So Christmas has come and gone and we had a fine celebration here. Of course, there is not the same build-up as there is say in Scotland and obviously there is not the money to go round. So it is a mush quieter celebration. Having said that we had three Masses for Christmas in the new Parish Church – on the 24th at 8pm and 11pm and then on Christmas Day itself at 10am. Here in Latin America the big time for celebrations and for families to gather is the night of the 24th and that is reflected in the fact that the Church is packed on Christmas Eve and relatively quiet the next day. Still we had lots of singing and participation at all three Masses with a different youth group putting on a Nativity play at each of the Masses. I also pushed the boat out this year and provided a small bag of sweets to all the kids that turned up at the Christmas Masses: I had reckoned on 1,000 bags and by close of play on the 25th they were all gone. Once the Masses were finished I met up with the other St. James priests in one of the city hotels – a fine meal but no crackers, no party hats and no mince pies on the go. Poor show! After that it was off the movies for a relaxing end to a busy few days. One of the nicest events of the week was the annual Christmas meal for the teachers. In the past we have gone to a restaurant in town but they plumped for my other suggestion – going to my house where I would prepare a meal. Great idea but it means I have to do the leg work – move chairs and tables to get the twenty guests in and then, of course work hard at burning the dinner. No it went fine and we had a great laugh. Our new priest, Colm, had just arrived and was using the occasion to show off his newly-acquired Spanish. Fantastico. Everyone left well fed and with a big bag of goodies under their arms, including a cooked chicken (no, I hadn’t killed it myself). Colm is getting settled in slowly but surely, getting used to his new surroundings and planning his missionary future. He is a really pleasant guy and comes ready with hurling stick in hand, coming from a big hurling family in Tipperary. Actually he has settled in very quickly and was the main celebrant at the 11pm Christmas Mass. He also preached finishing his homily (in Spanish) by singing “Silent Night” in Gaelic. The saddest event of the week was the suicide of one of our school pupils. Andrea was a 13 year-old, happy girl at our afternoon school where we take boys and girls who have been street sellers for too many years and give them some education. As I say she was a happy girl and I was totally shocked when our head teacher, Adela, turned up at our school to tell me of her death. We all went over to her house and I was overwhelmed when I saw her lying in the coffin in her school uniform. A sad first for our school. The house where she had lived and died was the typical bamboo house where her four brothers and sisters had crammed an existence. Her disabled brother ah died last year and now she had taken her life. I cried along with the teachers and pupils that had accompanied me and I wondered what way out of poverty and misery there is for our people here. Of course the big event before the Christmas feast was our First Communion Day on Saturday. We had 180 kids form all six chapels of the Parish where we have catechesis and all chapels participated in the readings, prayers and offertory. Clearly with that number there was no room to move in the big Church but we made the mist of it and it was a fine faith-filled celebration. In true Latin spirit they were fighting one another at the end of Mass to get space on the sanctuary for a good photo. My smile began to wane after the 50th photo. Having said that, all in all it was a great day and amazing to think how the Parish has developed – when I came three years ago, there were less than sixty kids for First Communion. Now that we are established, it seems that the number will grow year on year. So now I am up the coast at the St. James retreat house at Ayangue – scene of some famous dives from a second floor. W are here for our monthly meeting and also a chance to wind down after the busy days of Christmas.

The big news of the week is that the Nursery was finally opened and we have it up and running. Wednesday was the big day and, as well as our own thirty kids, we had invited the kids from other nurseries in the Parish. So there was a big crowd of parents, leaders and other invited guests. WE had also invited the Children’s charity (INFFA) who provides the meals and wages for the mothers who take care of the kids through the day. I was called on to say a few prayers and bless the Nursery but the main event was the singing and dancing by the kids themselves. It was a fantastic day and great testament to the generosity of people back home that such a building could be put up in rapid time. Some people have asked me am I mad to have thirty kids (soon to be 65) right beside my house – would it not be too much noise. But hey, is there not a quote in the Bible “Let the children come to me”? The other big event of the week concerns the proposed trip of the youth group here to Scotland. One of our big headaches is getting all the paperwork together. So Monday was “Passport Day”. Having had loads of experience of Ecuadorian bureaucracy, I had fully expected to arrive at the passport office to be told that we did not have the relevant papers or that the office was shut for Christmas. But the eleven who need passports arrived at the Passport office and six of them were seen right away and had their passports in twenty minutes. The others –who are the under-agers – had to return with their parents the next day. So, after a week, we have nine of the passports and it will be a matter of days before they are all in. The next step, of course, is to get an entry Visa to the UK for which we will all have to travel to Quito in the first week of January. Exciting times! The School building continues to come ahead and the floor for the second level was laid last week – they do not wait around. With some good news coming from home re donations etc, I decided to move ahead with a further two classrooms. With the school expanding next year to take us up to 4th year of secondary school, then more space is needed. Since the space on the ground is limited, we need to build up. The other building story concerns the laying of the community football pitch – this has been an idea of mine for some since the communal pitch beside the school is mere dirt and, when the rain comes, it is impossible to play on. Having received some cash from Celtic Charity Fund and others sources, I was keen to move on. So it looks likely that, when we go to Celtic Park with the Ecuadorian youth in February, we will be able to report a new football pitch. I had a tearful moment earlier on in the week when I went to the Opening of the new offices of the Plan International charity – once again I was called in to bless the new place. After the prayers and the obligatory dances, we went inside to have a slideshow presentation of some of the kids from our own area who have been taken away from street work and have gone into education. As I saw the kids telling us how hopeless life was on the streets (selling sweets and slippers), I realised that charities like Plan really do make a difference. But the funniest moment of the week has to be my encounter with Pedro. He is an old man who wanders into any Church group that is taking place – Rosary, youth group, whatever. He is lovely and always has a friendly smile and embrace. He stopped me yesterday and asked if Tracy and Suzanne were coming over for Christmas. I was taken aback to say the least – and that he had remembered their names after seven months. I thought to myself how attached the people get to all eth Scottish friends that have come out.

Well, yesterday was a bit of a mad day here: Confirmation Mass; Moving into the new Nursery; laying the second floor in the new school building; an end-of-year Catechism party; plus a few other Masses. The Confirmation Mass brought together 69 young people from the various chapels in the Parish here, 65 from San Ignacio School and 12 from Tom Oates’ nearby Parish. The Mass went well and as you can imagine, with so many people packed into the Church, was lively. As always happens at these critical moments, the electricity went with about half an hour to go before the start of the Mass – luckily service was resumed just as we were ready to go. For this year, it wasn’t the Archbishop that came out (well, he’d been out twice while Ian & Michael were here) but his Vicar General who came out. He was very good and happy to share out the tasks but, in his homily, went into great details about warning the youth about the “dangers of the modern world”. Yet everyone seemed to have good Mass and, at the end, it was the usual round of photos. Plastic smiles please! So Phew! We are actually moving into the Nursery. What a great relief. After having blown my gasket a few times, the Children’s Charity finally agreed to us moving into our new property right beside my house here. It is a great building and great testimony to the generosity of people back home. Yesterday it was all hands on deck as cupboards, desks, chairs and toys were moved into the new building. We are having an official opening on Wednesday with all sorts of dignitaries coming so there should be great fun as well. The kids move in tomorrow for the first time so I am actually looking forward to having a bit of noise around the place – as if there wasn’t enough! And the school building is moving ahead quickly. I think I mentioned before how I feel that this team of workers moves at a very steady pace and, before you know it, they have done great strides. So yesterday they were laying the second floor of the two-storey building at the end of the school yard where all the bamboo huts are. This will hold six classrooms and will bring the total of brick-built classrooms to sixteen – fantastic generosity from people back home! To see the lads working away was tremendous. Muchas gracias! And, as if all that was not enough for one day, I got a surprise when I turned up for the last Mass of the day at Carmen. To be told it was Narcissa’s birthday! If you remember Narcissa is one of our Catechists but was diagnosed with AIDS earlier in the year. As we celebrated Mass last night with Narcissa singing (?????) at my side, I couldn’t help thinking how blessed she has been to have made some sort of recovery from her very serious illness. So we ended Mass with a ‘fuerte aplauso’ and a rendition of ‘Cumpleanos feliz!’

Well, the big event of the past ten days was the Inauguration of our new chapel at Reynaldo Quinones where the chapel is dedicated to Blessed Narcissa de Jesus (a Guayaquil girl who died at 24 yrs and was famed for bringing families to God) – she will be declared a saint later in the year. For over a year now we have been celebrating Friday night Mass in a shed beside the community office and there was always a crowd of about thirty. Then came the decision by the community leaders to give us a big space of land to build a chapel on. I think they thought I was building a cathedral – not for thirty people but still. So the enthusiasm of the community was infectious and soon we were doing bingos and dances to get funds together. And when I came back from Scotland in August we started moving the land and building. The building went up rapid style with metal pillars and bamboo walls – the idea being that the community having received this as a gift from Scotland might get together themselves and raise funds for the walls. So the Big Mass took place a week past on Sunday with Jamie (on his last Sunday) as guest of honour, resplendent in tartan waistcoat and tie! The chapel was packed, the singing enthusiastic and people generally very excited; afterwards there were games for the kids and sandwiches for all. All in all , a great way to celebrate the new phase in the life of the Parish. On the Nursery front we seem to be getting somewhere. You will remember that the building was finished over a month ago but the Children’s charity that provide the food and wages were dragging their heels about extending their coverage. I had been back and forward to their offices, had been phoning them – all to no avail. And then when I blew a gasket (with calmness I must add) at one of the leaders last week things started to move. And it looks like the parents will be on hand this coming Saturday to get the new place in proper order. So I really do hope that the Nursery will be up beside my house before Christmas. Not that I am desperate to have 70 weans screaming at my door; but that’s what it was there for. IT will also have a knock-on effect at out Parish School because, with the Nursery going, we can use that building for classrooms or move the Soup Kitchen perhaps. In any case, the building at the school is coming on apace. There will be three classrooms downstairs and three upstairs with an access staircase built in. This team of workers do not mess about and, although they get paid much less than they would ion Scotland, it amazes me that their dedication to workmanship is not diminished in any way. This building will also include a new toilet block and should last till February. But by far the saddest event of the week was the departure of Guayaquil’s new-found friend, Jamie Maxwell. Jamie himself knew that, leaving here after being immersed in the shanty for so long, it was going to be sad in a kind of post-HCPT/Lourdes way. At the school there was a farewell presentation on Friday and we had all the teenage girls weeping, some teachers and even a big burly guy from Primary 7. Saturday night there was a concert in the Church Hall which was well attended and people had a chance to have a last photo and chat with him. I had also put together a slide presentation of some of the key moments of the last three months. I had previously taken Jamie out for a meal in town on Thursday night – we went to a tapas bar near the Cathedral and we had good food and good crack. In fact, for three months there has been good crack often to the ‘wee hours’ and Jamie has always been there with a word of advice or two but more often than not just a laugh. Oh how we laughed! So I will miss his songs, laughter and friendship but “Hey, Jamie, did you have to steal my toothbrush and razor?”

Fr. Martin Chambers writes: I have known Jamie Maxwell for several years through regular pilgrimages to Lourdes with HCPT. Recently he finished his university course and wanted to do something ‘significant’ with his year away from studying. He asked to come out to my shanty Parish in Ecuador for three months and I was only to happy to receive him. The following is his reflections on his so far on the Missions … I’ve now been living in the shanty town of Nueva Prosperina for 43 days. When asked to convey my experiences so far in 800 words I was faced with a major problem; where to start? I have opted for the following experience as I feel it best represents the amazing young people whom I have been privileged to have come into close personal contact with. A couple of weeks into my trip some members of the local youth group invited me to go with them into Guayaquil city centre. There they treated me to a guided tour of the more affluent parts of the city which I had yet to encounter. For these youngsters a trip to the city centre is a real treat, and I could sense their excitement from the moment we met early in the morning. We took a bus from the local main street into the town centre, disembarking at the Malecon 2000. This is a promenade that runs alongside part of the river, built to commemorate the millennium. We walked along here, enjoying ice cream along the way, and then climbed to the top of the lighthouse to look out over the sprawling city. Another bus trip followed, this time seeing us travel to the shopping centre. Here we enjoyed a spot of window shopping, and, would you believe, several shots on the elevator (trivial to me, but exciting to them!), before sitting down to a well-earned pizza. After the pizza it was time for the bus home, though not before a visit to a pharmacy, much to my puzzlement. It emerged they stopped to buy plasters for my heels which they had noticed were bleeding from all the walking! All in all a fantastic day that everyone enjoyed. This might not exactly be everyone’s idea of a sightseeing tour, but one revealing aspect of the trip was that the young people were taking me to places that they regard as special. Shopping centres and pizza parlours; places that we take for granted. But why is this story so important I hear you ask? Firstly, the eight young people who accompanied me to the city had scrimped and saved the few dollars they possess to pay for my bus fares, my food and drink, and also bought me a small gift of a chain as a keepsake. I offered to pay for the pizza, and to buy drinks, but was met with a firm refusal. They might not have many possessions, but they do have a great sense of pride. They had invited me out, and therefore, as their guest, I was just to sit back and enjoy the day. Secondly, I speak little Spanish, and, likewise, the young people have only a small grasp of English. Therefore, communication was obviously going to be a problem. However, we all enjoyed the challenges that this created, and worked at making ourselves understood to each other. This sometimes took the shape of writing things down to see if this helped, drawing pictures, pointing at objects, or even acting out certain words. This had been one of my main worries before coming to Ecuador, but the patience the young people show with me is startling, and I was never made to feel like I was hindering them. Despite the lack of a faculty such as a common language, I was able to communicate with a group of young people, with whom I have little in common, and share a great day with them. Finally, and the thing that struck me most, was the fact that helping me enjoy my day was central to their own happiness. This was a day they had been planning together for some while, and they had been saving their money to be able to treat themselves in town. Yet, after deciding to invite me, their primary goal changed to ensure I enjoyed my day. They all went out of their way to make my day enjoyable, and little points, like using some of their money to buy plasters for me, reiterate how much attention they were paying to my well-being and comfort. I was humbled by the care and attention they lavished upon me, and I will wear their gift of a chain with pride. Yet their kindness, their friendship, and their sense of caring, far outweighed any gift they could have bought me. My lack of Spanish made it difficult for me to convey how sincerely grateful I was for my day out, and I can only hope that they realise how special my day was made by their generosity. Though these young people may be poor in a financial sense, they are blessed with gifts that money just can’t buy.

Am just back from our annual retreat with the St. James’ priests at the Ecuador Retreat house at Ayangue on the Pacific coast. It is a beautiful site and takes about two hours to get there from Guayaquil. We actually go once a month for a business meeting but in November we go for four days spiritual renewal and retreat. This year we were led by Fr. Mike Duggen from the Maryknoll Missionaries (an American order) but he was conspicuous by his absence of mentions about missionary life. As well as having been on the Missions in Korea for twenty-five years, he is also an expert in Massage treatment (which he uses to great effect on the retired missionaries in their house at New York) and which he offered to anyone who wished. I took the chance esp as it was free. As well as the talks and the Masses in such a retreat, it allows us an opportunity to meet up and chat with our own fellow priests. There were priests from the high Andes near Cusco, Peru as well as us city dwellers from Lima, Quito and Guayaquil. And we also had visitors from Ireland and Boston. There was an opportunity to relax in the sea nearby the house and, while beating Jamie Maxwell in a speed swim, I got stung by a jellyfish – ouch! However, the main sporting activity of the few days was the second floor jump into the swimming pool (you can catch this on my page http://www.bebo.com/ and follow to Martin Chambers or mhartino2004). On the final night, once the retreat was over we celebrated Thanksgiving Day with our American friends and, although I gave a good rendition of Scotland eth Brave, we left Ayangue to the sound of the great Tom Oates singing “God Bless America, my home sweet home!”

In Nueva Prosperina, we are moving ahead with the building of the school . I have to say this architect is a different one from the one who built the other parts of the school and he is certainly moving at a different pace. He is very good - he built the Church and Nursery but he is a little disorganised. But he is in fact very lucky toe escape with his life as the other day they robbed him of $5000 which he had just taken out of the bank. They robbed him in a busy street in broad daylight. In fact the money he had was money he had just cashed from my cheque to him - he was going to pay for some material for the school. Lucky white heather, eh?. Things in the sector go well - as always it is the ordinary people who remind me why I came here in the first place and they who encourage me to get on and do some things. I went the other day to the house of a woman who was dying - Fabiola - and the family we are gathered there around her. What struck me though was that the only thing between her and the dirt floor was a thin mattress. No dignified way of dying here. I said the prayers, blessed her and went on my way. I heard that she had passed away the next morning. Back home a priest would then get involved in the funeral but not here - most of the people from these shanty towns have come from up the north of Ecuador so they quickly get themselves together and head to their home town to bury their dead there. That's what happened with this woman. Lived poor and died poor!

Well that’s them away – Ian & Michael. It was fantastic to have them here. It is great to have people here all the time. As I have said before, the way I now approach people coming out from home to experience life in the shanty has changed: I used to think that I had to create a heavy schedule and keep everyone busy and therefore contented. Of course, people like my friend Jamie Maxwell, who is out for three months, have a different plan – he is here to work in the school teaching English and gets on with his own tasks. However, normally people can only manage for less time (ten days or so) and I now think that it is as easy simply to say “Look, I am doing this and I think you’d get a good idea of the situation of the poor people and their families simply be tagging along”. And that is what we did with Ian & Michael: we visited some old folk in their homes; we visited the school; we celebrated Masses in the various chapels; we popped in to see poor friends; we visited some priests in the area. As well as that Michael & Ian’s visit coincided with the one-off Pastoral Visit from the Archbishop. This consisted in a walk with the Archbishop up and down the dusty streets to see people and places in the Parish; a meal with the Arch and his auxiliaries; and a big Sunday Mass with fiesta afterwards. This meant that my Scottish guests were meeting high heid yins all week: another surreal moment, no doubt. As we said farewell this morning and reflected on ten jam-packed days, I could hear from their voices that they had been touched and affected by the experience of poverty here but more so by the love and affection shown to them. It is the same “best ever” experience that we all have having lived here.

When I was home in Scotland at summer several people asked me what was the big project that I would still love to do while in Ecuador. Without much hesitation I said “Bring a group over to Scotland”. I had seen various other people doing the same sort of thing and I thought it was possible; and, after all, the youth group from St. John’s, Stevenston had already asked us to think about it. So, when I came back, I investigated whether it was in fact possible. At every step I met with an open door of people who thought it was a good idea – offering funding along the way. So, after asking the youth from the four Parish youth groups here to fill in an application form, yesterday I announced the names of the eight people who will come with us in February/March on an exchange trip to St. John’s, Stevenston: Adela, Freddy and Carol are the leaders along with me; the girls are Flor, Sonia, Lucy and Carmen; and the guys are Manuel, Jose Carlos, Andres and Andres. Of course, they were over the moon; but what struck me was that there were only a few sad looking faces from those who weren’t picked – in the main, the rest of the groups decided to get stuck in behind their own representatives. While in Scotland we will work on a regeneration project in North Ayrshire, visit the new St. Matthew’s Academy, Saltcoats, take part in St. John’s Masses and activities as well as making a visit to Celtic Park, the Scottish Parliament and other places. Personally, I am looking forward to it greatly. There is still a lot of work to be done - not least in raising funds and making sure we get passports and visas for all our people (none of whom have such a thing). This is a unique opportunity for people who, under normal circumstances, would not be able to afford a trip to Quito in the north of Ecuador. Yet once again the generosity and support of people in Scotland has been fantastic and I am sure it will be a great success. We have a strong team!

Of course, the big event over the past few days has been the arrival of my brother, Ian, and brother-in-law, Michael. I am sure that they will really enjoy and benefit from their ten-day visit to Nueva Prosperina. Since arriving here, I have had the privilege of welcoming quite a few visitors, At first, I was always concerned that I should have a tight schedule prepared for them filling their time and covering all bases of the shanty experience. Now I am less concerned about being that precise and am happy simply to have visitors more or less follow my mad timetable and thereby get a good feel for life here. One of the first stops for this week’s guests was our Parish School, Sagrada Familia de Nazareth, where they were hugged and embraced in typical Latin style by both kids and staff. With the help of donations from home, we have been able to make great strides in developing the look of our school: in three years we have gone from nine bamboo huts to nine brick-built classrooms. At the same time, the school roll has doubled so we still have nine classes being taught in bamboo huts. I am always looking to completing the building programme so I was happy to start a new phase on Monday there – four new classrooms being built at the bottom of the yard – two up and two down; this should be completed by the end of January. This will, of course, kill two birds with the one stone as we were badly needing a new toilet block. You see, recently we had a major problem with the toilet waste leaking out onto the street – neighbours were ready to lynch me when I came back from Scotland. It took a while to work out exactly what the nature of the problem was but now with the new building project going on, we will have a better toilet system and new shiny classrooms. Life is never dull here.

You catch us on a quiet long weekend for the feast of All Souls’ Day tomorrow (Friday). Since most people in this shanty town have come from other parts of the country and, since most people travel to visit the graves of their dead relatives for the feast-day, it will be a quiet place this weekend (oh great - no Saturday night discos blaring until 5am). When Nueva Prosperina goes like that, I love to get out and about and walk the streets saying hello to folk and visiting the sick and housebound. Today I am going to pop in to see Olga and Jaime, an old couple in their 70s. Jaime was a bus driver for many years but for the past five has been housebound whereas Olga, although 71, is more robust and gets out and about shopping and visiting family. I have had a soft spot for them for a long while for many reasons: they were the first couple to get married after I arrived in the Parish (although they had lived together for thirty years); they suffer from very ill health and cannot afford the basic $1 medicines; their house is the size of a small living room and yet it is the first house they have “owned” in their entire lives; and yet, because of a lack of running water or drainage, they have never lived in a house where they can turn on a tap or flush a toilet. Poverty screams out of their lives. And yet what I find is always a warm welcome and a couple who are able to enjoy life and laugh in the face of problems. That is why I will be happy to pop in and see them today.

Well this is me back on Blog-line after a short break while I forgot how to do blogs. I have gone back to computer class and hopefully these will become a regular feature of this website. Yesterday I went with Jamie Maxwell (and HCPT friend who just recently has graduated in journalism) up into the mountains to visit another St. James’ priest, Liam Reilly, from County Mayo. Liam had been with me for a couple of weeks when he arrived on the Missions I n January; and, after a few months in another Guayaquil parish, accepted the challenge of starting a Parish in one of the remotest parts of Ecuador. I had visited a couple of times but this time we stayed two days allowing us to see the Parish in action and to travel to some distant parts. As well as serving the main village of Chontamarca, Liam has thirty-five remote communities some of which are only accessible on horseback. Sadly we didn’t get a chance to do the horseback bit but we did visit four or five remote communities. It is because of their remoteness that the people of these communities live in poverty: no running water; and a lack of education or health care simply because there is not good access. Many of these communities have remained unchanged for years and a lot of the older villagers told me that they had never lived anywhere else. Sadly most of the parents of young children have left the area to find work in the USA or in Spain from where they send money back to their families. In one village while Liam was talking to the children preparing for First Communion in December, myself and Jamie played football, volleyball and other races on the make-shift tennis court. It was great fun just to “waste time” having fun, although we both got sunburnt quite a bit! Then, together with the older members, we celebrated Mass together where some of the hymns were in the ancient Latin language of Chechua. What amazed me is that these remote and poor people seemed as happy as anyone I had seen. Yes they no health care available, yes the education system seems very poor, yes they had great poverty but their indigenous way of life gave them stability and I left wondering who was the happiest, them or me?

Welcome to my first proper blog!

Let me tell you of an amazing story from Parish life here in our shanty of Guayaquil.

A month ago I got a phone call from a parishioner to say that we had the possibility of receiving some American youth volunteers but did we have any projects that they could do. The funding for these projects was to come from them. Did we have any projects? Of course! So within days we got going in getting permissions, plans and putting in the first foundations. When the American youth actually arrived they hit the ground running and very quickly they were working like trojans. Our own young people got stuck in too - and I even managed to put in a few hours hard graft (cutting bamboo posts). After seven days hard work, we had two chapels totaly transformed: the Divino Niño chapel (which itself was transformed by Scottish volunteers last October) now has three classrooms for meetings and Catechism classes and a toilet: whereas the San Igancio chapel now has seven new bsamboo huts. Both places were landscapoed and a new fence was put round the ground. I am totally amazed at how God sent our poor community these American volunteers who picked up the tab for their generous project. May God bless their efforts and may we here make the best use of the facilities we now enjoy! Cheers, Martin

Hola

I am simply testing this out from a Guayaquil perspective