The "Essentials"

Often at home, I am lured into needing “the essentials” in order to live a good life. How could I not have a cell phone and computer? forget not having a car! Air conditioning…a must!

Today as I walked through the mountain village with a delegato (a lay person who is assigned to a mountain parish) 

Florentino

by the name of Florentino, I noticed a few things. The purpose of the day was to interview the families to see if they qualified for the Friars food program. 

Br Ignatius with Scott and Matt interviewing a family

Scott playing with the children while the parents are being interviewed

Before I tell you what I experienced, I wanted to tell you that in Honduras, a parish priest often has one main parish and then is responsible for 60-70 small mountain parishes. These parishes might have Mass once a month or maybe even just once a year! We need more Catholic missionaries evangelizing the Catholic people and pray for more vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life!

Florentino was in no rush. As we walked up and down the mountain (and there were certainly lots of them),

Going down

one of the views

 he was in no rush. He stopped to explain things about the area, the vegetation and things that he thought important to tell us or was proud about.

Florentino explaining this plant

Florentino gave a hello and wave to everyone and he often stopped to talk to the person for a few moments. He cared about people in his aldea (there are about 1,000 people and they are all over the mountain).

The Team for Thursday with Florentino

One of the homes we visited

We hiked through these mountains visiting families

So after being in the mountain village for the fourth day, and being here for five, I need to question myself as to what is really essential. Florentino seems to have it right….people, relationships, living in the moment, and soaking up God’s beauty in mountains of Honduras.

Thanks for your support!

Patti

PS It’s not really that bad without air conditioning!