A little bit a love and a lot bit of faith

It has been so wonderful spending this week leading up to Easter in my La Esperanza community.  The devotion this community has to their religion is beautiful and inspiring to me. While I was playing basketball with two of my favorite kiddos, they invited me to church Thursday night.  These two brothers are terrors during the day at school.  They rarely listen, cause havoc, leave class, and every day the teachers end with headaches from these two.  But outside of school?  They are respectful, playful, sweet caring and kind.  This will be the thing I will miss most when I teach back in the states.  If I struggle with a kiddo inside school here, I just go hang out with them in the community - playing soccer, eating cookies, swimming in the ocean - and it makes me love and appreciate my kids, and it makes my struggles with them more bearable in the classroom.  But back home, it's taboo to just walk up to a student's house and ask if they can come out and play.  

Mass Thursday night surrounded the theme of washing your neighbors feet.  The gesture of washing someone's feet is supposed to be an act of kindness, forgiveness, care and love.  When the Padre invited the congregation to wash someone's feet - little 5th grade Daniel took my hand and walked me up.  As he was washing my feet, I was touched and a little teary eyed over the tenderness of the gesture of this 10 year old boy.  

Yesterday I headed outside at sunrise to help build an alfombra (rug) with everyone.  On Good Friday, the church has a procession for the stations of the cross, and each community builds a beautiful alfombra for the procession to stop at and pray.  Ours was made out of colored sawdust - and it was super fun building together.  Later in the day, I joined the church processional, and was asked to carry the processional alter with 3 other women. 

The stations of the cross ended with  a captivating and rather gruesome crucifixion of Jesus.  The end was gory, but seemed like an appropriate portrayal for a community that lives with violence every day.  It was a great, faith and family filled few days, and I feel blessed that the community embraced me during this week of their biggest traditions. 

My buddies! Daniel on the left is the kiddo that washed my feet. 

Building the Alfombra!

Me carrying the processional alter