.  Found out later that he used to be a teacher in Toledo.

The man in the striped shirt is the site engineer.  He is being presented with an embroidered cloth.  All the dignitaries received a special gift from the village.

Joe Cayetano, Hon. Peter Martinez and Mr. Cano breaking ground.

Andy's To Do List

Can’t sleep.  I’ve been tossing around for a couple hours now.  This happens to me sometimes.  I get a lot of anxiety about one thing or another and I let it bother me to the point that my mind races and keeps me from resting.  Tonight I decided to get up and write it out.  Maybe that will help.  Why am I anxious tonight?  What am I afraid of?  It is difficult living here, but I think that we finally have a handle on the physical day to day stuff…food prep, living arrangements, housework, etc.  But now reality is beginning to creep into my soul.  Is it doubt?  Am I being effective here as a volunteer in the mission field?  The first few months of school have been a whirlwind of travel, meetings, observing teachers and discussions.  Now my American mentality begins to ask, “What have you accomplished?”  Well, I’ve met a lot of teachers and principals.  Put out a couple of surveys and facilitated a workshop on reading comprehension.  I’m sure that I could add a couple more things to the list but my American attitude says, “What have you got to show for the past 6 months?”  I can’t believe that I was simply distracted by the fast paced newness of it all not to stop and realize that I wasn’t “accomplishing” anything.  What WAS I doing?  Well, I was traveling often to village schools, meeting, talking, and observing…sharing time with others who I feel called to minister to in the first place…teachers.  These relationships were filling my purpose and satisfying my soul.  In the moment, I knew it was right.  It felt right and He was leading me places, putting words in my mouth and love in my heart.  The Lord was showing me that my trust in Him is the only way to live and work.  It’s really been only the last several weeks that I have begun to questions this.  It has not been until recently that I have tried to “evaluate” and “critique” the  past few months.  Unfortunately, I was using my American measure for accomplishment rather than my experience of Christ in the field.  Living on donated mission funds, I find it hard to relax sometimes, feeling like I should be doing something more with any “free time” I have…trying to give everyone more “bang for their buck.”  It really has been bothering me lately.  Then the anxiety creeps in.  Will I be good enough?  Will I be able to keep my promises, appointments, and trust that I have worked to build with others?  I am using my American measuring stick to quantify what I’ve done and what I hope to accomplish by the end of the school year.  God is not interested in the quantity of our life’s work but the quality of it.  Did you build relationships?  Did you love one another?  Did you witness my love to those around you?  No where does the bible ask us, “How many things did you accomplish?  Did you cross everything off your list?”  If only we could live and evaluate our lives by our relationships, instead of fooling ourselves into thinking that we will ever complete our earthly to-do list.  Even if we did, would it matter?

In Other Words...

Have you ever read something before and found it to be interesting? Then, just a matter of time later, you pick up the material again and find yourself in awe at the way the very same reading is able to tug at your heartstrings, as though it were written just for you? This is something that often happens to when I read the Bible but just yesterday, it was revealed to me that a magazine article can do the very same thing. My mom had sent me an article many months ago, back in St. Louis. It was an excerpt from a Catholic magazine and it was written by and about an American family serving as missionaries abroad. I read it, found it to be helpful, and tucked it away. Then, yesterday as I was giving my room a much needed cleaning, I stumbled upon it once again. Being of the distractable nature that I am, I stopped my cleaning and reread the article. This time, it was as though the words were being taken right from my mouth. Wow, to be IN the situation, experiencing the very same thing, these words now had a whole new meaning for me. I could write to you how it feels to be a missionary here in Belize but I've decided to include Lisa Kelly's article, A Family's Ignatian Journey: Beyond the American dream, instead. A few of the situations are different but this is basically exactly how I would like to have said it myself--this is how it feels to be a missionary. This is what it is like for myself and hundreds of other women who bravely take their families out into the world to live out God's command for our lives. If you want to know what it's like then I'd encourage you to read the article below.

Iused to be a soccer mom, minivan and all. But this morning I had to roll down the windows on my 14-year-old jeep to get all the mosquitoes out that had festered there from the night before. I used to like to grill out on nice summer nights. I haven’t grilled out for the last two years, out of respect for neighbors who have to cook rice and beans over an open fire and rarely taste meat themselves. I used to worry about a lot of pointless things. Today I realize that we won’t have water tonight to wash dishes. It is Thursday; no water on Thursdays. Our journey as an Ignatian Associate family—finding strength in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola—has led us from the first world to the developing world, only to find that we don’t really belong to either.

A New Perspective

In the fall of 2003, my husband Tom and I moved to Omaha for his new job at Creighton University as a theology professor. At that point our main goals in life were tenure, a house and achieving the American dream. While we had always been dedicated to working in the church, I cannot say we were always dedicated to working for Christ. Then, through colleagues and friends, came an invitation to explore a different perspective. It came through a relatively new community of lay couples and families who try to live the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola in their daily lives through Gospel-based service to others, especially the poor. For us the invitation came as nothing less than a gift, because the life of chasing the American dream left little more to desire than more itself. In two years of spiritual formation with a strong community of friends, we found ourselves pulled away from that dream. But into what? That remains the question.

Through chance meetings and opportunities that went far beyond mere coincidence, Tom walked in one day with the idea of applying for a position as director of Creighton’s study abroad program in the Dominican Republic. The deadline was the next day. It would require that I give up my part-time position, rent out our house and take our children (ages 2, 7 and 9) to Bolivia for three months of language school and then on to the Dominican Republic for at least two years. It would require shots and moving expenses. It would require faith that our discernment was sincere. And it would require unconditional loving relationships to sustain us through it all. To be honest, I feared and fought it every step of the way. Luckily, gracefully, I lost.

Life in the Dominican Republic

Tom’s position in the Dominican Republic was the ultimate connection between practical action and academia. Mornings he would teach the 8 to 16 Creighton University students studying at our Jesuit mission home, the Institute for Latin American Concern, in Santiago, D.R. He would tell them about the history, economy, sociology and politics of the Dominican Republic in light of Catholic Church teachings on poverty, spirituality and liberation theology. In the afternoons he would be in a four-wheel drive vehicle on roads passable only in the dry season headed to small remote villages to plan student immersions and build relationships with the campesinos. For him, it was consolation to an extreme. My experience as a full-time parent was a bit different.

Discerning my vocation as a mother first and foremost had been easy. The challenge of reconciling the American way of understanding that vocation with the practice of it in a developing country was what lay ahead. My life was filled with more questions than consolation. Do good parents drive their kids anywhere without a car seat? Here in the Dominican Republic families of five ride mini-motorcycles without helmets. Do good parents risk their children’s health and safety? Here my daughter has been hospitalized for urinary tract infections from dirty water. Here there are no parks or sidewalks, no enforced government standards of food inspection. Good parents seek the best possible education for their children. Here the public schools operate only half a day every day in crowded classrooms with no books. Was I being true to my vocation? Was I being a good parent?

Living Simply

Then came the challenges of being an American family in a developing country. How much should I be responsible for feeding all the neighborhood children? What kind of birthday gifts do I give my kids when the neighbor kids lack shoes? How do I answer my three-year-old when she tells me she wants to give away all her clothes because her friends don’t have any?

Ultimately came questions about how to be an Ignatian associate: How can I live simply in a place where refrigerated water is a luxury? How am I being apostolically available to those all around me who live in deep poverty, when I have three children of my own to care for? How am I being faithful to the Gospel when I have the freedom to enjoy the delights of the Caribbean, while my neighbors are not allowed even to enter the resorts because of the color of their skin?

After two years here I still have far more questions than answers; but perhaps more important, I have stopped fearing to face those questions. I have learned that good parenting lies in deliberate action, not just in following regulations. I have learned that having our kids understand the roots and impact of poverty is far more valuable to their lives than having them understand square roots. I have seen them face challenges, suffer and grow beyond my expectations. I have accepted the fact that I am a privileged person in this world, and that along with such privilege comes not more rights or accolades, but more obligations.

Our time in the Dominican Republic made us confront some very sobering realities. Most of the world suffers from the affluent minority’s inaction and apathy, in which many of our own friends and extended family members participate. We lack for examples and direction in living out Ignatian spirituality as a family. We yearn for a community to help us bridge the gaps between these two worlds, so we do not feel we are trying to do so alone. And if we fear anything now, it is going back to a culture that does not understand or care about those to whom we have given our hearts.

I really cannot say that I have accomplished a whole lot by living under these challenging conditions for two years. That would be an American way to assess the situation. But I can say I no longer fear the journey away from being seen as a typical American family. At the same time, by virtue of my white skin and access to opportunities, I could live in the developing world for 20 years and never fit in there. So we are left undefined, “ruined for life,” as Jesuit Volunteers like to say. Perhaps in 15 years our children will be saying to their therapists that we “ruined” them in many other ways.

But we do have one another, and as a family we can love and serve others in ways the ordained cannot. Each one of my kids made best friends with a child of a different race, culture, language and socio-economic level—friendships that will not easily be replaced. Our home became the local Y.M.C.A. for children with no yard or toys and a place of refuge for many others working at the mission, a couch to flop on, a kitchen where they could enjoy a home-cooked meal. After two years, we found that we are able to face all the differences, challenges and inconveniences because of the security we have in the love of Another and of one another. Because I do not take this journey alone, I have the strength to be sure others will not have to face their journeys alone either. And with that knowledge the journey continues, not knowing into what, but trusting that it is the journey we need to take.