The Joys of Fall and Letting Go

Isn't it funny how our lives play out?

Last week was completely fantastic. I was still busy, still running around getting who knows what done, still recovering from my tarantula encounter, but it was truly glorious.

Then retreat crunch time hit. Then Friday hit. You see, Friday was the third consecutive retreat I had planned and instead of being exhausted, I was actually super pumped the whole time planning it. Everything was falling into place so wonderfully. That should've been my big red flag. It's important to know that it's the rainy season here, after all I do live in a rain forest climate. What this means is that it likes to rain for 3 days straight, rest a day, and then go again. It's usually not a problem (and we're actually keeping our fingers crossed to have school cancelled a day!), but when you need to get 45 teenage girls to walk to the retreat center and it's pouring down rain, there is just no way that is going to happen. After a brief debate between postponing the retreat to next week (since there isn't one this week, thank God!) or moving it to the parish hall (only a 5 minute walk in the abating rain), I made the executive decision to just have it at the parish hall. And you know what? So many girls went to Confession, a lot of them had fun at some point or another, the Holy Spirit was working. But the whole time I kept thinking that I should've moved it. I noticed everything that went wrong, everything I should've done differently, more so than on the other retreats. And you know what the sucker punch in the face was? By midday, the sun was shining bright with a perfect breeze to truly make it hammock weather. 

I came home after that retreat to an empty house (such a mercy at that time), got my computer, and put on Aladdin while I ate some peanut butter and chocolate chips. I felt so drained and spent and I realized why: I had been wrestling. Like a little child who has a death grip on an old blanket that's now rags who won't relent even though her stubbornness is just ripping the blanket even more, I keep holding on to these little things that I'm "in charge" of. But I lose. I always lose, which is beautiful and I'm grateful for it because I lose to God and it's always for the best. But fighting wears you out. And after my best week, I was wiped out.

But I'm on the struggle bus, this is nothing new. What is new is that there are the more gringos in Benque! There are 6 education majors from Miami University in Ohio doing the last 7 weeks of their student teaching this semester here in Belize. Wild right?? Two of them are at our school and the rest are at the primary school in Benque or in Succotz which is only about a 15 minute walk away. This past Friday, we had them all over at the boys' house for eating and movie charades. I think it was a bit of a relief for them to be around other Americans after being thrown into Belizean culture and I think Daniel, their one guy, really enjoyed being around other guys that weren't high schoolers. They're a fun group, I think we totally freaked them out with our Catholic-ness and how tight we all are, but overall I think they enjoyed themselves. 

The rest of the weekend was busy because Saturday MCHS hosted a Catholic Student Leadership Convention that we all worked at in shifts. Mine started at 7:30 am. But then I got to babysit Joana the rest of the day and the night was spent quietly preparing food for Sunday night and reading with Joe. Since we went to Flores, we've been reading The Boy Who Met Jesus by Immaculee Ilibagiza who is someone I could write pages about. We're almost done with our book which is crazy because it's just another reminder of how we're almost done with the semester. 

Sunday. I just love Sundays! Before Mass was spent planning Sacraments classes (which I'm still obsessed with. Please keep praying for my little babies!). Mass was great because Jesus was there and one of the girls from my Sacraments classes came and sat with me. She's not even baptized yet, so it's that much more wonderful that she's starting to come to Mass. The rest of the day was spent preparing for.......our Fall Fest!

Yes that is a hand turkey! Compliments of Michael.

We decided that since everyone has been blowing up all of our Facebook homepages with stupid statuses about pumpkin food products and fall and leaves and such, we were going to have fall in Belize. Thankfully the weather cooperated by cooling off and those of us in fall garb weren't completely miserable. But we were complete with long sleeve shirts, cardigans (with long sleeves! Trust me, it's a big deal), and scarves. Of course, it wouldn't be our little family if we didn't have food.

What you see is a classic fall assortment (of desserts): pumpkin bread, apple fritters, a take on apple crisp, carrot cake, a parfait layered with chocolate cake, peanut butter glaze, bananas, and Cool Whip, and glasses with pumpkin seeds and candy corn. Not pictured: apple cider and chocolate banana smoothies. We don't mess around.

We had full bellies, happy hearts, and blood sugar levels that would kill a diabetic. Our house smelled heavenly and it was full of some of the most wonderful people. Fr. Scott, Fr. John, and Deacon Juan even stopped by for a bit!

Yesterday and today have been uneventful and sleepy. And rainy. Actually the uneventful part is kind of a lie: Sunday Eric's brother, Jeremy, came down to be a volunteer and help out with Campus Ministry, so that's good news for me! Also, Sunday night our washer machine broke. 

In conclusion, here is a family picture from our Fall Fest

Jack is missing. But this still makes my heart happy.

Keep up the prayers! They really are doing big things down here. Thank you all so very much.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

Peaceful Pieces

Tarantula horrors aside, these past few days have truly been spectacular. I could easily go into great detail about each thing that has given me a smile, but seeing as how these good things reach back to last Friday, I would be writing forever and you would be reading forever.

Here is a non-exhaustive list
1. I really got to build good relationships with students during and after the 3rd Form Boys retreat last Friday.
2. Saturday was a mental health day which consisted of a movie and self-motivated cleaning and organizing in an empty house. Introvert heaven.
3. Saturday night all of us volunteers went to Cayo to eat pizza and ice cream. Literally the best. 
4. Sunday I spent the whole day planning the course outline for the Sacraments classes. I could have kept going, but I had to go dinner at some point.
5. Monday was great because I had 7 kids in the Sacraments class and when I asked whether they were there because they had to be or because they wanted to be, every one of them said they wanted to be there. Please pray for them! If they stick with it, they'll receive their Sacraments at the Easter Vigil Mass. I'm already completely invested in them and I talk about them all the time. They are seriously the best.
6. Tuesday. Tuesday! What a magnificent day it was. The morning started off actually chilly, I got a free piece of chocolate cake and a cupcake later that day, I had to listen to Christmas music as research for my music classes, and it was the feast day of Bl. John Paul II. I also went to a birthday party for one of the teacher's son who turned 4. It was pure joy. There was also great food which of course always makes for a good time! 
7. Today, Wednesday is pancake day where we get pancakes made for us for breakfast. And who can have a bad day after that?

These all seem like small, simple things and truly they are. But what makes them different is that as these events were unfolding, I was making the crossover: I really love my job. Now, let's be clear, when I came down, I loved my students but it was in more of a vague "I love my new students and want the best for them" way. That's where the change is taking place. They now have names and personalities and inside jokes with me and now the dynamic of my love for them has shifted to "I know you and am invested in you as an individual." Of course I have many students that I want to smack on the head, but there are also many that I've practically adopted and if anything were to happen to them, the full on protective mama bear would come out. I can totally see how it's tempting to return after your first year. Darn those kids! It's going to be hard to leave them.

See it's things like this that always make me look around and marvel at the human heart's capacity to love. I've had such incredible opportunities to travel and spend substantial amounts of time in many different places. And no matter how hard I try, I always end up leaving a piece of my heart where I go. There are places literally all over the world that I can think about and it makes me feel "homesick" and it breaks my heart that I probably won't return to every single one of them. Or if I could be in those 5 or 10 places simultaneously, that would be ok too. But the funny part is that whenever I do leave, it always feels right. It doesn't always feel good and it's almost never easy. But I always know without a doubt that it's right.

How does that happen? How is it that I can go somewhere, do my best to give myself fully to what I'm doing, leave, and not fall to shambles? Shouldn't I be flooded with feelings of incompleteness or something? I truly don't understand it and I suppose I can only be thankful for that grace. Or who knows, maybe this is a sign of a major dysfunction that my heart can be so scattered! Well either way, as long as I can ask myself, "Am I in God's will?" and can honestly answer yes, then I must be doing something right.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

TIB Part III

Let me tell you a little about my night last night.

Just so you know, this is just one story from this weekend, not the entirety of what I want to share with you all. But first I must tell you this story of survival.

Last night, mostly everyone was hanging out at our house. As it approached 10:00, maybe a little after, people were starting to gather themselves and disperse to their respective sleeping quarters. I went into the other room to start getting ready for bed, and when I came out about 2 minutes later, everyone was gone. Downstairs was deserted, door locked and everything. So I went over to our couch to pack up my computer so I could go to bed. Something caught my eye though, so I looked down and about 6 inches from my left foot, there was a tarantula.

In our house. By my foot. In our house. By my foot.

This would be the time to tell those of you who don't know that I have severe arachnophobia. Not just "ew spiders are yucky!" No, we're talking tears and nausea and overturning furniture to kill a spider rather than let it escape because I won't be able to sleep. Those of you who have ever joked about spiders with me and saw how highly unamused and upset I was know that there is just no messing around about this.

So there I was: pressed up against our bedroom door, eyes glued on the monster so it doesn't get the idea to scurry under the couch, and trying to decide if it was fake or not. The only other person downstairs was Kelley and she had been sleeping for the past hour. My other housemates were upstairs, but the way our house is built, the stairs are outside. So I had no choice but to open our bedroom door, but instead of walking over and gently waking Kelley up like a normal person (remember, I can't let it out of my sight lest it escapes), I stand in the doorway and quietly say, "Kelley? Kelleeey? Kelley!" Finally she wakes up so I can frantically get out the words "There's a tarantula in our house and everybody is gone!" Being the good roommate that she is, she kept watch while I ran upstairs to fetch Elisabeth who came downstairs and got out an old ice cream tub to trap it. The only problem was that none of us really wanted to trap it, but we had the bigger issue of how do you actually kill a tarantula? You can't just use a shoe, they're messier than that. There was only one solution: we needed a man.

Elisabeth ran over to the boys' house and returned with Jack. In the meantime, Kelley and I are monitoring the horrible thing which has slowly and disgustingly crept a little under the couch but still within trapping range. So as we/Jack is about to strike (Jack placed us on defense. Yeah right, my defense would shutting myself in my room), this is the scene: I'm standing in the bedroom doorway, ready to slam the door. Elisabeth is standing on a chair, and Kelley has a broom while Jack has a rainboot in one hand and the ice cream tub in the other. After the brief debate of us convincing Jack that a flip flop would not kill a tarantula, he slowly approaches it making small talk. Seriously, he was like, "Hey there. Whatcha doin?"

BAM! He slams the tub down. I'm doubled over wanting to cry and pass out. We all hold our breath. Jack slowly drags the tub further away from the couch and now we all realize the next problem.What's sturdy enough to put under the tub to take it outside? 2 notebooks and 1 Eric later, Jack is bringing it outside to kill it. Eric tried to be nice and humane and was like, "oh we could just let it go down over there." But I kept saying, "No, this needs to die!" over and over. So they walk down our street but still within eyesight and Jack places the notebooks/tub on the ground, Eric stands across from him poised and ready to strike with the rock that Jack had also brought over with him. I assume there was a countdown of some kind because then Jack removed the cage and Eric plunked the rock on top of it and declared, "It's guts have been spilled!" He then crushed it a couple more times to stop the twitching. Overall, it was a rather hilarious and anticlimactic ending to a horrific event.

What have learned from this?
1. Spiders are an abomination to the world.
2. Ice cream saves lives. Unless you're a tarantula.
3. I am still the least helpful person when a spider is involved.
4. God knew better than to have this happen when I first got here because I probably would've gone home.

Tarantulas in our house, 5 people involved in it's killing. TIB.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

Halfways and Recoveries

Friday nights are always a funny experience for me. For the first many weeks of this semester, they were just the official kickoff to the weekend; I don't have classes on Fridays, so Thursday nights were always the beginning of my weekend. Now that the retreats are in full swing however, there are now certain Fridays that are a bit more demanding than others. This past Friday night was spent in a flurry of excitement and vivacity. For normal people, this would be going out, or even here that would mean at least being with people. For me, it meant a Modern Family marathon on my computer by myself while eating crackers and in bed by 11. 

Yep. Living large over here.

I wish I could chalk it up to having long, intense days or not feeling well or being a missionary and while all of these are true, I must admit that this kind of behavior is not new at all for me. We just had a 3 day weekend and the truth is I needed it badly. There's so much work to be done! I have no idea what I'm trying to say. I guess the best I can do is that this whole day has been one big Monday. I literally almost fell asleep on my oatmeal this morning and it's been all aboard the struggle bus ever since. As wonderful as a weekend full of low key planning, email answering, and movie watching was, it also made me never want to come back and work. Oops. Kind of backfired there, didn't it?

I promise I'm not a total loser, though. All the boys went camping with one of our priests from Sunday morning to Monday afternoon which meant that time was spent as girl time. Movies, taking a little bus ride to Cayo for ice cream, doing our nails, more movies, oh and Elisabeth mending our fence because our stupid dog keeps getting out. Monday was also lovely, especially since I got to sleep in. That's right, folks, I was wasting the day away and waking up all the way at...8 am. Compared to the 6:30 am my body naturally wakes up at now though, that really was very late. But I think the best part about Monday was celebrating Jack's birthday. We just love our birthdays here! He had a homemade vanilla cake with...wait for it...peanut butter icing. I just wanted to eat the icing! Naturally, cake eating was promptly followed by watching Pocahontas (I may or may not have influenced that decision) and let me tell you, movies are much funnier when you decide which characters match up to the people in the room. I think that's the extent of my super exhilarating weekend. Some people would hate "wasting" a 3 day weekend like that and we briefly discussed making it a travel weekend, but honestly it was so great to stay back and just get things taken care of.

In other news, Sunday marked the halfway point for the semester! Saturday was 2 months since I got here and Monday was 2 months until I leave for Christmas. No, it doesn't feel like we should be halfway done. Yes, I'm ready to enjoy some of the American things I've missed the most e.g. ordering pizza, AC, not sweating 30 seconds after getting out of the shower, peanut butter that doesn't cost a fortune, chocolate chips, etc. It will be quite strange to be away from Benque even for those 3 weeks, but it'll be even stranger to be away from our volunteer community. When you spend almost all of your time with a select group of people, it's just very funny remembering that there was a time when you weren't all together for everything. Well, we still have 2 months, so maybe we'll be sick of each other by then. Fingers crossed!

Thank you once again for even the smallest prayer! And thank you for praying for the 4th Form boys this past Friday, it was a long and great day. We've got our 3rd Form boys retreat this Friday, so please remember all 48 of them this week.

And happy feast day of St. Teresa of Avila!

Also, 2 of my favorite bands released new albums today which equals pure joy for me. This is the song I've been listening on repeat literally all day. You're welcome!

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

This and That

Let's start off with a picture of my homeroom girls. We won a competition so we got chips and cheese dip, cake, and Coke. They were so excited about it!

 

Since last week, I can't say anything overly eventful happened. It's really quite ordinary being a teacher meaning that we just come to our teaching thing and there you go. Joe and I were just talking about how funny and difficult it is to answer people when they ask, "So what do you?? Tell me all about it!" I can tell you that it's a rather quiet simple life, coming to school everyday, educating the children, getting planning and grading done, and gearing up to do it again tomorrow. Of course it looks a little different for each of us, but in general that's just how it goes.

It's kind of comforting for me to think about that. Everything feels so routine, like I'm in the flow of it all which is remarkable because there is no flow in Belize. It all just happens and goes in every direction and you have to guess where you're supposed to be. It's starting to feel more like a home base and not like I'm holding down the fort until the permanent people are here. News flash, Melissa, you are the permanent people. (No, Mom, I'm not getting ideas about moving here forever. It just actually feels like I'm here for a year).

In other news, this past Saturday the 4th Formers had one of their community service days. Half of them went to an orphanage in Belmopan (about 2 hours away) while the rest of us went to a nursing home in Cayo (about 20 minutes away). It was really funny for me seeing the kids at the nursing home because I can vividly remember when I was in high school visiting nursing homes and how awkward it is at first. You have no idea what to say to them, you can't always understand them, and sometimes you're talking to the poor soul who keeps asking you the same questions over and over. They were so stilted and scared, it was hilarious. But with a little prompting from us who were chaperoning, soon they were making sure their new pals got a banana or someone got their sweater if they were cold (which is hilarious because really who needs a sweater in the middle of the day in Belize?). A large group was gathered around one man who was telling all kinds of stories. A group of girls sat with one quiet old woman and cried with her, sang songs with her, just listened to her. It was wonderful and even though none of them were my students that I teach, they're still students at Mount Carmel which means they're my kids. And I was really proud of them that day because who knows what they went into that day thinking. But I know at least one person left with a greater respect for people especially the elderly. 

Ok let's see, what else has been happening. Oh! The Franciscan mission team was selected this past week! I am so very excited about this because 2 of my friends, including one of my closest and dearest friends, are leading the mission. Plus I know 2 other people on the team which of course means there are 11 people that I don't know that are coming, but oh man am I excited for them to come. Please keep them in your prayers as well as they begin their preparation and formation! I know I keep adding to your prayer list, but only because they are so needed! Keep it up!

And a happy belated feast of Our Lady of the Rosary! Yesterday, Joe and I had to go to Cayo which is bigger than Benque so it has a lot more things. Like soft serve ice cream! A cone that would easily be $4.50 in the States cost us $2. That's $2 Belize aka $1!!! The best way to celebrate. Right before we found out we can't have sugar for a while, but that's a whole other topic that most of you probably aren't interested in. At least we went out with a bang! And so the suffering begins. I'm already lamenting the absence of our usual Wednesday treat of pancakes in the morning. 

So there it is. It's a very small life that I live and I love it. And I want to say the same thing to all of you that one of my good friends said to me in an email:

Keep in touch, love, and take each day as a new opportunity to love.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.

The Times They are a Changing

Yep, this is what's been playing through my head the past week.

I've had 2 major changes in my life here in Benque since last week. One of them is so very bittersweet: this past Sunday, we all had to say goodbye to Betsy, our most experienced "cool mom" volunteer. She taught here for 3 years and returned this year to get things kicked off with the school year and the new Junior College that just opened. On Sunday she left to go home for a week (bitter), then a friend's wedding, and then she's off to Spain to hike the Camino for a month (sweet. very, very sweet). Please keep her in your prayers, especially for her discernment of what to do after that. And even though it's only been a few days since she's left, it is profoundly weird not having her here. We miss our Betsy. Come back.

That was Change #1. Change #2 is that I am now the full time Campus Minister here at Mount Carmel. What! I know right? There's a lot of exciting things that comes with being Campus Minister and I will be kept very busy for sure. But the weirdest part about it all is that the majority of my classes have been distributed to other teachers so that I actually have the time to devote to campus ministry. It's really nice and frankly quite necessary, but in total honesty, it's almost heartbreaking to give up my students. Even though they're little punks and stinkers, they were my punks and stinkers. But even now, I am learning detachment and obedience even in regard to my students. It sucks. But there it is.

I think it's these changes that makes everyday life here so challenging. I'm the kind of person who likes to be settled, to get into my routine. That's what helps places feel like home. And as it turns out, when this week ends, we will be halfway through the semester. Halfway through the semester and my whole job is changing. It's just strange, you know? We also figured out that while this semester is only 15 weeks, next semester is 20 weeks long. Why do they make it so lopsided? TIB. But at least it helps explain why the time is flying by right now.

Oh, on a slightly unrelated note, thank you anyone and everyone for your prayers for last week's retreat! It went really well and the girls as well as us teachers had a great time. 

So yes, life is tough here. But welcome to the life of a missionary, Melissa. Thank you all so so much for your prayers and support. And to get you through the rest of the week, here is a little gem.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.