Party time!

Here are some photos form my birthday. You should recognize one of the attendees at the b-day brunch. The girl with curl hair is Ann, my friend from UD who is living in Queens doing volunteer work this year. The two women in a pictures with me and my sister Elizabeth (short brown hair in a black and white dress) are Fran and Judy, the sisters I work with at OPening Word (and YES the OP is capitalized on purpose!!) which is a school teaching English to adult women. Judy is the shorter and Fran is the taller. The two women in the group picture standing in the back are Janet and Mary, the sisters we live with. Mary has the curly hair :-)

Kira and I have just been partying it up with Founder's Day (see Jen's blog), my b-day brunch, visits from Sally and Charlie (brother and sister-in-law to Janet, one of the sisters we live with) and multiple invitations to come over for dinner. This weekend is a big Jubilee party for all the sisters celebrating 25, 50 and I think 75 years as a sister (I think there are others in there but I forget). It should be fun!

Love to all of you :-)
<3 Sarah

Tales from the Bx

So I have officially started working at Torch, and I have roommates!! I have had some interesting and exciting adventures in the few weeks before they moved in while I was working at my temporary placement. Since I didn't have my permenant community yet, it was easier for my to visit LI & my other friend Meg who just moved to the city.

I love that Kira & Sarah are so close, and that Ive been able to go out to see them twice now! (and they've each been to see me) One of my visits included going to Amityville Founders Day, as Sarah mentioned before. Now that was an interesting experience... and soo much more fun than I anticipated. There was a beautiful mass where the priest sang the eucharistic prayer (love it when they do that) & they even let me sing in the chior! After mass we were told to go eat downstairs because "thats where the party is." I had no idea what I was getting myself into. There was fantiastic German food, like potato pancake...mmmm. I totally would have had seconds, but the 3 of us were pulled to the dancefloor by Sr. Gina & Sr. Diane who I knew from Preaching in Action. I'm not much of a dancer but they were not taking no as an answer! (The "I" in me tried) Somehow -and I think it was one of the associates doing (susan's?)- we became known as the divas (Get it... D-V-as) for the night. My favorite dance was one of the sisters, who I was told is over 80, did a solo dance to ABBA's Dancing Queen. She even had props such as a kerchief and a rose. Hysterical!! Probably one of my favorite moments of the evening. I also was able to meet Mary & Janet who Kira & Sarah live with. It was nice to be able to put faces with names, but I feel like I may not be allowed to play Skip-bo with them anymore. Something about my amazing streak of beginners luck.

I am definitly happy to be in my permenant ministry now! Even though my temporary placement was not the most exciting atmosphere for me, & the ladies in the office were nice to me, it did confirm my thought that working in an office all day is not my scene. Not enough activity, but Torch is making up for that! Torch is a special education preschool in the Bronx run by St. Dominic's Home. So far Ive been going into each of the classrooms and being just an extra set of hands in order to get a feel for the teachers and the kids. I like getting to know all the kids. I almost have all their names down, which is a feat because some of them are quite creative. Today the teacher was out in the room that I was assigned to help with so I was able to run a couple of the activities, which I definitly enjoyed. Tomorrow the whole school is going apple picking at an orchard up in Rockland County. That should definitly be an interesting experience.

My roommates, Stephanie and Mary Jo, are volunteering for the year through Loretto Volunteers and are working with the Loretto NGO at the UN. They moved in last Sun & Mon, but went on their opening retreat in Loretto Kentucky at the motherhouse there from Friday until Tuesday. We are still getting settled and getting to know one another, but they are very nice. I think we are going to have a good year!

I will try and remember to upload some picks from my random adventures in NYC sometime, but for now I'm off to bed. These kiddies are wearing me out!

~Jen

Rain, Rain, Go Away

It rained alllll day today here in Houston, TX, so I taught the kids I work with the song, "Rain, Rain, Go Away." They loved it (they are big singers), so I ended up singing it at least three times each for the 2-year-old girl and 3-year-old boy (with their names inserted, of course). They are brother and sister and at the age where I have no doubt in my mind that sharing is a learned skill (one they have not learned very well just yet). Most of the time they have to play with separate toys on different sides of the rug to prevent grabbing and subsequent crying.
Our day involved lots of singing and reading (always a given), swaddling baby dolls, playing with Dora mega blocks, dancing (which involved the children turning into froggies), trains trains and more trains (including track assembly, reassembly, and failed attempts at taking turns), going potty/diaper changes, washing hands, a nap, and messy snacks and meals. Luckily, it did not involve more than one visit to the crying room, and poutty faces were only occasional and temporary. Today was also the first day that neither of them raced to the door when someone came into the house, a huge step in listening for them.
After the 2-month-old baby boy had a slight temperature, we played doctor on each other and on the dolls, and after I started sweating with one of them in my lap, we all had our temperatures taken for real with a cool new thermometer that you run across your forehead. No one else was sick, thank goodness.
Earlier in the day, the baby and I had some quality floor time looking at a rattle that hung above him. He looked at it and at me for half an hour (a really long time for such a little baby) and was making super cute cooing noises at me. I am one of many who would take him home in a heart beat.

This is just one day at Casa de Esperanza. There will be many more and all a little different.
Kristen

First Day of School :-)

I just wanted to keep things moving along with a short update :-)

I started my ministry (FINALLY!!!!) on Thursday and thus far it has been exhausting BUT rewarding. I am teaching low-income immigrant women English and, having never been a teacher, I am finding I love it when the ladies are really participating and putting forth effort to learn. Today I even got roses from one of the ladies (she was embarrassed that she had brought her children to school and brought them as an apology). She just picked them right from her garden! They are all so loving! There are no rules about hugging them like with children, so each of them gives us a hug on their way out the door. I also love my fellow teachers, Judy and Fran. They are both Dominican sisters with a love for all people and unbelievable patience and energy.

This weekend Kira and Jen will be hanging in the Bronx and I get to spend some time with Elizabeth, my beautifully pregnant older sister who lives in Philadelphia. On Sunday we'll be doing some celebrationing for my birthday with the whole gang, my sister and fellow teachers included. Kira or Jen will have to update you on our Founder's Day experience in another post because I am all typed out...

I miss and love all of you! I hope things are going well and that I will get to talk to Liz soon :-( Next time I promise to be more reflective with the entry ;-)

Peace and blessings upon you all!
Love,
Sarah

Happy Birthday LIZ!

As your prayer partner, and co volunteer, i would like to wish you the most happiest birthday ever. and if i time this correctly the blog will say at midnight so it is already your birthday in EST. May God's choicest blessings fall upon your special special day.

With a great big hug, from all of us to you...
It's good, your birthday that is!!
:)

A Letter to my brother--who is wondering what i have been up to

Dear Ben,

Mom said you were wondering what I have been up to. So please feel free to read the following letter and see the pictures. I hope this helps!

First I wake up at 5:45 am and then I go to morning prayer. (Actually that schedule hasn't actually happened yet, but we as a community will be starting that on Tuesday.) Prayer starts at 6--Ben I think that is before you even wake up!! My room looks alike a normal room: it has a bed and a desk, a closet, and a sink. Don't worry, Ben, your picture is up so that i remember you.

See it looks like any other room I have lived in-- messy, mom's quilt is on my bed, pictures on the wall, and candy on my desk.

After morning prayer i eat breakfast and walk over to the school. It is a high school for all girls, so it is kinda like the camp i worked at over the summer. So I meet the girls at 7:30 along with the other work staff and we check them all in. We check and see if they are there, and if they are in dress code. Ben, that is my least favorite part because sometimes i have to give them a detention if they are wearing the wrong clothes. after that we send them to work. Some mornings, like this week I get to go with them in the morning and drop them off at their work sites. Have you heard of places like Wells Fargo Bank, and American Red Cross? Those are some places that our girls work at. Other weeks, Liz and I switch and instead I pick them up in the afternoon from their work. Do you remember at DisneyWorld when we rode the train to Epcot? that is what the train looks like that I ride every day to take the girls to or from work. It is very fast, and kind of fun! On Tuesday all of the Juniors will be working at their different sites, but all the other students stay at school and learn.

This is a picture of the school from the outside. See, it kinda looks like the school from Sister Act 2

After the morning transport my day hums along. Some projects we are working on are contacting job sites to see if they would like to participate in the program and hire a team of our students. We also make sure our students are doing well at their jobs and there are no problems with their supervisors. Ben! just like you they have a check list every day! They get one score, from 1-5. 5 is good, like a yes and 1 is bad, like a no. So part of my job is making sure all of our students are getting 5's and not 1's. by helping them learn how to work.

I sit at a desk in a very busy office. There are at least 10 other people in the office with me, and it can get very noisy sometimes. They are trying to get some dividers up, so we do not distract everyone else in the office. Sometimes during the day, instead of sitting at my desk, I sit in the library. If some of the girls are not at work we do projects in there. This week we watched the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, which is fun, because it is a movie that was taped in San Francisco.

The day ends and some people go and pick up the students and bring them back to school. I walk home (or around the city) and we have evening prayer at 6pm. Then we have dinner afterwards. Ben, a lot of times we have mexican food that is Dee-licious! it is like going to the mexican restaurants at home. After dinner sometimes I watch TV--Wheel of Fortune, or read, or walk some more. If I am really lucky i see a beautiful sunset, like the one in the picture below.

Anyway, I hope this helps. I love you Ben!!

This is a picture of Liz, another volunteer, and Sister Lilly, and me

hey BUB!! look-- this tree looks like a pineapple.

If I can make it there, I can make it ANYWHERE

It's so great to hear from everyone! I just wanted to put up a few pictures from when Kira and I got to hang out in NYC with Sister Alice and her sister, Peggy. We certainly had a riot of a time despite the humidity. Also, we got to hang with Jen this past weekend and I will be going out to see her on Sunday. I'm excited to see a whole new part of the city! So far we've hit Manhattan (the island where NYC is really found) and Queens, driven through Brooklyn a bit and set foot on Staten Island when we took out the ferry. This will be my first time in the Bronx! I foresee it being a good time.

Here are a few pics to enjoy:



A look at the different boroughs. We are out to the east of Queens on Long Island, which is not technically part of NYC.


Me and my NYC! We got to hear some great stories from the sisters while we were out there.


Kira and I hanging out in Rockville Center!


Attempting to look like one of the dancers in West Side Story, my FAVORITE musical. I'm going to see it live on-stage for the first time on September 19th to celebrate my birthday with my sister :-)!

Live Your Life

If you are expecting some sort of general update on day to day life in Chicago for its fantastic five volunteers, I am sorry, but I don’t really have the patience to say anything more than our jobs vary from sort of crazy to almost normal, and that we all love Chicago. Ask another of the volunteers to update you on the boring stuff. I wanna tell a story.
So, this Saturday Stefanie invited us (Bridgette, Trent and I) to accompany her and her roommate Ann Marie to her favorite bar in all Chicago. Confession time, I don’t remember the name of the bar because I was immediately distracted by the bar’s atmosphere. (Edit: the name of the bar is Guthrie’s) The bar works like this: (1) find a table. Tackle drunk people out of a spot if necessary, because you need a table or else the night is ruined. (2) Get drinks, because you’re at a bar, and not having drinks is like deciding to skip seeing the Pope while touring Vatican City. But I digress. Step 3 in this process involves journeying to a shelf in the middle of the room, and picking out the board game that will keep you occupied while you drink. We chose to play the game of Life. It was awesome.
Before I divulge the juicy details of how people chose to live their lives, I should mention that for a while we had to shout at each other just to be heard, because the group beside us had given up on their game (Taboo?) and decided to return to that other favorite bar pastime, loudly sharing stories, inside jokes and raunchy punch lines. Needless to say that their unintended interruptions to our intense game of living usually brought welcome mix of laughing with their jokes and laughing at their glorious lack of sophistication.
On to the game. Stefanie and Ann Marie opted to start careers immediately, and both immediately proved how little this game resembles reality by gaining decent salaries, with Stef as a cop and Ann Marie as a Salesperson. While Stef and Ann Marie reveled in their nice jobs and salaries and sped through life towards the smooth plastic men of their dreams, Trent, Bridgette and I feebly tried to relive the glory of college while painfully aware that Milton Brady University doesn’t give scholarships, and somehow we’d have to come up with $125000 in Life money to pay for our “degrees.” Realizing that this board game would force us to get real jobs upon the completion of college, Trent settled into a $100,000 pay day job as an accountant, I found work as a technical support person, and Bridgette became a doctor.
Once Bridgette had a job, Stefanie lost no time announcing her plan to help Bridgette to find a nice blue boy so Bridge could hurry up and get pregnant. While planning Bridgette's romance, Stef went to summer school and got a new job as a teacher, but worked as a cop over the summer somehow. Ann Marie and I also went through midlife crises, becoming a pro athlete and doctor, respectively. Trent also lost his big payday and watched as it got repeatedly stolen but never quite ended up with him again.
I’m sure that more stories from this night will surface, but I don’t want to tie up your time too much, so I will leave you with the final score. I married a nice girl but we ran out of people so I donated her to become someone else’s daughter, and became a priest who also ran for mayor somehow. Ann Marie got the garbanzo bean farm she always wanted and retired with her husband as a millionaire also she had 2 kids and adopted 2 more, but that was after we ran out of people so her last 2 kids were invisible. Bridgette had a very (re)productive game, retiring just below millionaire status, but with 6 kids. Trent did find a nice pink girl with curves molded into all the right places and even lived in a nice beach house. The true winner though was Stefanie, who retired with ample children and a net worth of 1.25 billion life dollars. Unfortunately, none of that money could be used to pay the tab.
All in all a great night! Hope y’all are enjoying everything your respective cities have to offer as well!