Newsletter October 2008
Greetings
Hola! From a sunny and sticky Guayaquil where, as ever, there has been a lot going on in my life on the Missions. I often find that my head is spinning and turning, but with each day, comes a new adventure. I like it that way. I send this newsletter by way of keeping you up-to-date with what has been happening, thanking you for your generous donations, and showing what future projects are planned for the year ahead. Happy reading and may God bless your goodness!
We have two new Chapels
What’s next?
Poor old Pedro.
Bismarck.
House swap.
Youth work.
Recent guests.
Colm Hogan.
We have two new chapels
On the 5th October, we opened the new Maestro Chapel and on the 19th, the new La Paz Chapel, changing them from the bamboo chapels that were falling down to our brand-new brick chapels. The two Chapels serve small communities on the outlying areas of our Parish and indeed they are the poorest areas… when the kids come to Mass with their ‘Sunday best’ there are still holes in their good t-shirts. The building work started shortly after Easter. Both buildings are similar – they can seat about 120 people and both incorporate two meeting rooms. These rooms are open to the wider community and not just used for Catechism classes.
On the great day of the inaugurations we had a Blessing Mass with our resident musician, Tito, strumming out some great hymns. And, after the Mass, we had various groups performing some traditional dances (I even attempted a Highland Fling). Of course, we had a celebration cake! All in all, they were terrific inauguration days and, as I looked around, I felt a new spirit in those communities that says we can progress, we can move things forward, we have got hope!
What’s next?
For the year ahead, there are two projects that I would love to undertake: the building of a Medical Centre and the building of three more classrooms. For those who have visited Nueva Prosperina, you will know that there is presently a small Medical Centre operating out of a corner of the school complex.
However, with only two rooms and with a population here in excess of 50,000 people, it is clearly not enough.
I had thought that simply giving them more and bigger rooms would have been enough, but the housing charity, Hogar de Cristo (Christ’s Home), that run it, suggested that we expand the services to include, amongst other services, dental and psychological services. I investigated a wee bit and it seems that is it a
possibility.
The other project in the pipeline is the building of three more classrooms at our school. Although we now have eighteen brick classrooms (we said goodbye to our last bamboo one last year), we still have one classroom in a makeshift room and next year we will be welcoming two more year groups. So we need three classrooms.
These are the projects for the months ahead. Progress has and is being made in the sector but, with your help, we can achieve these two goals. Your kindness does make a difference and does transform lives.
