Sunny and I have (re)started visiting the Passagem each week, which is the bairro (neighborhood) closest to us. I had planned on going on Saturdays, but between my days of rest and weekends that the girls come to visit the Fazenda, I rarely ended up making visits. The people surprisingly remembered that it had been a long time since I visited. The first week I had in my head who we would visit, but no one ended up being home. At the beginning of the day we prayed to the Holy Spirit to lead us to the people who needed us most. There was a little girl walking near us and I asked her a question. She asked if I lived in the Fazenda (two white girls with blue eyes clearly stand out). Delighted, she told us she was in Cathecesi with Irmã Miriam. I asked if we could visit her family. We walked and walked and walked and walked. We walked on the train track (I prayed the whole way in fear that the train would arrive and my sandal would get stuck in the track and I would die… like in the movies). We arrived at her house on a mountain with only a few houses in sight. I told her to ask her mom first if we could come in and she said yes. She had been watching novelas on the couch. Her eyes red and hair a mess. She has 5 children and none of them have missed a day of school. I could tell she was a bit uncomfortable at first, but as time passed she became more talkative. She gave us a present of Cana, which is how sugar is made. It was delicious to suck the juice out of it. She was so pleased to offer me something I had never tried before. When we left the house, there was a kite flying in the sky and Sunny and I looked at each other in disbelief of where we were---the sun shining brightly in Brazil, a kite flying, and the smell of all the flowers.
Yesterday when we made visits again, I got to introduce Sunny to a saint. While cleaning the school (which I can’t wait to show you fotos of this weekend when I go on rest), I gathered things that we just didn’t need. We got so many donations a while back, that it would be silly to keep it all for us. I had 5 books of the same year and the same subject, but just different publishers. I had duplicates of games and since we received so many colored pencils from my church, I gathered the old ones and loaded them up for this woman that I can’t even attempt to write her name. She is in a wheelchair and opens her house for the neighborhood kids to get homework help. Last time I took Sunny, there were about 50 kids so we didn’t stay long. But this time, the kids didn’t have school so she was only with a few kids. Her helper made us juice and we sat to talk with her. She told me that just the day before she had said she needed to buy new colored pencils because all of hers had disappeared. And here they arrived to her. (How amazing it is because how many times have I been on that side of things, it’s nice to be able to offer the gift too). She had told me her story months back, but due to my poor Portuguese I didn’t understand half of it.
She became ill at 22. I’m not sure exactly what she has, but her hands don’t work up to her wrist and she can’t walk. Everyone told her she would never be able to do anything in her life and no one would want to marry her. But she decided to go to college and she graduated. While in the hospital one day, she began talking to man. She befriended him and four years later he asked her to marry him. He was 60 and she 26. Her father didn’t believe him because how could anyone love his daughter in a wheelchair. They lived together for 10 years until he died of cancer. She told me that he taught her how to help others. They bought this house in the Passagem and opened it for children who needed help. She never had any children of her own, but she raised SEVEN kids. Different ways they came to her. The most recent was a year and a half ago when someone left a little girl, unclothed, on her doorstep. She took her in and raised her as her own. She is 64 and her baby 1 ½ now. How incredible! She gives all that she is given and trusts completely in the Lord. I do believe that I have sat face to face with a saint.
Then we visited Dona Viginia who also lives on the train track. Her house reminds me of Shrek. It has that kind of grass that covers everything..even the rocks. The houses are made of concrete and what looks like mud to me. And she has this garden that is miraculous. I hadn’t visited her in 4 months maybe 5. She was sewing a quilt BY HAND. She looks to be about 90, but I think I remembering her saying she was 65 last time. She let me use her bathroom that was just the (how do you call it?) toilet…… it didn’t flush, she would have to take out the water with a bucket later. She told me with such pride that she made this house BY HERSELF! All of concrete. She didn’t have much, but it was so tidy and orderly and somehow beautiful to me. The patio out back was made of seashells, which she too laid by hand. We walked in her garden and she cut 30 plants for me to take back to the Fazenda as I am trying to make a garden in our house. Such loving care as she told me about how each one grows. She has no front teeth on the top or bottom and often her glasses were dismantled on her face, but what glowing beauty she had in her leathered, dark skin. I couldn’t help but rub her back when we stopped walking and to embrace her. She made me think of my mimi in her fragility, but clarity of mind. I wondered how long it had been since she had been embraced. I cant stop thinking about her and when I will get to see her again. As we were leaving, she asked if we liked peppers. She “ran” into the house and brought us two handfuls of peppers. She said she loved them, but they weren’t very good for her health as they made her itchy. She said she would like us to have them and that we could plant the seeds afterwards in our garden. I could see in her that this gift was greater than the 30 plants. That she was so happy to share them with us and I too was so grateful to receive them.
We are having a wedding here on Saturday so the whole Fazenda is preparing their clothes and the houses. Everyone is planting and cutting and burning trash. It is quite beautiful to see everyone helping, even the kids. And for those of you wondering—I am doing much better. I made a promise to spend more time cleaning and picking up after myself. It is quite rewarding. I learned that when you mop (mops don’t exist here. You use a towel and a squeegee thing) you have to press hard and not just go over it once. It is really helping. I bought new tablecloths for the house and hung a chalkboard I made. And I made a tiny altar for our Saint Therese. Before I leave this Fazenda, I will be a good cleaner.
I guess this is how the spiritual life goes. It can be overwhelmingly hard at times. But then He gives us a break to recover until the next intense change. We’ll see when it comes, I know it will sooner or later.
I pray deeply for all of you and I thank you for all the prayers you say for me.
Love, Erica
PS photos will come this weekend when I go for rest. I know it’s been a month since you’ve seen our beautiful children J
