A busy weekend in Dulce Nombre

All day Friday and Saturday morning the parish had a training session for 50 of the newer catechists. I did a workshop on Baptism on Saturday morning but spent much of Friday with them, getting to know them and encouraging them in their ministry.

They are a very interesting mix of people – mostly from small villages, mostly with less than six years of education, and from 15 to 60 or more years old. Some are new to teaching religious education, but some did it in the past and have decided to take up teaching again.

Most of the men are farmers – even the younger men work with their fathers or rent some land to farm on their own. The women mostly work in the house in the never ending labor of making tortillas and meals, washing clothes and cleaning the house. This is a society with pretty strong gender roles, though I have seen men helping around the house in varied ways.

Both men and women serve as catechists; many of the men also lead the Sunday celebrations of the Word in their villages. (There are a few women who lead these celebrations, but, up to this point, most of the celebrators are men.)

On Saturday morning another group arrived for a session of the year long workshop on medicinal plants and preventive medicine. This is being taught by people from an organization founded by Padre Fausto Milla to promote natural medicine and healthy eating habits – including a strong message against coke and chips (which abound here).

About noon, we had Mass for both groups. But it was not your normal Mass since there was a wedding in the midst of the Mass. Interestingly the bride had been a catechist.

Padre Efraín, the pastor, also met with some of those trained to make silos. To provide follow up and to promote the project he is proposing that those who are trained make silos for themselves and pay only 60% of the cost of the materials. This will be possible because of the funds that the students in the Vacation Bible School at St. Thomas Aquinas in Ames raised.

Padre Efraín also has the hopes to establish a project to promote small family vegetable gardens to enrich the diet of the people who mostly eat beans and tortillas, with some rice, eggs, potatoes and carrots. He also will encourage them to plant fruit trees around their houses. His long term dream is to have a two person team hired by the parish to promote family gardens and other agricultural projects.

The parish of Dulce Nombre de María celebrates its feast day on September 8, the birthday of Mary. The bishop will come and celebrate confirmation in two places in the parish. To prepare for this there will be two retreats for those to be confirmed. The first one is in the distant village of El Zapote de Santa Rosa. Padre Efraín asked me to lead the retreat. He’ll be there to hear confessions and to celebrate Mass, but I’ll have to give a few talks, lead a few discussions, and get the music groups to lead us in some singing. You can guess what I’ll be up to this week. There will be another retreat in the town of Dulce Nombre on Saturday, September 6, but others will help me with this.

Fortunately the Catholic University is not in session during this time, but I will also be busy preparing for the opening of the comedor de niños, the lunch program for kids, which we hope to open in the first weeks of September.