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!’
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