Into Deep Silence

First of all, STOP!!!, go back and look at Brendan’s blog that he just put up – it's pretty funny, has great pictures (all the photos he's been taking while I got fountain pictures), and is a great review of our time in Rome!

Ok, now that you’re back…Today we leave for East Timor. We’ve had a great last couple of weeks. Awhile ago my cousin Nora and her friend, Tracy, came to visit from the Netherlands. We were able to revisit some of the tourist highlights that we had a chance to see at the beginning. We spent most of Sunday showing them our favorite places here. Monday and Tuesday they were on their own, but we got to see them sometimes at night to talk. It was a pleasure to see some people from home, especially Nora, and to get to meet Tracy. Here are some pictures from their visit : )

I taught them everything I know about posing in front of fountain pictures! They learned well : )

Nora, Tracy, and I each tossed a coin into the Trevi fountain to guarantee our return to Rome someday. Who knows what will happen?

Brendan and Alex have been playing a lot of chess in the past few weeks too. They are both very good. Alex’s brother played chess representing England and she played in tournaments when she was younger. Brendan’s learned many new strategies while playing her so you’ll have to watch out when he gets home!

Meanwhile, most of the rest of us have been becoming Chinese Checkers masters and have learned the real way to play from one of the Chinese Sisters here – Sister Agnes. It was confirmed by Sister Pat who spent sixteen years there at the mission. Very fun!

We also have had to say goodbye to our Tetum teacher, Sister Ana Florinda. She was a great teacher and we will miss her a lot. But we hope to see her again, maybe as we leave Timor. Right now she is preparing to go to a convent in Jakarta, Indonesia.

And then there was Thanksgiving! The only thing I could think to be thankful for at the beginning of the day was the wonderful people at the Poste Italiane who God was using to teach me patience. On Thanksgiving, Michela came with me to get my last Hepatitis B vaccination and on the way we tried to mail the packages with Christmas/birthday presents for our families four times at four different post offices (and I had tried twice before!). It was finally mailed yesterday with Brendan’s help, thank goodness!

Once we made it back to the house the day picked up a lot. The girls spent the afternoon running around the kitchen. There was soup, Diggy cooked a whole chicken (turkey wasn’t really an option), Michela made rice pastry things, and Sali and Kasia made us pierogis (pronounced peer-row-gees), a traditional Polish food, and Alex was in charge of snacks and she helped me peel apples for…

Apple Pie!

It was a super big apple pie that turned out PERFECT! I learned a lot of helpful hints off the internet about soaking the apple slices in water with a little bit of lemon juice to make them more juicy and to keep them from turning brown. See Mom – I really am learning to cook!

And here was our celebration!

Diggy and Alex eating the last spoonful of the apple pie : )

A final group shot - Thanksgiving with VOICA!

We were also able to go to Tuscany to visit Michela’s family and e sent off by her parish. Tuscany is truly one of the beautiful places in the world. Michela’s family farm is on the top of a hill with groves of olive trees and vineyards in all directions. And her family and the people of her country church were so generous! Michela led a youth group there, played guitar for Mass, and everyone loved her!

By the end of Mass everyone was crying. Her Bishop said how proud he was of us, especially Michela, and he prayed for us and they gave us each a cross and a Bible (it’s in Italian, but it’s the thought that counts : ) Then they had a big party for the whole church – kind of like a graduation party for Michela. There was pizza and desserts and drinks – the Italians know how to feast!!! Then the parish priest wanted us to come so he could make us pasta, but we had to decline. It was a great day!

We also had a beautiful sending off Mass with the Sisters and many guests we’ve met during our stay in Rome. We picked out the readings and gospel and the songs and we did different parts in English, Polish, and Italian. We read a committment prayer to Jesus that all of us had written together. We received our VOICA missionary crosses and feasted with our friends and spiritual family! Everyone was so nice - especially the Sisters! And now we are ready to go!

To be honest, I wasn’t sure that this day would ever come, but I’m glad that it has! We are flying out at noon, traveling with Chris and Sali to Jakarta, Indonesia. We’ll spend a few days with the Canossian Sisters there before flying to West Timor and then on to East Timor via mikrolet (a minibus). This experience in general, and even the trip to East Timor, is sure to teach and challenge us. It’s going to take everything that we have to offer, but probably give us back even more – as usually happens in service.

Things will be a lot different after today. Rome has been a great transition time for us - less electronic time, lots of practice cooking, a preview for our new language, and practice learning how to live in community. Without this time I think East Timor might have been too much culture shock too fast for me (I’m sure Brendan would have been fine either way : ) But now we are as ready as we’ll ever be! Please don’t worry, be excited for us! Keep us in your prayers especially these first few weeks of Timor if you can! We’ll need every bit of prayer we can get : )

One of the biggest challenges will be how frequently we can communicate with home. Here in Rome we’ve had easy access to a computer with quick internet, there we’ve heard the internet (which, with Skype, we also use as our phone) will be unreliable at best and very expensive. But we’ll find out more when we get there.

What YOU need to know is this: we will still be writing blogs at about the same interval as in Rome, but they won’t go up on the internet as often. To put them up on the internet we will have to go out and find an internet café. It sounds like the time in the mission is very busy, but we’ll try to put up all the blogs we’ve written once every week or two weeks.

Communication will be different to be sure, especially during our journey to East Timor. That’s why this blog is called “Into Deep Silence.” It reminds me of when space shuttles fly around the back side of the moon and all their communication from Mission Control is cut off for awhile. Traveling to East Timor will probably be like that – it will take three to five days if all goes well and when we finally get there we will be unpacking and finding out what is going on. We probably won’t be able to put anything up online for a good two weeks. Trust and pray that we’re safe and getting settled!

With that said, we just wanted to say thank you all for being part of our lives. We are so blessed to know all of you! It will be hard being even farther away from you, but it’s for a good cause and we’ll be back in a year, ready to pick up where we left off. Until then, STAY IN TOUCH, especially through e-mail, facebook, and blog comments. I don’t think you know how encouraging a message is to us. And always keep us in your prayers; you will be constantly in ours.

With all of our love,

Rachel and Brendan