School Supply List 2009

In the late summer, we ask parishioners to bring school supplies: notebooks, backpacks, pencils, pens, paper, etc. Or they make a financial contribution, and we purchase needed items. We let the people who come to the Pantry pick out school supplies for their children.

Greetings to all — lots going on despite this heatwave!

1.  Tickets for Late Night Catechism (October 24) go on sale this week after Mass. Tickets are $30 each.

2.  Parish Picnic — September13.  The Knights of Columbus are again providing their award-winning BBQ lunch.  Since they need to know how many to prepare for, we are asking everyone to sign up at Mass.  We are asking a donation of $10 per adult, $5 per child 12 and under, and children under 5 are free; families of four at $25.  Bring your donations to the picnic.  There is going to be great food, games, prizes, and lots of fun:  don’t miss it!  We will also have sign-ups to volunteer for the picnic.  It takes lots of helpers:  set up, clean up, games, cakes for the cake walk.

3.  Raffles:  since we are not going to have an auction this year, we have decided to have some fundraising raffles with the winners to be drawn at the picnic.  We will start selling the raffle tickets after Mass this weekend.  Raffle tickets are $5 each.  You choose which raffle you want to enter.
There are five raffles:
2 tickets to Late Nite Catechism
reserved parking and pew for the Christmas Mass of your choice reserved parking and pew for the Easter Mass of your choice One year reserved parking for the 8 am Mass One year reserved parking for the 10:30 am Mass

4.  School Supplies drive starts this week.  There will be a bulletin insert with suggestions for needed items.  Last year one family just took their child’s list and shopped for two and donated one.  The supply list will also be on the holyinn.org website (look under outreach).

5.  Pantry donation suggestion this week:  jam or honey for sandwiches.

Thanks!

Gail

You can find week 8 of Michel’s adventures here http://www.holyinn.org/michels-musings-from-the-peace-corps/

Weekly Bulletin 7-26-09

Greetings to all,

1.  Plan to stay after Mass to go downstairs and see the presentation of “The Story of Stuff” sponsored by our Social Justice Committee.  And you can see the new folding walls that make our new room in the hall.

2.  Pantry item of the week:  soup – preferably thick, hearty, filling soups.

3.  Inquiry:  on Monday July 27 at 7 pm in the Narthex (gathering space), anyone who is interested in finding out what is involved in becoming Catholic.  No obligation:  just bring your questions.

4.  School Supplies:  we are going to begin gathering school supplies for our outreach program.  Shop the sales going on.

5.  Children’s books:  Carri Venable’s mom is requesting children’s book in good shape to send to an African education foundation.  Bring  your books (ages 5-18) to Mass and we will get them to Carri’s mother.  More information in the bulletin (which will be on-line soon in case you don’t make it to church this weekend).

6.  Keep Cool!

Gail

You can read Michel’s lastest adventures here:

http://www.holyinn.org/michels-musings-from-the-peace-corps/

Week 8:  Got My Assignment

We finally received our assignments and met our contacts today.
Tomorrow we travel to our site for a week long trial to find a place to live (aj family to live with as we have to live with a family for the first 3 months). My site is in Carayao, which is a small pueblo (jtown) in Caaguazu. . . I will be working with a cooperative that has sugar cane and some sort of biofuel. They want me to help with education and with getting the administration set up properly.  Unfortunately they don´t have a computer. This should be very interesting.

My contact is a widow about the same age that I am who is the secretary of the coop. She is a lovely lady and I´ll be living with her for the next week to see if I want to live with her for the next 3 months.

It is a very small town but it does have a post office and an internet cafe. Hopefully, I´ll have a chance to use the internet while I´m there. I tried to find a map to attach but this computer is so slow, nothing would load. It is about 2′1-2 hours from Asuncion, a little north east of Asuncion.

Well, I send you more info later. If you don´t hear from me for the next week or so, you´ll know that I couldn´t find the internet.

Michel

Weekly Bulletin 7-19-09

Week 7- Streams and Swamps

July 18, 2009
Well, I’m back from Arroyos y Esteros (Streams and Swamps) and it truly was. Matt is a Rural Economic Development (RED) volunteer like we are but he has been here a year. He is working with sugar cane cooperatives and with women’s groups and did he have a schedule for us! We planted gardens, made compost for worms, did two theatricals about marketing your produce better, did a radio show (where he played his guitar and sang in Guarani songs that he had made up) about cleanliness (washing your hands, coughing into your elbow, etc.) and attended several co-op meetings. It was very interesting but I’m exhausted. And I know for sure now that I don’t want to live in the compo – give me a nice little city any day.
I was staying with the president of the women’s group but she was so busy that I hardly ever saw her. Fortunately, her 16-year old daughter, Paula, took great care of me. Her house is about 1 kilometer from our meeting place (Matt’s house) so there was a lot of walking back and forth. Most days Paula would walk with me in the morning. She is so bright and cheery. Unfortunately, it rained a lot while we were there. If I thought the roads in Paso de Oro were bad when it rained, I found that these are even worse! There is no place to walk on the side and the mud is very slippery. I made it okay but my shoes were a mess.
The people in Arroyos y Esteros are much poorer than those in Paso de Oro. None of us had showers with hot water. Poor Liz had to shower in a tire in the kitchen with the little chicks watching. You heat up the water in a kettle, pour it into a large basin and use that to wash yourself with. Even I had to do that but at least I could do it in the shower room. The rest of us had toilets but Liz had to use a latrine.
Adam, one of the guys in our group, wants to live out in the compo. As we were walking through the sugar cane fields to get to the co-op (about 5K) we came across a tiny wooden shack. We were all teasing Adam that we had found a house for him.
It is great to be back with Eladia and Diana and a warm shower. I’ll really miss them when I get my assignment (which, by the way, will be next Monday – I can hardly wait).
When I arrived back in Paso de Oro, I found that Eladia didn’t think the big classroom was big enough, so she had brought in carpenters, taken down the front wall and extended the room out into the small patio that was by the door. The room is about 5 feet longer now and has a window. I am just amazed at how easily they change their houses around here. I guess with a few bricks and adobe, you can do just about anything. I’ll post pictures when it is completed. They just have to finish the arch where the original doorway was.
We had two free days – our first since we’ve gotten here. I’m going to work on my Bonita book. One of the other volunteers (she’s from Seattle, too) is doing the drawings and I’m so excited about it. I’ll post it as a pdf when we get it completed. It will be in both English and Spanish.
Hopefully, this next week will be a quiet week because it is all downhill from now on. The week after next we find out our site and go visit with our contact.
Quote for the week (on the wall of the radio station that we did our show at):
“Nunca es pequeño lo que se hace X amor” (Chiara Lubick ) which I translate as “Nothing is small that is done with love.”

Weekly Bulletin 7-12-09