Bienvenidos. Welcome. That is how I´ve felt this first week being in Ecuador. From the literal welcome by the 13 current RdC volunteers at the airport to the hospitality of the families in the Monte Sinai neighborhood that I have been introduced to; the joy and gratitude we´ve been presented with almost seems underserved. But I guess that´s a lesson in humility...accepting great hospitality just because you are being welcomed. Even the joke the Sinai volunteers played on us at dinner Friday--when the guard blew the whistle and they all jumped up telling us to ¨GET IN THE BATHROOM¨ because it meant someone jumped the wall--was done out of love and friendship. I think.
We are currently living in the retreat group house and we will be there until the "old vols" move out next Sunday. The tradition has been that we are not able to see the inside of teir house until its clean and empty, so the apprehension is mighty. Oh, and we have a guard dog. His name is Clubber. We selected house responsibilities and I´m on dog duty this year. Not bad.
This past week has definitely been intense, and we´re definitely using as much time in a day as we can. I´ve been introduced to so many aspects of the Mount Sinai community so far that I´m super stoked about, including parish life. First and foremost, you haven´t experienced a clash of words until you meet a Spanish-speaking priest with an Irish accent. Padre Jon is the pastor of the 3 parishes in Sinai--San Felipe, Santa Teresa, & Corpus Cristi--and he´s the man. The youth group and music ministry is extremely vibrant with 15-20 year olds pouring themselves into their involvement, and after we met a few of the musicians I got even more excited to get to know them and become part of that.
Alongside being introduced into the community and to the people who have been family for this past year´s volunteers, a gigantic part of this last week has been touring every work site, with all 13 of us from both houses. We visted each one, even one´s specifically for the other house, because we then discern as a large community, where each individual shares where they feel pulled and the others comment and share how they see that person´s gifts being used. To give you a quick sense of my options and where my head is at right now, these are Sinai´s sites:
Ave Maria - An afterschool program for children in Monte Sinai. It was led by Marisol this past year and gives children a safe space to do homework, play, and learn, but also has room to grow in what kinds of programs/things they want to do with the kids. One also gets the opportunity to meet the families at their houses in the morning before each afternoon session.
San Felipe - A small Catholic school down the road from our house. I could teach English, computers, and/or music to K-5th graders.
Salud - The health center of Hogar de Cristo (a huge Jesuit organization that does education, health, pastoral ministry, house-building, and community organizing) where I could be doing anything from giving classes on HIV and doing HIV tests once a week to walking through Sinai to accompany people in their homes who have medical needs without sufficient resources.
Proyecto Mision- The community organizing office at Hogar de Cristo and deals with a lot of the people of Mt. Sinai. As an invasion community--a community where most people come to live from other areas who cannot afford the city--most of Mount Sinai´s land is not legalized. A huge part of what these community leaders that we´d e reaching out to are doing i trying to legalize the land and make community members aware and active in brigning themselve together. The office environment is pretty awesome, and alongside visiting different community members, I think there is the potential for introducing some multimedia work, including interviewing community leaders about the problems in Mt. Sinai, etc, which would be awesome.
Bastion Popular- An afterschool program that is not in Mt.Sinai but works with boys and girls 5-12 or so who come from broken homes, whether that be abus, gang violence, or other factors of instability. It hopes to bring faith, school, recess, and family into these kids lives. There seems to be a place fo rme, especially in terms of bringing music and energy, but it is also an afternoon site which is when the Sinai parish youth group and music ministry typically does practice and gets together in general, which would be hard.
The ones italicized are the ones I´ve been really thinking about, and the bottom line is I´ve got some thinking, conversing, and praying to do. Today both houses will come together to talk about where we see eah other and hopefully tonight I´ll know how I´ll be spending the work part of my year. But I´m choosing between goods, and I feel so blessed and thankful to the old vols as they share daily prayer, help us make food, teach us where to walk to get ingredients and how to catch a bus. It´s crazy living in a neighborhood where the nicest houses are made of cane and all the electricity is "stolen" or rigged to homes' living rooms. And it´s strange to think every morning for the next year, after my cold shower, I´ll need to walk down a dirt road to commute to my worksite. But I am so grateful, and all of this change would be so much more difficult if it weren´t for the Welcome I have felt so far.
Here's to a great year.
Paz,
Miguel
We are currently living in the retreat group house and we will be there until the "old vols" move out next Sunday. The tradition has been that we are not able to see the inside of teir house until its clean and empty, so the apprehension is mighty. Oh, and we have a guard dog. His name is Clubber. We selected house responsibilities and I´m on dog duty this year. Not bad.
This past week has definitely been intense, and we´re definitely using as much time in a day as we can. I´ve been introduced to so many aspects of the Mount Sinai community so far that I´m super stoked about, including parish life. First and foremost, you haven´t experienced a clash of words until you meet a Spanish-speaking priest with an Irish accent. Padre Jon is the pastor of the 3 parishes in Sinai--San Felipe, Santa Teresa, & Corpus Cristi--and he´s the man. The youth group and music ministry is extremely vibrant with 15-20 year olds pouring themselves into their involvement, and after we met a few of the musicians I got even more excited to get to know them and become part of that.
Alongside being introduced into the community and to the people who have been family for this past year´s volunteers, a gigantic part of this last week has been touring every work site, with all 13 of us from both houses. We visted each one, even one´s specifically for the other house, because we then discern as a large community, where each individual shares where they feel pulled and the others comment and share how they see that person´s gifts being used. To give you a quick sense of my options and where my head is at right now, these are Sinai´s sites:
Ave Maria - An afterschool program for children in Monte Sinai. It was led by Marisol this past year and gives children a safe space to do homework, play, and learn, but also has room to grow in what kinds of programs/things they want to do with the kids. One also gets the opportunity to meet the families at their houses in the morning before each afternoon session.
San Felipe - A small Catholic school down the road from our house. I could teach English, computers, and/or music to K-5th graders.
Salud - The health center of Hogar de Cristo (a huge Jesuit organization that does education, health, pastoral ministry, house-building, and community organizing) where I could be doing anything from giving classes on HIV and doing HIV tests once a week to walking through Sinai to accompany people in their homes who have medical needs without sufficient resources.
Proyecto Mision- The community organizing office at Hogar de Cristo and deals with a lot of the people of Mt. Sinai. As an invasion community--a community where most people come to live from other areas who cannot afford the city--most of Mount Sinai´s land is not legalized. A huge part of what these community leaders that we´d e reaching out to are doing i trying to legalize the land and make community members aware and active in brigning themselve together. The office environment is pretty awesome, and alongside visiting different community members, I think there is the potential for introducing some multimedia work, including interviewing community leaders about the problems in Mt. Sinai, etc, which would be awesome.
Bastion Popular- An afterschool program that is not in Mt.Sinai but works with boys and girls 5-12 or so who come from broken homes, whether that be abus, gang violence, or other factors of instability. It hopes to bring faith, school, recess, and family into these kids lives. There seems to be a place fo rme, especially in terms of bringing music and energy, but it is also an afternoon site which is when the Sinai parish youth group and music ministry typically does practice and gets together in general, which would be hard.
The ones italicized are the ones I´ve been really thinking about, and the bottom line is I´ve got some thinking, conversing, and praying to do. Today both houses will come together to talk about where we see eah other and hopefully tonight I´ll know how I´ll be spending the work part of my year. But I´m choosing between goods, and I feel so blessed and thankful to the old vols as they share daily prayer, help us make food, teach us where to walk to get ingredients and how to catch a bus. It´s crazy living in a neighborhood where the nicest houses are made of cane and all the electricity is "stolen" or rigged to homes' living rooms. And it´s strange to think every morning for the next year, after my cold shower, I´ll need to walk down a dirt road to commute to my worksite. But I am so grateful, and all of this change would be so much more difficult if it weren´t for the Welcome I have felt so far.
Here's to a great year.
Paz,
Miguel
