Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Independence Day

Check out the article I wrote about the Independence Day celebration. Click on the news link on the right. It is the first article, titled "Independence Day."

http://www.nph.org/?page=homes/home.php&org=8&lang=en&fr=1

Monday, September 8, 2008

A looooong overdue update

Hello,

Please excuse the long wait for an update. Since my vacations, I have been very busy.

I would first like to thank everyone who donated books for my girls. I really appreciate it. I was able to give each girl a new book for the new school year. It is great to see the girls reading when I pass through the section at night, and they all want to talk about what they are reading. Thank you again.

It is not too late to send books. My parents will be down this fall and they will be able to deliver them.

A few highlights from the past two months:

My birthday - We celebrated with pizza and my girls surprised me with enchiladas and Las Mananitas, the traditional birthday song and a beautiful card signed, “from your daughters.” In addition, as getting people wet is part of the festivities here at the house, I had an egg broken on my head, was covered in flour and thrown in the shower…all in good fun.

The Anniversary – The Anniversary is a yearly family reunion where all of the former pequenos and their families come to visit. It is really beautiful to see people who have grown up here and moved on to be self-sufficient adults.

Holy Name (my home parish) came to visit and it was fun to see the kids working with our kids because only five years ago I was on that trip.

My brother and his friend came to visit and since then I can’t avoid being called sister-in-law by nearly every girl in the house.

Thanks again for the books. Please pray for our NPH brothers and sisters in Haiti. The country has been hit by three hurricanes in the last month. http://www.friendsoftheorphans.org/s/769/inner.aspx?sid=769&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1450&ecid=1450&crid=0&calpgid=61&calcid=719

Peace


Patient Trust in Ourselves and in the Slow Work of God

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally, impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made
by passing through some stages of instability,
and that it may take a very long time.

And so, I think, it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
-that is to say- grace
and circumstances
acting on your own good will
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser.


Pierre Teilhard de Chardin