A Response to the Love With Which God Loves Us

I can’t believe I’ve been in Bolivia for over two months now! I wish I could post here more often, but between not knowing what to write about and not having too much free time, once a month will have to do!

One thing I was really struggling with when I first arrived to Bolivia was trying to figure out what God was calling me to do with my future. I’m not sure why I was trying to figure out every detail of my life when I go home when I have just arrived here, but I’ve been doing a lot better living in the present and being here on mission instead of back home a year in the future! So I spend a lot of time praying about what mission is and its role in my vocation.

Here’s a simple definition of mission: Missionary activity is a response to the love with which God loves us.

Feast Day of Our Mary of the Rosary at the Local Church

Sunday, October 19^th was national World Mission Day, and October is the month of World Mission Month, yeah I didn’t know that was a thing until I got here! I don’t understand too much Spanish, but the priest at the church we go to with the girls tends to focus his homilies for the kids, so I understand more that I think. On World Mission Day, he talked about vocations and discernment, yup our favorite words.

We are all called to holiness; we just have to listen to God to find out how He wants us to reach it. For a while, I thought that choosing a non religious vocation would somehow disappoint God. That if I want to love and the serve Him the best I can, I would have to become a religious sister. But we can’t just make up our vocation; we have to answer His call to what He wants us to do!

The thing is, we’re not choosing between a “good” and “bad” vocation, they’re all beautiful and they all serve the Lord! Also, we’re not the ones choosing. God already chose long before we existed, we just have to listen!

Daughters of the Divine Savior Community with Charlene

So at mass, the priest talked about how we are all called to be missionaries, we are all called to respond to the love the Lord has given us and share it with the world. The priest recognized the religious Sisters of the Divine Savior, then the three lay missioners and lastly, to my surprise, all the married couples at mass. He called them all up before the final blessing, recognized and blessed them before the whole congregation. I didn’t really understand why he blessed the couples on World Mission Day, so I asked Natalie, the other SLM, to ask one of the Sisters about it and translate for me. She said that parents are the first examples of missionaries their kids see. They are the first to teach their kids Love, which comes from God. At daily mass earlier that month, the same priest talked about the influence parents have on their children’s faith lives. He asked couple if they pray together, and if they pray with their kids. Then he asked how many parents talk about the option of religious life as a vocation for their kids. I’m not sure how many parents do, but I know I can be one of them!

Over the past four years, I’ve had the blessing of working, going on retreat and being surrounded with Sisters from different orders that follow different charisms. They’re all so beautiful and radiant with God’s love and joy. I love the Sisters I live and work with here, I love the idea of community life and living a simple life serving others. But the more I bring this to God, and the more time I spend here at the orphanage, God finds ways to tell me that although the word would definitely benefit from more missionary sisters, there’s a need for moms and parents that will spread this love and passion for Him in a different way. Our world needs parents that will raise our future Priests, Religious Brothers and Sisters, and Saints! My work with kids doesn’t have to end in Bolivia, neither does praying in a community. That community can be my family one day! I guess it took me until now to realize that answering His call for family life isn’t choosing a lesser vocation, and it doesn’t mean I love Him less or am disappointing Him, I’m just following what I feel He’s asking me to do!

We are all called to holiness, no matter where we come from or how we think the past has shaped us. Before I knew God’s love, I honestly believed I was never going to get married or have a family, and religious life wasn’t even on the radar! And just four years later, I’m a lay missioner in Bolivia, living with a religious community with the most wonderful boyfriend, a gift from God, waiting for me at home (:

Random picture of me with the Christ of Peace!

A day in the life of~

Can't believe I've been in Bolivia for almost four weeks! It's been a month of though transitions and some self doubt, but mostly full of joys and laughs! A lot of people have been asking me about my role here at the Hogar, and because it's extremely difficult to describe, here's a schedule of a regular day~  

Cristo de la Concordia- My view flying into Cochabamba!

Charlene with our little girls in front of Hogar Maria Auxiliadora- my new home!

5:30- 5:50am: Snooze alarm… who actually wants to get up that early?!

5:50am: Get out of bed and put on some layers! Cochabamba is in the mountains, about 8,000ft elevation, so the mornings here are pretty chilly! Cochabamba is called “The City of Eternal Spring Time” because the average high year round is between 75-80 degrees, but the average lows 35-55 degrees.

6am: Wake up the high school girls and make sure one of them is on making breakfast.

This morning the girls made Api Morado, a drink made of purple corn, cinnamon and sugar. It sounds, and looks strange, but it’s absolutely delirious!
 

7am: Wake up little ones! Their morning starts off with prayers, but out of a room of 30 girls, only 3 or 4 would be awake on any given morning! After prayer we turn on the radio to help the girls wake up. The music ranges from Spanish serenades to the new Taylor Swift song. Last week I was dancing around and clapping to Pharrell Williams' Happy while waking the girls up, which was great!
 

7:45am: High school girls are off to school and SLMs eat breakfast at the Sister’s convent. A usual breakfast is a roll (or two..or three) with jelly, fruit and coffee. Nothing extravagant, but the rolls are always fresh, jelly delicious and fruit locally grown! The sisters have a lemon tree in their garden that they often use to make lemonade, it’s wonderful!
 

8:45am: SLMs help girls were chores and washing clothes, and wash our own clothes! I’m confused about tags that say “Hand wash only” because I’m pretty sure hand washing is harsher on clothes than machine washing…unless I’m doing something wrong! But I had some pretty smart 6 year old teaching me, so clearly I’m a professional!:p

                 

When done with chores and washing, the girls do their homework. The Hogar has two educational psychologists and a psychologist on staff that is here four times a week that do most of the school work with the girls. The three professionals being here is pretty new and a great blessing! I enjoy helping the little ones with homework, especially Math, because it’s the same in every country (Mean Girls)! This week, the 4th and 5th graders had to make paper mache cows and pigs for school, not sure why, but I did enjoy getting me hands dirty and helping them out!

11:30am: The SLMs help the little ones get ready for school. This usually means running around the Hogar looking for uniforms or gym clothes, and doing the girls hair. No one leaves the Hogar without a ponytail or fancy braid!

1pm: Girls go to school and SLMs eat lunch with the sisters from the Hogar and the Community. The Sisters are WONDERFUL! They’re called the Daughters of the Divine Savior, the order was founded by a Salesian priest and follow the charism of St. John Bosco. They love their work, their kids and the LORD! They are also very generous and welcoming, and have been doing everything they can to make my transitional from life as I know it to life at the Hogar as easy as possible! They are also wonderful cooks! I’ve had the privilege of many traditional Bolivian dishes, including Pique Macho and Sopa the Main (peanut soup!) 

Pique Macho- can't wait to make a fancy Bolivian dinner for my loved ones when I get home!

Natalie and Hermana Leti setting the table for lunch

2-3pm: SLM free time…although this rarely happens! Usually we’re running errands or at the doctor’s with one of the girls. The first day Brittany (my site partner) and I got here, the Sisters taught us three dances we’d be performing for the girls on the Day of the Student. The Day of the Student is a day when teachers and parents celebrate their students and acknowledge the hard work they've been doing. The staff of the Hogar performed two traditional dances, one crazy old people dance and one a popular pop dance for the kids. It was a really fun day and all the girls loved making fun of us as we messed up our dances! So the girls have to do chores every day, and on this day the sisters surprised them and they didn’t have to do them- which Charlene said didn’t even happened on Christmas! I've also been playing guitar for the girls sometimes, and on The Day of the Student, the SMLs sang "Si Senor" for them!

YES Lord!

Yupp...old people dance!

Sister, staff and SLMs of the Hogar in the traditional costumes

3-5:30pm: SLMs run the computer lab and library and help older girls with homework. Only the girls in high school are allowed on the computer, and only for about 30 minutes a day. They are not allowed to go on “Face” or check their email on any day but Fridays. I’m trying to make that a rule for myself as well… hasn’t working out too well so far!

Picking up the girls from school- which is right across the Hogar!

5:30pm: SLMs pick up the little ones from school and fight a losing batter trying to get them to put away their school stuff and pick up clothes they washed that morning!

6pm: SLMs have dinner at the convent. Lunch is the main meal of the day, so dinner is usually leftovers or more rolls with jam!

6:45pm: SLMs help serve dinner and hang out with the girls. On Fridays and Saturdays, we watch movies and on other days, we play soccer or just goof around outside. Last week we had a special dinner and celebration for Charlene’s birthday. We cooked Hot Dogs and French Fries and the girls performed dances for Charlene. They’re adorable(: 

 

Happy Birthday Charlene!

Tuesday and Thursday night the Sisters go to mass and we're left alone taking care of the munchkins. The other day we had three girls in bed with fevers, getting sick and having bloody noses. WebMD became my best friend in those couple hours, it just seems like the flu is going around the Hogar:( Hopefully more girls don't catch it!

8pm: Night prayer with girls and bedtime. Bed time is both my favorite and least favorite part of the day. I love it because it means that afterwards, I’ll get to go to sleep or rest! I don’t like it because 1. The girls are SO bad and never listen or want to go to bed! 2. It makes you realize how sad it is that the girls don’t have a parent tucking them in at night. There are 30 little ones that sleep on one room, and only 3 SLMs to tuck them in and make them feel loved. At night when we’re putting the girls to bed is when I most feel like I’m actually doing something here. It’s so important to go to each girl and make sure that she knows that she matters and that she is loved! Many of these girls have been abandoned by their parents, either because of financial reasons or because of substance abuse. Many of these girls were physically or sexually abused by their parents or someone close to them. Some of these girls have been here since they were 4 years old and don’t even know who their parents are. God send me here because these girls need someone to love them. And even without knowing the language or culture, I can love them. 

So that's my daily life here at the Hogar! Mission is hard. Learning Spanish is difficult and being away from my mom, friends and boyfriend is harder then I imagined. But I know that this is where God needs me this year. I am here for every girl that needs a band-aid on a scrapped knee, arms to run into after a bad dream or a song (poorly) sung to when she's upset. This year will be hard, but God will carry through the parts I can't walk though on my own and show me the little daily blessings of being here with the girls. This year will teach me how to love, appreciate and trust more that I even have before, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else it brings me! 

"Do Something"

        If you've listened to a Christian radio station for five minutes in the last few months, you've probably heard the song Do Something by Mathew West. It's a fun and inspiring song that quickly became the summer theme song for me and my group of friends. It makes you feel like you alone can do something to change the world, but what can we actually do?

        In three weeks, I will be leaving the comforts of everyday life for a year of service in an orphanage in Cochabamba, Bolivia as a Salesian Lay Missioner (SLM). I love to do, to help and to see results. But realistically, what can I actually DO in the one year that I'm in Bolivia? I can't fix the water contamination problem, I can't feed every hungry person and I can't take anyone's pain away. So basically, I can't DO anything. So why am I doing this, leaving my loving mom and family, amazing boyfriend and great friends- and you know, food and water that doesn't make me sick? The SLM orientation helped answer that question.

SLMs, staff and wonderful people from the Port Chester community

         
          We're not going abroad to change the country or site we're at, we're going to LOVE. God's already in Bolivia and Brazil, South Sudan, Asia, Cambodia and Florida! He already has a plan for all those places and the people that live there, we're just part of that plan. God will just use our presence and love at these sites to work His plan! To touch a little girl's heart or to make her laugh, God will use me for something. Without our Lord, I am nothing, but with Him, I can be everything. I sill love the Matthew West song, but when I hear it, I know that I'm not the one doing anything, the Lord is doing everything.