BUILDING PEWS AND BUILDING FRIENDSHIPS
Summers
are exciting times at our La Sagrada Familia parish. Many small groups of
volunteers come each year to share their time, talents and love, helping us
with various activities...including medical assistance, building projects and
social services. Others come just to give witness to their support and
love for the people of our parish. This June, however, something new was
added! For the very first time our volunteers were not adults, but were
teenagers. This highly energized band of motivated boys and girls are
from Fond du Lac's Holy Family Parish. The visit was arranged with the
cooperation of the staff of the Mission’s Office of the Archdiocese of
Milwaukee. These young adventurers came on a mission to share their talents and
their love, expecting to experience the differences of culture and living
conditions. Little did they know they would get more than they ever expected.
The
eleven boys worked shoulder to shoulder with the youth of the small community
of Proyecto 2C, home to about 370 families, totaling about 1,400 persons.
Together they were able to erect a perimeter fence for the chapel property and
construct twenty-six pews within the chapel. They anticipated doing this
work, seeing a little of a difference side of life and, then, go home. What
they experienced was much more...they built a physical fence and wooden
pews but also they built a surprising friendship with the local community.
The
fifteen girls worked in the community's important nutrition center and also
taught the young children how to play some new games. They saw the
importance, especially in a land of difficult living conditions, of providing
young children with wholesome food, teaching good hygiene habits and developing
interactive social and leadership skills through playing. Like the boys, by the
end of the weeklong mission, the barriers of culture and language, which seemed
so enormous at the beginning of the week, were worn away. By the end of
their stay, everyone was completely at ease with their local counterparts and
their surroundings....just like home. All was cool.
