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community
February 3, 2015
The Valley Catholic
‘last year, 105 missionaries
from holy Spirit traveled to
a poor rural area outside
chinandega, nicaragua.’
holy Spirit Set for July Mission Trips to nicaragua
Holy Spirit Parish has begun registration for its July mission trips to
Nicaragua. The church plans to take
140 missionaries to Nicaragua between
the weeks of July 4 – 11 and July 11 – 18.
The trip is open to all adults and young
adults who have reached high school
age. This will be the seventh year of mission trips to Nicaragua for Holy Spirit.
The multi-generational trips will again
be led by Father Brendan McGuire.
Last year, 105 missionaries from
Holy Spirit traveled to a poor rural area
outside Chinandega, Nicaragua. They
helped build bathrooms with flush
toilets and showers, and delivered livestock (cows, pigs and chickens) in the
second poorest country in the Western
Hemisphere. The mission has continually grown in size since the pilot trip
of 27 in 2009. Holy Spirit partnered
with Amigos for Christ, an organization originally affiliated with Prince of
Peace Parish in Flowery Branch, Georgia. Executive Director, John Bland, has
moved nearly all of his organization to
Chinandega in Nicaragua where they
host about 40 mission trips a year from
the United States. John’s mission is to
serve the poorest of the poor in Nicaragua, through clean water, improved
sanitation, educational and economic
development.
In 14 days, Holy Spirit missionaries
mixed 300 bags of cement, laid 4,400
blocks, dug a combined 410 feet deep,
and lined septic tank holes with 7,500
bricks to build an incredible 25 Modern Bathrooms alongside families in
the village of La Chuscada. Two years
ago, Holy Spirit missionaries worked
with the same village to build a water
system that carries water from a well
and storage tank several miles away to
individual water spigots at each of 230
homes. The impact of having clean wa-
ter in La Chuscada was truly amazing!
Missionaries also delivered 4 cows,
6 pigs, and 55 chickens to 15 families in
four different communities, taking the
time help bring alternative gifts raised
by Holy Spirit at Christmas. Amigos
for Christ’s ‘pay it forward’ program
is an important part of their economic
development program which provides
rural villagers with livestock. Cows,
chickens, and pigs provide a vital source
of nutrition for malnourished families,
as well as a step toward self-sufficiency
in one of Nicaragua’s poorest areas.
Holy Spirit is a major supporter of this
program raising $165,000 at Christmas.
This year’s program was expanded to
include building of modern bathrooms
and clean stoves for cooking. The bathrooms reduce the number of parasites
infecting children in these rural areas,
while the stoves reduce the amount
of respiratory illness, a major killer of
villagers who use wood for cooking in
rural Nicaragua.
The cost of this year’s trip includes
a registration fee of $50, $1,113 for airfare, and $250 for room and board in
Nicaragua. Parishes interested in including a delegation on this summer’s
trip should contact Mike Ferrero, Social
Ministries Coordinator at Holy Spirit,
at [email protected].
Getting to the heart of the Matter: Valentine’s Day and Our Departed loved Ones
the expansionist agenda of the Empire.
The emperor had Valentine arrested,
and in the course of interrogating him, he
actually began to see the nobility of Valentine’s Christian notion of fidelity, and
was ready to release Valentine. Until, that
is, the priest took the conversation one
step further and suggested that Claudius
forsake his pagan ways and convert. This
bold move brought on the emperor’s
wrath, and Valentine was sentenced to
be tortured and killed. Knowing of his
imminent death, Valentine spent his last
days writing messages of love to all those
close to him, signing them “from your
Valentine.”
Most of us don’t know when or how
our passing will come, but we do know,
it eventually will.
And so the question... What if we
were to frame Valentine’s Day as a day
not just for lovers and daters and hopeful boyfriend/ girlfriends to manifest
their affection, but, perhaps even more
importantly, as did Valentine before his
own death, a day for us, fully aware of
life’s fragility, to express our love to ALL
the people about whom we care?
Have we cared enough to tell them
what we wish for them during their life,
By rob Grant
Does it seem weird to think of February 14, Valentine’s Day as a day for
remembering our dearly departed?
Given the romantic legends surrounding this day that celebrates the 3rd century
“Patron Saint of Love,” and the commercial chaos that has come to attend his feast
day, serious thoughts like gratitude and
the brevity of life seem, at first glance, to
be a true mismatch...But, if we consider
who Valentine was, and how the Roman
priest’s name became synonymous with
what it means to truly love someone, it
actually begins to make sense.
In February, 270 AD, the priest Valentinus (as he was called before Chaucer’s
15th century stories anglicized the
name) managed to get on the bad (as in
execution-worthy) side of the Emperor
Claudius II by encouraging Roman soldiers to abandon the common practice
of unattached polygamy, [