Thanksgiving

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving with the volunteers. Although we are far away from home, we have a lot to be thankful in the family we have found with the children.

We lost the tug 'o' war

Dia de Los Muertos

This past weekend was the best weekend since I have been here. On Friday we celebrated Halloween with a drawing contest, a short story contest and a costume contest. Later, all the volunteers designed a haunted walk through the area of the house where we store our farm equipment. For more than an hour the majority of the kids came through our haunted walk, while year-of-service kids and we scared them.

The next morning we celebrated All Saints Day. On this day we traditionally celebrate the birthdays of all the kids. We started waking the kids up at 5:00 a.m. with the traditional birthday song, Las Mananitas. We started with the youngest kids and moved into the older sections. It was really sweet to watch the younger kids waking up their older brothers and sisters. When we finally had woken up all the kids, we enjoyed a breakfast of cake and hot chocolate. For the rest of the day the kids didn’t have to do chores and had free time.

That evening we celebrated Mass for Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead is a traditional Mexican Holiday celebrated the 1st and 2nd of November to honor the dead. According to tradition on this day the souls of the dead can visit the living and families construct altars to honor their family members. The altars are filled with flowers, religious symbols, pan de muerto (a sweet bread), sugar skulls and the favorite food of the deceased. It is also a way to make fun of death. It is a Christian symbol that we will overcome death through God.

During the Mass we prayed for the dead by name. All of the children wrote the names of their family members in a book of the dead and Father Phil read each name. The church was silent. After Mass Father Phil shared the altar he had build with the kids. The altar was full of candy. We then enjoyed pan de muerto and hot chocolate for dinner.

The next day each section spent the whole day building their own altar for the altar contest. I will post pictures soon. It was amazing!

Peace,

Laura

Milpillas

The house in Mexico does a few outreach programs. Our principal outreach program is to Milpillas, a garbage dump in a neighboring town. Father Phil, our current priest, discovered that there were families living in the dump digging through trash to make a living and the children weren't in school. Father Phil asked all the children at our house if they would be willing to invite the children from Milpillas to attend classes at our school. The children unanimously said yes, except for the youngest children who didn't want to give up the extra treats they would have to give up.

The program has been very successful. One of the Milpillas students has just graduated from the university and another student left for the university this year. Although the garbage dump has closed, we currently have 89 students from Milpillas attending our school.

I went to Milpillas today. Despite all my time in Mexico, I was still shocked by the experience. The people have built their homes on top of garbage. The homes, although many would not use the word home, are built out of sheet metal, plastic, wood, cardboard and whatever else has been salvaged from the dump. There is garbage everywhere and the children walk around barefoot with dirt on their legs and bodies. We met a 16-year-old mother. She used to attend school with our kids, but has since dropped out and has a 1-month-old to care for. The smell was not as bad as I imagined, but I am sure it was much worse when the dump was open and one could smell the garbage from the main highway.

Trekking along to look at the houses, we walked over garbage - abandoned shoes, candy wrappers, plastic bottles and much that was unidentifiable already in the later stages of decay. While walking along, I couldn't help but think that this experience is a daily reality for many people across Mexico and the rest of the world. People are shocked that I have chosen to give up a year of my life to live in an orphanage, an orphanage that has clean drinking water, hot showers, electricity, television, wireless Internet and a guaranteed four meals a day (to name a few of our amenities). In January, I will move back to the states. I will move back to air conditioning, a car that takes me wherever I want and all the opportunity in the world. I wish I could show everyone I know that all the opportunity in the world is not available to everyone in the world. I hope I always remember the lessons I have learned this year and I don't take for granted the blessings I have been given. It is easy to be caught up in our own personal problems and materialism, but I hope people remember, even in the current economic crisis, we are still very lucky.

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

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

Twister with JELL-O