Monday, November 14, 2011



Soulful self
Anything you do from the soulful self will help lighten the burdens of the world. Anything. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity, can cause to be set in motion . . . Mend the part of the world that is within your reach.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Friday, November 11, 2011

A Moment to Meditate

God IS love
This is the lesson I have learned.
You never know what form love will take
You can't predict how it will come to you
And the way in which it will come
Because love is truly a bigger power than our hearts can actually hold
And so often we block it for the fear of its power
Yet if we truly lived in a world of love we would see no fear
It is fear that blocks us from the full experience of God as love
Fear that keeps us trapped in our bodies
Unable to express all that we were created to be
Because we are love
Truly, we are created in the image of God
And God is love
Did you get that?
God does not represent love
God does not exist as a mere face of love
God IS love
When we love in the world, we are sharing God
When we allow love into our lives we are experiencing God
So often we are afraid of love because it's power is so encompassing
I'm not talking just sexual love .... I am talking about love that seeks justice
Love that seeks to clothe itself into compassion
This is the type of love that God is
Too often we espouse love as a feeling
But just as God is multi-dimensional, so is love
So don't pretend that love comes only in one form
At one point in time
In one body
God is not limited to the constructs that we define Him as
The boxes that we put Him in
God is love
God IS Love!

Charlene Nafziger

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Los Patojos


Here are a few pictures with the children....did I tell you that I have grown to love them? Every individual personality. They are doing well. School's out for the year and so they are quite happy!We just finished a nine week class on the Fruit of the Spirit. We had a puppet called "Gusanito" - the little worm. The other pictures are of us singing a 'joyful noise' unto the Lord...and I do mean 'NOISE'! We are out of tune and the kids are using our rudimentary instruments, marachas, penny whistles, drums made out of bamboo, tambourine, and eggs that I filled with beans. But I love to hear us bellow out a tune in Spanish! I remember when I had to write out everything and would hardly try and say anything to the children for fear they might respond and I would have to answer with the few sentences I had memorized. Oh the ego of it all. But it has taught me that simplifying our speech can be a good thing. We have a tendency to fill the world with words and less meaning.



























This is Anayeli, to the left and Paola to the right of her. Anayeli is Paola's aunt! Anayeli's mother has 14 children! They follow me around like my shadow when they are here. I'm thinking of teaching them how to bake and maybe we might even try a little sewing. I had a great time with them and my friend Alicia. We had the girls over for an afternoon sewing doll clothes by hand. I was amazed how Alicia could whip out a cute little dress with t-shirt material. I'm grateful that I have a girlfriend here. We actually can have a pretty good conversatin though she speaks at the speed of light. I have stopped asking her to slow down, I'm just trying to catch up. I think it's working......









div>

Friday, November 4, 2011

Goodbye Rain

Another wet season come and gone and here are the results in no order of importance! Ahhh, to have dry clothes is really a gift. I am not used to living in so much humidity. The cement walls hold the dampness and we end up having to hang not only our laundry but clothes that have been hanging inside the house during this time. My leather jacket was producing some mildew which could have been the next pharmaceutical wonder drug. Another interesting tidbit, wood furniture also likes to produce it's own green carpet if left to itself. I try not to leave the house without checking out the 'scent' of my clothes first.



This last tropical storm did a number on our roads. Potholes here and there and everywhere. But the real problem are the homes lost to the torrential downpour. And, ofcourse,crops lost, especially the corn that is so important to the people here.






Here is Margarita at her finest, just about ready to 'dar la luz' which in Spanish is 'to give light'...I love that expression for giving birth.

She really was a belly dragger for quite some time, swinging that belly back and forth....kinda reminds me of middle age hehehe.....





She gave birth to 5 little kittens, 3 black and white, and one that looks just like her. Twenty four hours later she gave birth to the runt who is black. We adore them all. Now, you'll love this, I thought she had tumors, I was too naive to think that a young cat, whom we just got could go off in the blink of an eye and do the hanky panky. But she did, and THEN the day she gave birth I heard the crying of her first one and thought 'that darn cat has drug another live mouse and is eating it alive!'. Time to read up on cats on wikipedia.

And here she is with the first one.....(the little rat)















8 weeks later..










Negrita" small black one






Now, this bottom picture is not for the faint-hearted. This is something that Izzy, the chicken killing Rottweiller got a hold of one night. She actually punctured the armor of the armadillo. I was horrified, but what can you do when you live on a farm? I think the animals here are re-populating. I heard that a local man used to hunt on this property and sell the meat. Who knows what we will find in the future. If only our dogs would leave them alone. Even seeing squirrels are not usual, at least while I'm walking around. People like to capture them and put them inside a very tiny cage where they just run in circles all day long. I wonder if this is where the idea of a hamster wheel came from ......