There is much news to report from the home front this week. First of all, as alluded to in my previous post, I went to Santa Ana with two of the kids here last Sunday. One of them, Samuel, has a foster family that owns a bakery and he goes to help them on their day off. I got invited to come along and experience the fun. We started off by leaving the orphanage at 6:30 in the morning and then walking down a muddy road for an hour in order to get to the main road. Then we caught a bus to get into the city. After a while we hopped off of that bus and then onto another one. Finally we showed up in right neighborhood without incident. Upon walking in the front door and meeting the family we were promptly sat down at the table and stuffed full of bread, coffee, and Salvadoran tamales. Breakfast of champions right there. After that, we were off to the back of the house, which really is a very large garage made out of sheet metal. The bake shop is in the back. My experiences with baking or bakeries have involved kitchen disasters and what I have seen at my local Jewel or Dominick's. Normally when you think of bakeries, you think of an army of woman all clad it white outfits standing in a spotless room full of shiny stainless steel machinery. That was not the case for me. There was a big trough in the center of the room in which Samuel's foster father threw all the ingredients. He then proceeded to put lard on his arms up to his elbows and then jump right in there mixing it all together into the dough. Apparently I didn't look occupied enough so he told me to throw some lard on my arms too and to get in there. Wow, that was a lot of dough. After that he ran the dough through this ancient looking rolling machine to smooth it out. Then we got cracking on the actual bread making. You should have seen me trying to rip off pieces of dough and then make them into exactly the right shape. It was ridiculously hard. If anyone ever tells you that bread making is easy....they're lying. It's an art.
Anyhow, we did that for a few hours, and I finally got the hang of it after a while. Before I knew it, it was time to get fed again. This time it was some outrageously good fried chicken and pasta combo. Tasty. Then we were out the door (in the rain) to the mall. The other guys ate some pizza and then got the bus back to the orphanage. I hung out there for a while drinking coffee and reading a book - two of my favorite hobbies. I also had to kill a few hours before I could meet up with Fr. Ron, Fr. Larry who was visiting, and Evin, my fellow volunteer, for dinner in the city. It was a great day, most especially because I was able to get a first-hand (literally) feel for what the life is really like here. You don't really get to know people or understand their experience until you have shared some real time with them.
Also happening this week was Fr. Ron's departure to Mexico for a week for the annual NPH board meeting. That left me in charge of a lot of liturgies while he was gone. Basically he asked me to do what is know as a Celebration in the Absence of a Priest, which is what the Church legitimately allows a lay person to do when it is impossible to have a priest celebrate the Eucharist. It basically looks like the first half of the regular Mass. I was up for the first time this past Wednesday. I gave my reflection ("homily") on the Gospel in Spanish to the Kindergarden through Third Graders. I was happy to have a easy audience to start with. My Spanish teacher even came too and gave me some great feedback.
Today, Saturday, in the evening is when the kids normally go to Mass. So I was up again today, except with all the kids in the whole orphanage, about 500 in total. I gave a pretty long reflection about today's Gospel, which was about the Jesus' parable of the sower and the seed. I had to use my notes for this one because there were a lot of ideas I wanted to be able to explain clearly. The only problem was that fact that I nearly sweat right through the alb I was wearing. Part of it was the heat, and I suppose the other part was some nervousness.... All in all it went fine, and I was very happy for having been able to put my Spanish to good use.
Major photo credits go to my fellow volunteer, Evin, who snapped the picture of me (top of the post) giving my reflection ("homily") without me even noticing.
Also, as an explanation, only a priest or a deacon can give a homily. Lay people give "reflections" on the readings in the course of the Church's liturgies. I hope that clears up some confusion. I still think that most of the kids are confused here, though, as many of them are still calling me "Padre Tomás." O well, soon enough, I suppose. Pray for me.
