Christmas Vacation

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” - CS Lewis

Yeah, so I have a thing for CS Lewis. Perhaps it is because it is so easy to remember his words. Perhaps because he was a genius. It speaks to me now as I have been struggling with yet another round of illness and the Lord has indeed been shouting to me. He has also whispering in the fact that I saw my first sunset here the other day and the stars were out last night (both a result of the fact that the perpetual clouds are finally leaving). In any case, try not to hold my love of good old Jack against me :)

Christmas eve was wonderful here at the Santuario, complete with 10pm Mass and sleeping babies, a beautiful hand made nativity scene from the misioñeras and dancing in Padre´s house until 2am. For Christmas day we had Mass again and then time to recuperate for the gringo Christmas celebration that we had ourselves with a bonfire, s´mores (yes, we found marshmellows), wine and Christmas caroles, quite literally sung by the fire. After all of this, we went for an impromtu swim in the ocean at 1am, having to scale the wall since we neglected to bring our keys. Yep, it was a different kind of Christmas but nonetheless memorable.

These last few days we have had a few different events, including a Mass for all the elderly in the surrounding communities, but for the most part we have enjoyed a few days of vacation, with later wake up times and afternoons at the beach with the kids that are still here. One of our precious little ones, Angelica, who is 6 years old, about 3.5 feet tall and 40lbs soaking wet, absolutely loves the waves and will nearly drown herself trying to get out to where I am so that she can swim with me and hold onto my arms as the waves crash into her. I have never seen a kid smile so big with a face full of salt water but she absolutely loves it and her absolute trust in me is humbling. So, even when my arms are going to fall off from holding her up in the waves for the 1,000th time, just one look at her face and I keep going. In fact, just thinking about it makes me want to go right now...

Tomorrow we have a great big party, probably the second biggest of the year here, not only for New Year´s but also for the eve of the solemnity, Mary Mother of God. It´s pretty exciting as all the misioñeras who don´t live here on base will come in for the celebration and we have lots of visitors from Quito and Guayaquil who have come down as well. I have been put on the decoration committee and we are charged with decorating the boat aka the church which should be fun. I suppose it is about time to begin my reflections on the old year and my resolutions for the next, however I think my first resolution would be to keep my resolutions for more than two weeks, haha.

I hope that all my family and friends back home are enjoying a peaceful weekend and are prepared to ring in the new year. May the Lord bring blessings anew to us all and may 2008 bring more positive change to this world in which we live.