accomplishing the common things

“You are a unique person made by God capable of loving and being loved. Accomplish the common things in life in uncommon ways.” –George Washington


At this point in my life, I am realizing that being a missionary isn’t necessarily about have a packed schedule of organized service, but about turning everything I do into an act of service. With that, I’d love to fill you all in a bit on my day-to-day activities…

It’s about ten o’clock in the morning right now and I’m sitting at my kitchen table typing on the laptop. We don’t have internet in the house but it’s nice to have a computer so we don’t have to spend so much time on the internet when we want to write e-mails or blogs or print documents. I’m realizing that I haven’t shared many details about my living situation in general, so I’ll share a bit more about the house. Our house is located on the edge of Dos de Mayo and Magdalena, two neighborhoods in northeast Chimbote. They are well-established neighborhoods, but still considered “young towns” because they were originally started as invasions, or essentially squatter communities. Most of the houses around us are constructed of cement and are fairly good in terms of quality, but many have unfinished second floors or attachments constructed of estera, or a woven reed-like material. Walking north or east of our house will lead you to the edge of Chimbote, where there are many more houses constructed completely of estera. Our house is very similar to those in the immediate vicinity minus the fact that it’s huge. We have two complete stories, with four bedrooms, a huge living room partially divided in two, two bathrooms, a large dining room, kitchen, and large patio and garden out back. Just before Thanksgiving we painted our living room orange, so it feels much more lively and homey than it did before. We are slowly making changes and improvements using the resources we have to make it our own and make it a welcoming space for visitors. In terms of amenities, we are a step above most of our neighbors because we have a water well behind our house and a pump that carries the water to a tank on top of the house. All the houses in this area of town have running water, but the water is only turned on for a couple hours in the morning and night, so houses without a well are more limited in terms of water usage. A few weeks ago our pump broke for about a week, so we filled buckets from the well to use for showering, drinking, washing clothes/dishes, flushing toilets, etc. For drinking or cooking the water must be boiled. What else… ah, yes, we don’t have a water heater, so the options are a cold/lukewarm shower or a hot bucket shower. When it was colder I generally opted for the bucket shower, but now that it’s summer the cold showers are no problem. We also don’t have a washing machine so we wash clothes by hand and hang dry them, but it’s not a bad chore. Our other big chore is dusting and sweeping, because our street isn’t paved yet so the dust is incredible. We cook all our own food in the house, but fruits or vegetables must be eaten cooked and/or washed with dish soap.

This week we got a new addition to the house – ducks! A friend of ours has about a hundred ducklings to get rid of, so after a careful decision process we decided to adopt three of them. As you can see in the picture, we built a little corral in the back corner of our patio for them. We have yet to name them but that’s our next task! And that’s our hammock in the background… :)

Now a little bit in terms of daily activities… it’s a little difficult because I don’t necessarily have a regular schedule, every day is a little bit different. That fact is intensified because of summer vacation (Jan-Feb), when most programs take a break. I’ve started to fall into a bit of a routine this week, though. I’ve been getting up at 6:15 to go running with a couple friends, which I love! Some mornings it’s a little painful but we run down the street I love on straight out of Chimbote to a sand dune. I love this little escape into the country, seeing all the farmers heading to town with donkey carts loaded with goods to sell (usually corn). This morning while the others ran laps on top of the sand dune (which my legs don’t find very agreeable… haha), I picked a little peak off to the sand and did a little meditating… it was so beautiful to sit there, looking out over the fields, listening to the sounds of birds, donkey hoofs, and distant mucic, letting the cool morning breeze wash over me. I’ve learned to wear bug spray when I go running, because the other day I returned to the house with 30 bug bites between my legs and arms. I’m still recovering from that one!

Anyway, back to my daily activities. My mornings right now are generally filled by cleaning the house, going to the market, or running random errands downtown. Yesterday morning I went with Sister Katty, who recently returned from a semester studying in Mexico, to the public university, where she was part of the leadership team for the campus Catholic ministry. It was their last gathering of the school year, as classes just ended about a week ago, but it was so good! The priest was super animated and the mass was very participatory and informal… it was the most life-giving mass that I’ve attended here. They don’t start again until April but if it seems appropriate at that time I might get involved with student ministry there. Sister Katty, who is actually a student at a private university here, prefers to participate in the campus ministry at the public university because tuition is free, so the students with more economic challenges study there. It also just felt really good to be back on a college campus. So we’ll see what comes of that!

There have also been some exciting advancements in the parish: we have officially opened the youth center! With a couple games sent by my sister (they love playing UNO, Ginger!) and some games that we bought here, we open the youth room three nights a week from 8-10 so they can come hang out and play games. We also open the parish center for sports one additional night and Saturday afternoons to play soccer or volleyball. So right now I am at the parish Wed-Sat from 8-10 at night plus Saturday from 4-7, and then I have theater practice at the parish on Sundays from 10ish-1ish, plus masses and miscellaneous meetings. I love this time with our parishioners and am really starting to feel at home with them.

And I can’t forget to mention the blank spaces filled by summer activities! Trips to the pool or the beach are also at the back of my mind to plan, though so far I’ve only made it once to the pool and have yet to get to the beach. But summer in Chimbote means VOLLEYBALL! Peruvians love their volleyball and they are GOOD… it’s a sign of summer to see a group of kids (or adults, really) playing volleyball on side streets with their nets stretched between two telephone poles. There are a couple families that put up their net every night about a block from our house and I finally went and played with them a few nights ago. Since then I’ve played almost every night, and even won a little money! It does make for some late nights, but hey, that’s summer! The weather is hot, but there’s usually a cool breeze and it’s quite comfortable in the shade, so taking advantage of our hammock is a favorite after-lunch activity…

Okay, if you made it this far, you are probably tiring of reading, so I think I’ll stop there. You are all continually in my thoughts and prayers… my prayer for you all right now is that you continually find the JOY in the small things. I had a conversation over ceviche the other day with the coordinator of the theater group and expressed my doubts about having anything real to offer to this community. He said, “Of course you have something to offer, tu alegría!” (your happiness!). So that we all remember that in every encounter, in every situation, we do have something to offer!

I would love to hear from you, or answer any questions or cloudy spots that may exist about what I’m doing here… or about life… or really anything!

PAZ y ALEGRÍA for you.