This will be a short post, but hopefully sweet. I figure short is better than nothing at all! Time has been flying by here in Duran, and we now have one month left until the new year-long volunteers arrive and my compañeros and I head back to the U.S. Family and friends, I can't wait to see you all in August and share this experience with you in person. But until then, I'll be trying to soak up every moment I get to spend with neighbors here in Arbolito, patients at Damien House, and kids at Semillas. I've been reflecting a lot on another passage from Henri Nouwen, and find the theme, patience, to be very appropriate leading into these crazy weeks ahead. Nouwen writes, in Living the Moment to the Fullest,
''Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let's be patient and trust that the treaure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.''
You are all in my thoughts and prayers! Que Dios le bendiga!
Cristobal
