I have found a nice slot of time to write down some stuff, so here goes.
Mid August I got to go on a little vacation with the parents to see parts of Panama and Costa Rica. It was a super fun experience and it was good seeing them. Although sad at the same time because they couldnt come to my community to check out my pad for various reasons. I still dont have a way to put pics on the computer because my camera doesnt have a cable, but Im working on that. The pictures on my camera are normally how I remind myself of what to write about on here, haha.
Also at the beginning of August we had the Patron Festivals of Santo Domingo of Guzman here in La Comunidad. Everything was lively with lots of events. I participated in the costume parade with a cowboy costume from college that worked out kind of nice. Our group even supposedly got invited to another towns patron festivals to participate because they thought it turned out pretty well. Oh yeah, and some kid stole my water gun at the very end and never gave it back.
Lets see, also we are slowly closing in on the end of the stove project in the rural areas of the municipality. I am about 3 months behind at the moment because the trash truck that I was using to take materials everywhere is almost consistently broke, but I think in the next two months that I will have it done, hopefully.
Oh yeah, also, remember that ambulance that I had been writing grants for back a while ago? Well, I was beaten by another institution, the European Union donated a new ambulance to each of the 100 poorest municipalities in the country, and we fell under that category. So, wahoo, strike it off the list.
We have won two water grants that almost cover putting water in the parish medical clinic here. Next week we should be ready to go buy enough materials to start and finish 75% of the project. Also, we have the support of the mayors office to start work on the Community House. The next few weeks should be exciting in that we will start to see concrete work on what has been a year of soliciting and organization.
Speaking of those, and the need of a continuing support in a few last projects here, I wanted to show yall the breakdown of funds of a donation that was given about a year ago through the PAYPAL here on the webiste. It was a donation of 200.00 and was spent in the following manner:
$64.00 went into the wood saving stove project....split between transport of materials and helping covering families that couldn´t cover costs. (right now weve built 67 stoves in my municipality)
$20.00 went into refurbishing two donated laptops, one which went to a school and another which went to the Parish Medical Clinic.
$54.00 went into two printers, one for the school just mentioned and the Parish Medical Clinic
$5.00 went to cover an Ultrasound of an elderly lady´s eye in my community during our eye campaign
$10.00 covered a pair of glasses for a mom of 10 children and leader in the Parish community
$40.00 went into the first phase of a project by my own community to put a speakerphone in the middle of the community to announce events, deaths, etc along the 3 mile ridge. We are still short on the second phase, but this $40.00 went together with the last of another donation to pay for the parts.
$7.00 was the amount that PayPal took out of the original $200.00 in fees.
The donation went a long way and Im sure had an affect on a much larger number of people than was expected by the donors when they donated. Well done by that fam.
I have been collaborating with another community on the other side of the municipality as well, and in the past year we have been petitioning for them their own volunteers and now they have arrived. They are a couple that will be working with the school and development committee for two years. The community is ooober excited about it all and happy that they are being remembered in the course of things in the world, haha. Speaking of this subject, my actual time here is winding down and technically ends Nov. 28, but my ADESCO is soliciting to have me stay another 6 months to finish up and get started some other projs. Im fine with that. There will be various volunteers doing that though, so I should know by the end of September if we are approved by Peace Corps or not.
For now this is life. And its good, I ate some tasty chicken wings and it passed through my mind that I could die now a happy person, but hopefully that will hold out until I finish my work here with the communities :). Ive begun to think about what my time here in Peace Corps has taught me and where I should begin pointing my life after its over. But more on that after I finish my closing conference COS here Sept. 16-18 and PC gives us more info on that stuff.
Keep fighting the good fight.
With all the doctrinal hooplah in the news in the Anglican-Episcopal-Lutheran realm lately, I found this quote from an at the time Anglican interesting:
"....In barbarous times the will is reached through the senses; but in an age in which reason, as it is called, is the standard of truth and right, it is abundantly evident to anyone, who mixes ever so little with the world, that, if things are left to themselves, every individual will have his own view of them, and take his own course; that two or three will agree to-day to part company to-morrow; that Scripture will be read in contrary ways, and history, according to the apologue, will have to different comers its silver shield and its golden; that philosophy, taste, prejudice, passion, party, caprice, will find no common measure, unless there be some supreme power to control the mind and to compel agreement.
There can be no combination on the basis of truth without an organ of truth. As cultivation brings out the colours of flowers, and domestication changes the character of animals, so does education of necessity develope differences of opinion; and while it is impossible to lay down first principles in which all will unite, it is utterly unreasonable to expect that this man should yield to that, or all to one. I do not say there are no eternal truths, such as the poet proclaims, 6 which all acknowledge in private, but that there are none sufficiently commanding to be the basis of public union and action. The only general persuasive in matters of conduct is authority; that is, (when truth is in question,) a judgement which we feel to be superior to our own. If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties, between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have. By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the sects of England, an interminable division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution, and have ended in scepticism. The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the Revelation."
pp. 89-91
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
John Henry Newman (later Cardinal Newman)
1834
No comments:
Post a Comment