Musing from the makeshift housing day three……..

Many of you, I am sure, have been very patient getting my musings emails but may not be interested in getting them. I spoke to my son Chris yesterday as he is more savvy at the technology stuff than I am. He set up a blogspot for me to use. So if you would like to read these musings, from now on you can go to deacondonleach.blogspot.com and read them there. It struck me that having a son who can do these things for me is exactly what we are trying to accomplish in El Salvador. So many parents in El Salvador are uneducated and cannot read or write but they want their children to be able to move forward in life. Education seems to be the main way to have that happen. We have been very successful in Haciendita Uno by getting kids through elementary and high school. Now we are focusing on college for many of them. We hope that together these future business owners and professionals will be able to give back to their community and send many others on to college. Perhaps, someday one of the dads there will be able to call his son and ask him to set up a blog site for him so that he can reach out to the world around him.

A man asked me last night if he could bring me a radio to listen to while I was out on the property. I thanked him and said I was really enjoying the silence. I am struck by how much I am enjoying the slower pace of life here. There is no TV, no radio, no mail, or other distractions. Haciendita Uno got electrical lines to their community in 2004. So now they have TV, radio, refrigerators, mechanical corn grinders. So in many ways they are now beginning to experience the distractions that I am now thanking God for not having. I wonder if this is all good progress.

We get up at 6:00 am each morning so as not to be bothering people showing up for the 6:30 am mass at church. It reminds me of getting up in Haciendita Uno and realizing they have been up since 4:00 am. The women are cooking and the men and children are out working in the fields or moving the cattle around. Often, the men are out ready to start cutting sugar cane as soon as the sun rises so that they miss the heat of the day. The kids are collecting cane leaves for the cattle to eat before they leave on their walk to school in the morning. It is all very reminiscent of growing up in rural Michigan farm lands. It is a hard life that many here do not and will not experience.

I am struck by the cars pulling into the church lot at 6:15 am for mass. In Haciendita Uno a priest comes to the neighboring community once a month to say mass. The two community’s share a small chapel. If they can get to mass on Sunday, they have to ride the bus or walk 8 miles through hilly terrain and roads to get to Suchitoto. We are so fortunate to be able to attend mass at so many different times each week/day!

We had a young mother with he two children and a friend stop by last evening to see the makeshift housing and talk about El Salvador. During the conversation, we realized the woman was a former school teacher. Mary and she knew so many common friends. It was interesting to see the interest the kids had and they wrote a few notes to the college kids in El Salvador while they were with us. I am always struck by how well received these little notes are in Haciendita Uno. They are very precious to the people there. We will be traveling to Haciendita Uno in early July so if anyone would like to write a note please feel free to drop it off and we will hand deliver it to the community.

We had two deacons stop by to see us last night. One was Deacon Joe Daratony who many of you will remember from his days at OLGC. We talked about his trips to Jamaica with so many parishioners. He is planning to head to Haiti in late August. Even in has retirement he is still looking forward to sharing the Gospel with so many impoverished people. He is trying to always bring the message of the poor to us. Deacon Bob Schikora stopped by. He is a newly ordained transitional deacon from OLGC for the Diocese of Saginaw. He leaves in a few days for an assignment in the rural Saginaw for the summer. He told me his first assignment is in a community that has no place currently in there rectory for him to stay. He will be staying with a family on a farm. I congratulated him and told him we would all keep him in our prayers. Both of these men who have already given so much reached into their wallets and gave us money for the HU college kids. Each apologized for not being able to give more. Two men who have already given so much, apologizing for not being able to do more. It reminded my of the family I stayed with last January in El Salvador. They apologized to me and the other guest because they had no beef to serve with our meals. Those who have so little are always willing to give so much more.

We had turned in for the night and soon we heard a voice outside calling, “Don, are you in there?” It was a family has come to know over the years at OLGC who had come to visit. We invited them in and they stayed for a few minutes. They wanted their daughter to see what we were doing. The husband told me about how many houses like this he had seen in the middle of many boulevards in Mexico during his travels. When they left, I told my wife that we never get this many visitors at our home in Canton. Perhaps it would be better to just stay here so that we could see more of our friends. I guess I should be careful what I ask for---God has a way of hearing the prayers of our hearts!

We are at $12,295.34 so only $19,704.66 to go!

Peace and all good, Deacon Don