Press Reports
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A Letter from Bolivia..8
2019-05-31
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Dear Sorokdo family and supporters! Wishing you a blessed Easter!!
Since March, I have been staying at the girls' dormitory in the Nuevo Horizonte area. On my days off, I stay at the Caritas convent in the Okinawa 2 area. Since I don't have a place to truly call my own, my accommodations change frequently depending on work and circumstances. Seeing how I manage to adapt to each environment, I feel that God must have given me the talent of adaptability.
The older students have a lot of homework, so they get up at 5:00 AM to work on it. The children do their homework while I wash up and prepare breakfast. When Lupe, the dormitory teacher, arrives for work around 6:15, we do the morning cleaning and set the breakfast table with the children. The dormitory is right next to the road, so if we skip even one day of cleaning, the dust and dirt become unmanageable! At 7:00 we have breakfast, and then the children head off to school. Living in such close proximity to the children, their strengths and weaknesses become clearly visible to me, as do their needs and their wounds. I find myself nagging more, but also hugging them more. The first few weeks of living together were truly exhausting — for the children as well, I am sure. With differences in customs, culture, values, personalities, and generations, there are moments of conflict, moments of learning from one another, and moments of giving way to each other... Through all of this, we are finding our center.
This time, it seems she took Arlette's comb and toothpaste! I gathered all the children together and asked them to think about what kind of seed they are — and what kind of person they want to grow up to be. I told them that while someone might make a momentary mistake out of want or need, if it becomes a habit, that seed will grow into a thief — someone who is unhappy themselves and whom everyone around them will want to avoid. But I told them I was certain that the seeds growing in each of the dormitory children were good seeds. I also said that while one might be able to do wrong without others knowing, there is nothing that can be hidden from God's eyes or from the guardian angel watching over each of us. Since it can be embarrassing to admit a mistake, I told them that quietly returning the items to their place would itself be an act of great courage — and then I waited through the rest of the day. I hadn't really expected it to happen, but when the children came back from school, the items had been returned. I was so moved and so proud.
The children who used to barely brush their teeth are now all happily brushing with the three-colored toothpaste. The simplicity and purity of these children living in poverty feels both endearing and deeply admirable.
Maintaining human dignity while living in poverty is even more so. And yet these children are doing just that! Children who shine despite their poverty! Children who laugh easily despite their poverty! I hope that the seed planted in the midst of these children will grow well and multiply a hundredfold — that their souls and their lives may be filled with happiness!
a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown." (Matthew 13:8)
During the Easter Triduum, there are no classes for the children. I am spending the Triduum at the Salesian convent in the spirit of a personal retreat. This year, having been given quiet time alone, I find myself deeply meditating on the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. God was born as a human being, took upon Himself the sins of humanity, and walked the way of the Cross. He set aside His divine nature, and then set aside even His human dignity. He was falsely accused, humiliated, subjected to punishment like torture, and put to death by His own creatures.
Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. (John 11:1–57) Jesus raised the only son of a widow. (Luke 7:11–17) Jesus raised a dead girl. (Matthew 9:18, 23–26) And now, Jesus Himself has risen.
Birds, upon hatching from their eggs, recognize the first being they encounter as their mother. Could it be that I am still dwelling inside the hard shell of sin that covers me...
On Holy Saturday morning, I went to the church. In the dark and empty church, the statue of Jesus lay inside a glass case at the center. The disciples who were looking for the risen Lord among the dead... (John 20:1–15) Jesus is still walking the way of the Cross within the poor people I encounter, and He has also risen in the land of these poor people. I ask the risen Lord to help me live not a resurrection of words or mind alone, but a resurrection of life itself. I had been praying for quite some time when the mosquitoes launched a concentrated attack. Those satanic mosquitoes...
Sister Grethel's morning greeting fills this pre-Easter morning with joy!!
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