Amy Woolam Echeverria

Advocate is not a title that we commonly read in scripture, but the idea of the Holy Spirit as Advocate resonates with me. When we renamed our Washington, DC office the Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach, it was very much with the notion of Advocate-Spirit in mind; that is a voice of intercession on behalf of those whose voice has been silenced by power, violence, greed, discrimination, and exclusion.

As Columban Advocates, we share with members of Congress our missionary story which includes walking with people in their daily struggles for justice and peace. It includes cultivating a relationship with Creation that is as God the Creator intended, one that is respectful and mutually sustaining.

As we prepare to celebrate Pentecost, I am grateful for the image of Advocate-Spirit. In our world today, where migrants live in the shadows and Creation is wounded, may we become the Advocate-Spirit that calls for right and just relationships.

The April flood in Ba was higher than the January one. When floods come we usually open our Church basement and the Fiji Government designates it as an evacuation centre. People usually try to cook for themselves with bits of firewood they find lying around. The April floods were the highest ever recorded and so we decided as a parish that we should transform the School canteen, conveniently located near the Church hall, into a food kitchen.

Columban Lay Missionary Serafina Ranadi is presently visiting Ba, her home parish, in between assignments and was working with us on as a member of the parish staff. We asked her to take over the Kitchen. Amelia, the sacristan, and the Catholic families who lived nearby especially the Vunisinus, the Mullers and the Dotons, and Francis Pepe, agreed to assist. The flood was at its highest on Friday. By Saturday it seemed to have ended but severe rain on Saturday night flooded the town again. It was when we saw ourselves completely surrounded by water on Sunday morning that, after Mass, we decided to move with the food kitchen, our numbers had also swollen to over 100 and it was going to be difficult to feed that many.

The parish provided the raw materials and Serafina and her team got underway. We managed to provide three meals a day for everyone. On Monday the government brought us some food which we gratefully received. Individuals also donated clothing and cooking gas while some other faith groups delivered cooked meals.

On Tuesday we had an unexpected guest, the Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama. He was visiting the evacuation centres of the West to see things for himself and came and spent an hour with us. Unfortunately Serafina missed him. The night before we had had a frantic call from the Cross walkers to provide food at the Raviravi church, a centre for our Indofijian community. Every year in Fiji, the youth carry crosses from different parts of the island to a Retreat Centre, the Ashram, during Holy Week. As you can imagine, the floods had thrown their schedules. We had been unable to contact the Raviravi people and decided that instead of cooking lunch for 100 we should cook for 200 and take the food out to Raviravi. Serafina had just left with Columban Deacon Taaremon Matauea to take the rice and curry and water to the walkers when the Prime Minister arrived.

Many of our guests were from hill villages such as Navala near Ba. They had come with crops, fruits and vegetables to sell and were caught in town by the floods. All transport was cancelled and many roads were also damaged. Slowly things returned to normal and as the roads open up, they will all leave the basement and we will close the Kitchen.

Thank you for donating online. Your online donation is safe and secured and verified by http://www.convio.com/. The Columban Fathers have partnered with Convio to ensure safe transactions.

It begins as a stirring of love
Deep within your heart,
This movement of your Spirit
Going forth everywhere
To fill the whole of your creation.

Your love is the greatest grace
Beyond all that you have made,
So how is it that of any space
Where your seeks to rest,
A love that nothing can confine,
It seeks to find a place
Deep within a heart like mine?

How terrible to be caught up, then,
In the routine of everyday things when
I don’t have time to savour your love,
Or worse ignore it, or worse still reject it.

Loving Spirit, dwell within my heart.
So that I may reflect your peace and light.
Amen.

The Columban Fathers and lay missioners in the area of El Paso, Texas, want their donors and friends to know how they accompany people throughout the world, and find the Good News of God’s presence among the powerless and poor of many societies.  They are hosting an evening of sharing on Sunday evening, May 20, 2012, at 7 p.m. at the Columban Mission Center at the corner of St. Vrain and Magoffin in downtown El Paso (816 Magoffin Ave.).

Films and stories from the countries they work in–Pakistan, Fiji, China, Peru–will highlight the evening, and we are asking our artists in the area to sing a song or two, as well!  The formal part of the evening will end at 9 p.m., but conversations, laughter and songs may last longer!

For more information, please contact Fr. Bob Mosher at BMosher@columban.org.

The statue of St. Columban in Bobbio, Italy, where St. Columban established his final monastery.

Bless our home, Lord.
May your love surround it,
to protect us,
May your peace fill it
To refresh us,
May your Spirit dwell in it
To comfort us.

Lord,
No matter how small
Or humble our home,
It is better
Than the biggest place
When blessed by you.

Upcoming Dates:

-Currently accepting applications for Fall Advocacy Internships (Washington, D.C.) www.columban.org/989/columban-center-for-advocacy-and-outreach/ccao-advocacy-internship-application/

-6/3/12  Summer D.C. Advocacy Internship begins

-2012 U.S.-Mexico Border Mission Exposure trips.  Open dates for group visits: July 8-14, September 1-8, September 16-22, October 28– November 4, November 25– December 1, December 9– 15. www.columban.org/2489/regions/juarez-el-paso/juarez-updates/mission-exposure-program/

Have you made your summer plans yet?  Consider our mission trip to Lima, Peru from July 12-23 to meet Columban missionaries and the communities we serve, experience a cross-cultural faith encounter, and visit local historical and cultural sites.  The group will be limited to four participants to maintain an intimate environment and ensure the group has a transformative personal experience.

Ariel Presbitero, U.S. Lay Mission Coordinator, will lead the trip.  As a former Columban lay missionary who spent six years in Peru, Ariel brings a wealth of knowledge and years of experience with the Columbans to the group.  Ariel is excited about the upcoming trip saying, “We would like to share the richness of Columban mission and the reality of the local people with others.  To join a trip like this it is important to be open and flexible to the local reality and be a team player with the group.”

Here are some of the Columban projects you will visit while in Lima:

• Centro Ecologico Lombriz Feliz (Happy Earthworm Ecological Center)- started in 2006 and involving four communities in the parish of Nuestra Señora de la Paz, this project teaches recycling, composting & producing organic fertilizer.
• Manuel Duato School (Los Olivos)- organized by Columbans more than 30 years ago in response to the large numbers of poor families in Lima raising children with mental disabilities, the school now serves more than 500 children.
• Warmi Huasi (San Benito)- opened by Columban Sister Mary Neylon in 1997, this women and family program promotes self-esteem in women, trains volunteers for becoming health promoters, and prevents domestic violence.

Other projects that will be visited include a home for street children, a center for special needs individuals, a center for lay formation, and the non-profit organization founded by Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutierrez.

The cost for the twelve day trip is $750 which includes meals, lodging, and local transportation while in Lima.  Roundtrip airfare to Lima, Peru and visas expenses are not included.  Registration for the July trip closes very soon!  For more information about this or future trips, visit www.columban.org/get-involved or contact Brian Radziwill at ccaoprograms@columban.org or 301-565-4547.

If you are unable to join this trip but would like to learn more about these and other programs and how to support them, please visit our website www.columban.org/donate/ and go to “Gifts to Give.”

Amy Woolam Echeverria

My daughter, who is in PreK, has a new behavioral incentive system in school which she is very excited about. If she gets a happy-face sticker every day, on Friday she gets a prize. What determines whether or not she gets a happy-face sticker is her ability to make good choices throughout the day such as: listening during circle time, resting during nap-time, doing her work during centers, etc. Not a bad system except now she thinks that she should get a sticker and prize for every good choice she makes at home.

After about a month of this “rewards” system, I decided to sit down and have a talk with her, a kind of Beatitudes 101. I explained that the best reward for making good choices is the good that comes from making those choices like: learning, sharing, respect, friendship, health, fun, and not material things that she gets. I asked her if she could you imagine Jesus handing out stickers to the disciples?!

I could see it wasn’t clicking with her so I tried to drive the point home by reminding her that Mommy doesn’t get presents every time I make a good choice. To which my daughter declared, “Yes you do. You get love!” Maybe she got it after all! And with a gift like love, who needs stickers!

However, this year we decided to convert our relatively short distance procession into one of 30 minutes in length, starting at the traffic roundabout, where for almost three years we have celebrated a Tuesday evening Mass for Peace.

The 200 children of the Family Catechetics Group were invited to dress up in period costume. Little did we know that here would be such an overwhelming response as on the appointed day literally hundreds of people gathered for the procession. There were 12 apostles and all! The morning was clear and crisp with no threat of the expected wind and sandstorm. We were ably guided by obliging Mexican Traffic Police as we wended our way through the stalls of the Sunday morning outdoor market.

Fr. Arturo Aguilar, our Regional Director, made a much appreciated special effort to accompany us in our public profession of faith, which was led off by a specially painted banner and a venerable pick-up truck crammed with our excellent sound system and a jumbled mass of choir members singing at maximum pitch!

We eventually made the Church in record time with nary a hitch. With the active involvement of so many parishioners, we were able to call our journey of faith a resounding success.
Already, there are those who are planning for next years’ procession and endeavoring to discover ways of tweaking our Catholic communitys’ re-enactment of the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem. All along the way people, young and old, left their houses and stood in reverent groups. As a result many are also determined to be active with us in future liturgies.

Joanne Angbazo

For those of you that were not scared away from the title of my blog, I promise, I will simplify it for you! Unfortunately for me, when I heard these terms for the first time at a roundtable discussion hosted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington DC, let’s just say my participation in the discussion aspect was very minimal and almost nonexistent apart from my “where is the restroom” comment—I was very lost in the conversation.

Nonetheless I learned a lot about the new controversy concerning nature. The concern is not just about being “green” anymore—now the concern is regarding the investors, national governments, and international agencies trying to “get green” by creating markets for the different aspects of nature in order to provide new ways for the financial sector to profit.

At the discussion, representatives from the organizations in attendance argued that this trend of corporate securitizing, commodifying, and financializing nature—in simpler terms, putting a value on nature, water, land, carbon, species, habitats, and biodiversity—deviates from the intended meaning of green economy by deemphasizing the “green” idea of environmental consciousness while emphasizing the “economy.”

I am not well informed about theory of the “green economy” but this discussion definitely made me a tad more critical of it. Why does everything need to be priced and how does pricing actually protect nature? Which would be worth more—the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls? Valuation of nature does not seem to reduce environmental risks and seems like it could only benefit the private institutions who want to “grow, invest in, and manage” natural resources. By pricing nature, I can only see the implications that one aspect of nature will be worth saving over another.

With the upcoming Rio+20 Earth Summit focusing on building a “green economy” and as institutions like the World Bank begin developing ways to price nature, I am especially interested in following up with this increasingly relevant issue.