Hello family and friends! Before addressing anything I’ve been doing over the past month, I’d like to apologize for not posting for so long. Because I’ve been busy with college applications while continuing work in the after school program, it was difficult for me to put a few hours aside to gather my thoughts. Now, for the update.
Two weeks ago my mom came to down to visit. She was able to take a couple weeks off work to check up on me, and I was able to share my mission with her. I am so blessed that she was able to visit. Although my mom can't speak much Spanish, she was able to communicate well using just her friendliness and warmth, reminding me of why I missed home so much. While she was here, my mom was able to accompany me in my work, going into the neighborhood in the dump to get the full experience of the poverty here. We were also able to do a little bit of sightseeing while she was here, visiting various historic churches and museums of the indigenous Guaranà people. While she was here, I realized how much I missed speaking English. For the first time in months, I was able to convey everything I was thinking. Thank you so much for such a wonderful visit Mom! Below is a picture of us at the National Cathedral in Asunción.
On the past few Wednesday nights I have gone with a couple seminarians to share a dinner with the neighbors living on the outskirts of the dump. We bring everything necessary for the meal including food, drinks, plates, silverware, cups, and, depending on the house, chairs and a table.
Each Wednesday, we have eaten with a different family. The first week we ate with a twenty-two year-old mother and her three children: a boy (three months) and two daughters (four and six). The father was unable to come to eat with us because he was still working late into the night, sorting recyclables that he found in the landfill. That week, we ended up eating in the building of the after school program instead of the neighbors’ house because there wasn’t enough space near the house to put a table. In the photo, the mother and her family are on the right side of the table. The three people on the left are other neighbors we spontaneously invited because we had food to spare.
The next week, we ate in the house of a mother who has been paralyzed from the waist down for the past five years. Also eating with us were her seven year-old son, nine year-old daughter, seventeen year-old daughter and her eighteen month old daughter, and a six year-old girl who wandered into the house during the dinner and said she was hungry. Because the mother is paralyzed and the eldest daughter has to work, the nine year-old girl must care for the baby almost all the time when she is not in school. A nine year-old acting as a full-time mother was shocking for me to see, coming from a first world country. In the United States, a girl of the same age would probably not be allowed to walk unaccompanied outside for more than a minute. Going from right to left in the photo are the mother, me, the son, the youngest daughter, the granddaughter, the eldest daughter, the girl who stopped by to eat with us, and Alcides, one of our seminarians.
At the latest dinner, I made the mistake of checking only with the teenage brothers to see if we could eat at their house without also asking their father. When we arrived with the food, tables, and chairs for nine people, there was nobody in the house. I saw one of the brothers down the street and asked him where the other eight members of his family were. He told me that he forgot to tell me that they’d be at his mom’s house. It was such typical behavior of teenage boys. I remember of the countless number of times when someone asked me to tell my parents something; it just slipped my mind. Being a teenage boy myself, I should’ve known better. Even though Paraguay is five thousand miles away, some things aren’t too different. We ended up just inviting a bunch of kids who were out in the street that night come and eat with us. Later we were joined by the father of the family and a woman and her baby. Two seminarians, the priest, and my mom were also able to come, so we had a good crowd.
The weekly dinners are still clearly a work in progress, but they give our seminarian community the opportunity to get to know one new family each week. After only three weeks, I have profoundly felt the beauty and power of just sharing a meal at a table as a family. Although we are seemingly from completely different lives and societies, the dinner affirms that we are in reality neighbors.
Thank you all so much for sharing my blog and staying interested in my experience here. According to the stats on Blogspot, my blog has now been read in ten different countries! Also, thank you all for the prayers that support and motivate me each day. Anyone, feel free to message me on Facebook or email me at john.mj.murphy@gmail.com to ask me any questions or just to say hello. I hope you are all having a lovely fall.
Peace and goodness,
Jack
P.S. Here’s a picture of some little girls on the other side of the fence that I thought was too cute to leave out of my blog.
