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No day is ever normal here.

I woke up this morning at 5AM and headed to the girls house for morning prayer. The chapel, like almost everything here, is open air. It gets so hot in the summer time that everything is left open so the breeze from the mountains can come through and cool things off.

After morning prayer we went with some of the CFR’s to the Convent of the Poor Clares. The Poor Clares are a cloistered sisterhood, meaning they do not leave the walls of their convent unless they have to. Even during Mass, they sat off to one section of the chapel which was closed off from us by a gate. It was so beautiful to think that these women devote their entire lives to simply praying for all of us. If you’re ever having a bad day and things miraculously turn around… thank the Poor Clares!

After Mass we got the news that one of the local woman who helps out at Casa de Lupe had lost her nine day old baby in the night. The baby had stopped crying in the middle of the night and after rushing her to the hospital, the baby passed away. This added one more thing to an already full plate for the missioners.

After hearing the news, Erica and I didn’t have much time to waste. We had to eat breakfast quickly then head back to Casa de Lupe to help with another project that I volunteered myself for the night before.

The CFR’s give away food to the poor once a month and during that time, they spend some time evangelizing and doing teachings. While they did that, Erica and I entertained 40 children. From age 3-10, we did a quick teaching on Family and how even if you don’t have a real mom or a real dad, Jesus and Mary want to be your Spiritual Mom and Dad. After we did a little art project, we sent them back out to their parents and mass chaos ensued.

Brother Antonio, one of the Friars, asked if I wanted to play basketball around 11:30 with some of the other Friars. So I went and put on my pair of sneakers and met these wonderful men, who usually where grey canvas habits, for a quick few games of hoops. No they didn’t where their standard grey, but shorts, t-shirts and footlong beards still look kind of funny.

After basketball I was wiped out and after some lunch, a few quick things to get finished, I headed to the nearest hammock for an afternoon siesta.

I woke up and Erica and I cooked dinner for the rest of the Missioners. We dined on a lovely combination of salad (which I personally bleached. Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds. The lettuce here contains some bacteria so you wash it in water with a few drops of bleach to kill the bacteria) Chicken, rice, vegetables an Spinach Artichoke Dip. The Spinach dip is surprisingly rare in this little village. Who knew.

After dinner, we walked down to the house where the woman who lost her baby lived.

We walked in and the baby was there, all in white, laying in a tiny coffin with a crown of stars around her head. It was both beautiful and terribly sad. We visited with the family for a few minutes and then headed home.

So after another long day, I’m off to bed.

More tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 11:05 am and is filed under blog. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.