This week I was able to enjoy one of my favorite places in the world:  the stream at the Shalom Center!

Prayers for Paraguay

Dear Friends:

I write to you tonight with heavy heart to ask for your prayers for Paraguay.  As many of you know, my first experiences as a missionary were forged in this little country in the heart of South America - a country of beautiful people, deep traditions and culture, and amazing art.  Perhaps you have heard on the news that the President of the country has had to step down after a very quick political process that many are calling a coup in disguise.  Please remember that behind each face you might see on the news, there are dreams and hopes for a country where justice, truth, mercy and peace meet and kiss.  Behind each face are families, personal histories, and aspirations.  I see the faces, and I see my dear friends, some of whom at this moment fear that with this change repression, disappearances and lies will take over the country once again.  Please pray for Paraguay...

Shalom
Elena

SONG OF HOPE FROM PARAGUAY

The rain and the wind

call me their friend.

The night and the moon

want to kiss me.

And in flaming clouds

my dreams navigate

to the dawn of
a better time.

CHORUS:

With a star on my chest

and a flower between my lips.

With music, wheat and peace.

With children and the

clearest and bluest of skies,

this is the country in which I want to live.

Wake now my brother,

for morning is coming.

Take up your things

and come to me.

The road is a long one

But if we walk together

you will see, my companion,

that everything will be better.

84. CANTO DE ESPERANZA (La)

La lluvia y el viento

me llaman amigo

La noche y la luna

me quieren besar.

Yen nubes llameantes

Navegan mis sueños

Hacia la alborada de un

Tiempo mejor.

CORO:

La estrella en el pecho

En la boca una flor

La música, el trigo, la paz

Los niños y el cielo

Más claro y azul

Ésa es la patria en la que quiero vivir.

Despiértate hermano,

Ya llega la aurora

Recoge tus cosas

Y ven junto a mi.

Es largo el camino

Pero andando juntos

Verás compañero

que todo es mejor.

 

God and the Scarecrow

We had agreed to fix up the yard together.  Acsa, the nursing student who lives at the Gathering Point with me, wanted a small herb garden, and I wanted to get rid of the weeds and prepare a compost bin.  We went to the garden store together and decided on a big trash can for the compost, lugged two big bags of mulch, and picked out baby mint, oregano, cilantro and ruda plants.  In the corner of the garden store, there were cute little handmade scarecrows crafted on pointed sticks to place in the garden.  “Let’s take a scarecrow!” Acsa begged.  “No,” I said firmly. “We are already over our budget.”  For the next couple of weeks, Acsa kept reminding me of the scarecrow as we worked on the yard and garden.  “Wouldn’t a little scarecrow look fun here?” she cajoled trying to convince me.  It reminded me of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham: “I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham!” 

On a bitter winter evening last week, the smoke from the wood burning fireplaces covered the streets of our neighborhood with a foggy blanket making it dark early. The doorbell rang.  When I answered, I faced a middle age lady shivering in the cold, lips blue in spite of a scarf.  “I have kitchen towels for sale,” she offered.  “No thanks,” I answered, “We don’t need any today.”  “Wait,” she exclaimed when I began to shut the door. “I also have these cute little handmade scarecrows for sale.”  As I paid for the scarecrow, the lady’s face lit up.  It was her last sale of the day, now she could go home and feed her children.  A little later, Asca came home from the university and was overjoyed!  “You bought the scarecrow for me!”

 I am not sure why a scarecrow for our garden was so important that God had to send one directly to my door, but I guess that is the mysterious way God has of preparing a blessing long before we are aware of it ourselves.  The street vendor was blessed, Acsa was blessed, and I was blessed by their joyous reception of the blessing. “Thank you! Thank you, Sam-I-am!”

June 2012

Do hungry people ring your doorbell?

Do hungry people ring your doorbell?  This is a common occurrence in my life. Last week, an elderly woman rang the doorbell right at dusk.  It was cold out, and I ran to answer thinking it was one of the girls who had forgotten her keys.  “Would you have something you could give me to eat?” she asked me politely.  Our pantry was nearly empty, because Acsa, the nursing student who lives with me, had not yet been to the store for the week.  I found a box of macaroni and cheese and took it to the gate.  She received the box with heartfelt thanks. 

            A second after I closed the door, the doorbell rang again.  “Can you tell me how to cook this?” asked the same lady.  “I don’t know how to read,” she added.  I read the instructions on the box for her.

            Yesterday it was right after lunch.  We had guests and no leftovers.  I answered the door when the bell rang.  This time it was a young man with dreadlocks.  He looked confused when I asked, in the traditional way,  “¿En qué le puedo server?” (How might be of service to you?)  He could not look directly at me as he mumbled, “What can I do?  I am hungry.”  I asked him to wait a minute.  Acsa helped me prepare a cheese sandwich, a cup of hot tea, and an apple.  Again he did not look at me as I gave him the food, but he said “thank-you” softly and placed the sandwich, the cup, and the apple in an old paint bucket and walked away.

            I rarely see the people twice, and have often wondered if someone has put a secret mark on our house or if people work their way through the whole neighborhood until they get to ours.  The answer came to me last year, on an icy day, when an effeminate, barefoot, toothless, shaggy haired young man rang the door bell.  He frightened Carolina, my other house mate, and at the same time sparked her compassion.  She called me to the door.  “I am hungry,” he stated in a childlike voice, “and I want to go home.”  I opened the gate and went and sat next to him on the curb.  He told me his long sad story of abuse and loneliness.  Carolina prepared some food as I listened. I gave him the five dollars he said he needed for the bus home.  We got him a warm pair of socks and a jacket, too.  He smiled and exclaimed excitedly, “I just knew that at this house I would find someone who loves God! I can see in your eyes that you do.” I guess God has marked our house.  Has God marked yours?

             

Tree

Tree.

Still, holding your breath as the

wind blows not, but slowly

exhaling when rustling needles catch

the zephyrs of dawn.

Rough heights tickling the bottoms

of the clouds.

From the hairy dirty roots,

to the lime smelling pricks:

From the bark, dead and crinkled,

to the heart pumping efficiently stories high;

From the seed shells layered in brown,

to the sticky gooey, sweet sap;

You feed, you shelter, you breathe,

you live,

giving it

all away.

Elena Huegel

Jan. 1992

 Tree with leaves for the healing of the nations

Elena Huegel

May 2012

Courageous Compassion

Compassion Ripples

And no one went in need of anything.  Everyone who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles.  Then they would give the money to anyone who needed it.  Acts 4:34-35

An elderly widow is cutting coupons and saving every extra penny for a special offering to be held at church.  With her husband and her children gone, she has to make every cent count.  She is not a “sweet little old church lady,” but one of those crotchety complainers who doesn’t want any changes to come to her congregation or her community; and yet, she is saving the pennies from each coupon she uses at the store for the offering she will give to help build a Blessing Cabin in Chile on the other side of the world.

He traveled overseas with a church group when he was fifteen years old.  He sang, worked, and made friends with teenagers who spoke a different language but worshiped the same God.  When he heard the news, he knew he had to do something to help.  So, he designed and made t-shirts imprinted with a drawing of a small house.  Now he is selling the t-shirts to raise money to help build Blessing Cabins for the people he learned to love in Chile, that faraway country on the other side of the world.

Eighty men and a few women gather at dusk after a long workday.  They are building Blessing Cabins to shelter to as many brothers and sisters as they can before the winter rains begin.  They work until late, night after night, week after week, volunteering after hours at their regular jobs, continuing all day on Saturdays, and stopping only for church services on Sunday afternoons.  Though small, the Blessing Cabins, now taking take form in the skilled hands of these volunteer carpenters and master builders, are not only dry and warm, but pretty and worthy of the families who will inhabit them. The resources for the building materials have come from offerings given in churches on the other side of the world.

Richard has been watching closely over the small congregation in his care for several weeks, scrambling to scrounge up food, water, clothing, and tents.  After the first devastating dawn, the full moon filled him with hope even when the sun disappeared each day and still there was no electricity or running water. But then, his concern grew as the moon began to wane and the days shortened signaling the rapid passing of the summer and the arrival of the first winter rains.  The first three Blessing Cabins arrived just in time, small but sturdy defenses against the bitter winds, and put together by the efforts of sisters and brothers nearby and on the other side of the world.

Valentina went to bed Friday night thinking about having fun on the last weekend before the start her senior year of high school.  She awoke at 3:34 in the morning to a thundering roar in the pitch-blackness.  Everything in her room began to fall, crashing to the floor as the earth itself convulsed.  Her mother screamed. The roof caved in. Then, after two minutes and forty-five seconds of terror, came the silence. In the first trembling light of dawn, neighbors pulled Valentina unhurt from the rubble.  Her father and pregnant mother died when they ran back inside the house to rescue her. When Valentina lost her parents and her home, her church family embraced her with tender care, and within two weeks, Richard and the volunteer builders had her settled into a new Blessing Cabin.  Valentina started back to school as soon as it reopened with a new determination to graduate and to be the first in her family to finish high school.  She dares to dream again of college and a career. Valentina, whose name is derived from the word for “courage” in Spanish, experienced the ripples of compassion spreading throughout Chile and arriving from around the world after the February 27^th, 2010 earthquake. 

Courageous compassion is throwing a stone in a pool of water, watching it disappear, and believing that the ripples will spread out beyond the scope of the initial action. From the “daring to do something for others” act, whether it be as simple as snipping coupons or selling t-shirts or as sacrificial as caring for a community during a national emergency, or running back inside a falling house to save a daughter’s life, spring invisible wavelets encircling people who may never know who threw the first pebble into the water.  Either as individuals or as communities of faith, whether we are able to witness the effects or not, we are called to send compassion ripples around the world by giving of ourselves to those in need.