Our
IHM Mission in Sicuani, Peru
A Christmas Letter
Blessings
for Christmas 2004 and the New Year 2005
As we're preparing for this year's Christmas
celebration, I'm smiling, remembering an incident that
occurred last year at the caroling festival...One group
organized a live Nativity Scene. While they sang, the
cow mooed a few times; the donkey turned his behind to
the audience and did "you know what"; the sheep
escaped from the stable and began chewing on the wires
of the sound system and then got tangled up in all the
connections. In the midst of its struggle, someone from
the audience ran up to catch the sound box as it began
to fall off the stage. We all ended up practically falling
off our chairs, laughing hysterically.
Christmas is for merrily
celebrating "God with us"
I read recently that across the globe there are 42 million
fewer girls in school than boys. Our IHM Boarding house
is lessening that number by 1 5. The girls come from the
outlying Andean villages and stay with us during the week
so that they can go to High School in town. We also have
Mirjam, our fourth German volunteer with us. She just
turned 20 and lives with the girls. Whenever I need to
take out the jeep, some of them always jump on the back
bumper or the running board and ride to the gate. Reminds
me of my cousins who visited us on the farm and got a
ride to the bus stop that way.
Christmas is a time to share
family stories
Doing teacher workshops for the Diocesan
Religious Ed. Office takes me out to the four Provinces
(counties) of the Prelature. At one school visit in a
remote area, I was distributing little booklets of St.
Luke's gospel in a classroom where the teacher was absent.
(Which occurs all too frequently around here.) One of
the 6th graders, an Adventist, said, "Don't worry,
Sister, I've got it all down and it matches my Bible".
Because religion is taught in the public schools here,
it's always interesting to be part of the action.
Christmas helps lighten
up our serious agendas
Our two orphans are growing up. Victor will graduate from
High School on Dec. 17. He's been invited to continue
his studies in the USA next year. Say a prayer I can get
his Visa. Since 9-1 1 there's so much suspicion of "strangers"
that I dread going to the US Embassy. Rufina now has a
"significant other" named Valentin and they
have 2 sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Thanks to a parish in
PA we were able to help them get a little house near us,
since Valentin earns his living driving a bike cart to
take people around town. The house has a dirt floor, no
bathroom, and no electricity but bit-by-bit we'll help
them fix it up. I suppose one could say it's a "stable"
to start with. I once read in "New seeds of Contemplation"
by Thomas Merton, "Into this world in which there
is no room for Him, Christ has come. His place is with
others for whom there is no room.
Christmas is for noticing
the most needy
- Sr. Eileen Egan, IHM
