taking time to remember to remember

My inspiration for blogging recently have been on the lower end on my motivation scale. Unhappy with this, not understanding why, and trying to type up something that made sense for a blog entry was extremely frustrating and got worse the more I tried to reason with myself, the more I tried to figure ‘it’ out, literally the more I tried to force it, the worse it became. Many hours were spent typing gibberish, deleting, retyping and reading other blogs in search of anything, any small seed of inspiration I could get to grow. My goal was to have something posted last week, but Friday came around and still not luck, still no blog.

Then came Saturday, a gift from God. I had the entire day to myself and it was just wonderful. My family called in the morning from the lake to wish me a happy 4th of July, I found comfort in the warm blankets of my bed, movies in English, drawing/sketching and making my own food. I did not leave the apartment nor did I talk with anyone aside from the necessary, polite saludos. The day was perfect for catching up on my thinking, relaxing and just being with myself and God. This day reaffirmed that I need to provide myself with days like these more than every so often.

Sunday Padre Alberto picked us up early for a day at his parish in Bosa (the outskirts of Bogota). Laura-Catherine and I stepped out of the taxi on to the unpaved road and into the church with the tarped walls, dirt floor and patched tin roof. At the end of each service we introduced and explained who we are as missionaries and people and what we will be doing to help with the mission. Before I go any further, a little about the mission we will be helping with in Bosa: it is called Operation Rescue, created to rescue the children from the streets and from the television while their parents work literally from sunrise to sunset, if not longer leaving the children home alone before and after school.

We spent Monday, the opening day at the mission, as well. I am left inspired and at a loss of words. These two priests, Alberto and Alejandro have had a dream of starting a church and a mission like this, for who knows how long and have dedicated their lives to achieving this. About 2 years ago they were able to start regular church services in Bosa, and various other locations around Bogota, 7 services, 2 priests. Another thing you should know is that it is rare that a priest gets paid enough to live on which usually leads to many part time priests and a full time something else, lawyer, professor, police officer, etc... Alejandro and Alberto live solely on the generosity of the parishioners, which in some areas of the city is hardly anything. So to live off of this, support a family and build a mission from the ground up is very difficult, and very incredible.

What moves and inspires me above all of this is the dream, the passion and the love they live. It reminded me that it is not always easy, in fact more often than not dreams are difficult to achieve, but living and believing in them, in others and in yourself is what makes dreams come true.