"Genevieve": not so easy for Armenians or Indian Sisters or children to pronounce

Most importantly: Thank you for your prayers and encouraging emails and comments. Although I cannot always respond, please know it means so much to hear from you- and it really helps.

My blog yesterday was terribly scattered and rushed- and fortunately, today is my day off, and an American family picked me up and took me to their home, so I am able to use the internet again!

I am going to break this up into a couple of headings, because if you're anything like me, you might have trouble making it through a long, drawn-out blog.

DONATIONS
In order to purify the water that we drink, we take some water from the faucet, boil it, and then keep it in a (clean) trash bin in the kitchen. We scoop water from the bin whenever we want to drink it. In Yerevan, the dirty water pipe runs next to the clean water pipe, and sometimes the water from one pipe contaminates the other. We are still trying to convince the Sisters of the necessity of a purifier. (We being the American family who helps out here). If you would like to donate money to get the purifier (we're thinking of getting 2- one for the kitchen sink and one for a sink upstairs) please email me as soom as you can. Each purifier runs somewhere around $200. The Sisters might not go for it, but we need to somehow get the message across that boiling the water and letting it sit stagnant for a couple days is not really, err, effective.

"IT'S COMMUNIST"
So Armenia was part of the USSR, and gained its independence in the early 90s (I think that's right). Everyone here speaks Armenian and Russian- and there are remnants of communism throughout Yerevan. We went to a park (which seemed more like a fair) with some of the children last week. One of the rides was decorated with what I am pretty sure was a soviet flag. And, the side of the train that took the children for rides was stamped with a "USSR" (in Armenian). Sr. Jose Ann (an Older INdian Sister) has told me on several occassions that different features of the house are communist. In the bathrooms, the cabinet above the sink folds into the wall so that you cannot see it. When I tried to figure out how to turn off the light in this weird cabinet Sr. Jose Ann goes, "COMMUNIST. It's COMMUNIST". She said the same thing abt a switch in a cabinet outdoor that seemed to have no purpose.

ARMENIAN LITURGY
Every chapel that the Sisters have throughout the world has big bold letters, "I THIRST" next to the crucifix. The Sisters have mass in this little chapel every day. An Armenian priest comes and does liturgy in the Catholic Armenian rite a couple of days a week. The mass is in Ancient Armenian- and the words and the order of liturgy are very different from our standard Latin rite. The priest has his back turned towards us, and wears a very ornate costume. Yesterday after mass, Sr. Rosana Maria (Polish) told me that when she first saw the priest's costume (I realize that is not the right word) she thought he was going to fly away, and proceeded to ask him if his dress was for flying. The priest told her that the heavy collar and big cape is to represent the lost sheep that Jesus carries on his back.

Armenia is a Christian country, but very few Armenians are Catholic. THere is one priest who comes during the week who has special permission to say mass in the Armenian and Latin rite. Crossing over and beign able to preside for both types of liturgy is very unusual and there was some friction in this particular priest's attempt to do so. Sr. Rosana Maria reflected the interior divisiveness within the Church and the isolation of the few priests in this country from each other because they celebrate the different rites.

(Thank you so much to Brett Perkins, who helped me familiarize myself with the Eastern Liturgy before I got here- it was really nice to have some sense of the differences in the mass!)

WATER FRISBEE
That's right. So there is a "pool" in the back of this house. It looks like a giant bathtub and is about 10ft by 7ft and maybe 7ft deep. Until two days ago, it was waterless, and now it is filled abt a foot. Imagining a giant bathtub is really the best way to understand this thing- it has a faucet (though it would take days to fill) and a plug/drain. The Sisters thought the faucet was broken, so Sr. Faustina Mercy (African) and I worked on connecting a hose to a little sink upstairs, and trying to fill the pool that way. The problem is that the hose does not have any kind of metal connector piece etc., so we cut off the top of a water bottle and used some cloth and forced it to connect to the sink. I would say abt 70% of the already small trickle of water made it into the hose and down to the pool. I can't explain how hilarious or difficult or ridiculous it was to try to attach this hose- and then watch it drip into the pool. By yesterday it filled upto about a foot and my project for the afternoon was to take kids "swimming". I spent time with some of the Down Syndrome kids, and then the older group of disabled kids: IT WAS FANTASTIC. I had a blast (and so did they). We figured out how to turn on the faucet in the pool abt halfway through our swimming (figures) so the water continues to fill up. I think it would be really awesome and very possible to teach some of the kids who cannot use their legs how to swim!

I would like to extend a special thank you to Adam Frisch for the frisbee- because though the kids are not necessarily coordinated enough to throw it, they loved filling it with water and playing with it. Little Ignace kept saying "your friend gave this to you?...this is a picture of your friend?" It was great.

Ok, that is enough for now. I apologize for the rambling and emotional blog I put up yesterday. It was honest. Yesterday was a better day and today is a nice break. I am looking forward to going to learning Armenian, talking more with the Sisters, reading stories to the older kids, and adventuring onto Spitak in a couple of days.

Thanks again for your prayers and your emails and words etc. You guys are awesome and are such a rock for me!

Adoption & as much as I can write

I am not sure how much time I have here and my excuse to come to an internet cafe was to email my American friends about adoption. If you know anyone who is able and interested in adoption, please let me know. The kids who need adopting the most are ages 3-5 and are physically, but not mentally disabled. The two eldest speak English well, and the younger three have broken English. (The children speak English like the Indian Sisters). The Sisters have an American agent, so you don't need to worry about that. These kids are really sweet and they need families- even if they are families outside of their country.

I am not sure how often I will be able to get to a computer, but please keep my in your thoughts and prayers and know I am thinking of you very often. I apologize for bad grammar, typos, or rambling thoughts- but i dont have much time so i'm just going to go:

Life is difficult here. I am not yet in my final destination. Two Sisters picked my up from the airport in Yerevan in the middle of the night, and told me I would remain in the capital, Yerevan , until Aug 1st (or maybe 3rd, their English is so heavily accented that I never really know). I am currently living on site. We live in what I think is an old home. Live-in workers (armenian women) sleep in the attic. On the second floor, they have maybe 15 really sick babies, and 5 Down Syndrome children. I sleep on the first floor, as do 5 children with physical disabilities. There are 5 Sisters here now (3 Indian, 1 from Africa, 1 from Poland) and the Irish superior is visiting here home and will not be here until late August.

My days have been crazy and exhausting. I've done all kinds of things, which I will list for lack of time: *feed/wash etc the down syndrome kids *play with the other children * clean *cook *wash clothes by hand *go buy food *I went to the hosptial one day- and it was in terrible condition. * feed the babies

I guess after writing that out, it doesnt seem like I do very much, but somehow I am exhausted. My days are from 7am until 11ish- and it's go go go go. I have spent time in mass and Adoration, except that yesterday, for example, a worker didnt show up so I didnt even get any time to pray.

A couple of the workers here speak English, but it is usually me and a bunch of Armenian ladies. I am really isolated in my own thoughts all day long. Armenian is difficult. Some of the letters of the alphabet require me to make sounds I didnt even know were possible.

There is an American family here who volunteer on Sundays, and it was nice to see them last week. There are also two girls- 20 and 22- who have come and volunteered. They took me out to find an atm to get money to use the internet one night, though we came back late and I'm not sure the sisters will let that fly again.

It is difficult to work with the children. It's fun to spend time with the two eldest who speak English, but the others (especially the Down Syndrome kids) do not respond to me. I think what makes this work most exhausting is that communicating takes so much effort.

All that said, I know it is good that I am here. I need to rely only on Christ for comfort, which is so difficult! I want to be in contact with all of you all the time! It is so hard to have no community, and no friends. I need to really give myself over more fully, and stop thinking of my frustration or loneliness or exhaustion. I feel like I am really being broken down so I can be rebuilt. THe oldest Indian Sister (whom is really great) told me the other day in reference to my inability to speak Armenian, "it's like you're disabled"- that's really helped, because it's made me realize that this difficulty can be embraced like a kind of solidarity with these children who are unable to express what they want/can't walk/etc. THe lack of communication and access to phone and internet are disabling, in some, small way.

I wanted to include a couple of funny things, that I have laughed at (or wondered abt) alone:

The baby bibs upstairs that say, "spit happens"...1. where did those come from? 2. am i the first person to laugh at these?

St. Faustina Mercy (soft spoken, young African Sister) to 3yr old Sara, "WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP"...it was just, i dont know, really funny in that moment, and she didnt quite understand why i was laughing

The shirt of the worker that has a picture of what looks like a radio and reads, "this machine kills facists"...she speaks no English. Where did she get that shirt and does she know what it says?


Ok, I have to run. I realize I have said very little abt armenia itself. It is a poor country. It reminds me of a European Mexico (and I've only been to the poorer areas of Mexico). The driving here is nuts and I ride in the car to take the children to school- we pile 4 kids without carseats or seatbelts into the back and 2 adults sit with them. It's crazy.

Please pray for me and know I am thinking of you.

a preface

If you've gotten this far, you are likely well aware that I am setting off for an Armenian Adventure. I am headed to Spitak, Armenia to live in poverty and serve the poorest of the poor with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. Their main apostolate in Spitak is an orphanage for abandoned children, many of whom have some kind of disability.

This blog is an attempt to stay connected without thrusting long-winded mass emails upon you. I am not exactly sure how often I will be able to write, or how long I will be there, or what exactly I will be doing.

The only shred of certainty I've had about anything concerning this experience thus far is the deep peace I felt a couple of weeks ago after I got off the phone with one of the Sisters. It assured me that even though going to Armenia makes little sense in my head, it is the right thing- at least for July 19th.

If you are reading this I can pretty much guarantee that you are in my thoughts and prayers, and I miss you very much. I would love to hear from you.

And I'll see you in the Eucharist.