...¨it is all right - believe it or not - to be human.¨

Dearest seekers of beauty,

Just on time (well, only a month and a half late – that’s not too bad, right?!) – here I am with what will likely be the last installment of my always-overdue and excessively long updates from Barrio El Centro. I feel like I have to begin by letting you all know what a grace it was, truly, to carry you with me on the retreat I recently made near Tegucigalpa, Honduras’ capital. As I slowly thumbed through pages of prayer requests from those of you who sent them, and as I held each and every one of you in my mind and my heart, I couldn’t help but be moved by what a blessing and an honor it was share in, and in some mysterious way to bear alongside you, the joys and the burdens of your days. Thank you, truly, for sharing with me news of new jobs and new relationships, of sicknesses and family struggles and loss, of engagements and pregnancies and final vows and new directions. It was gift and grace to feel so close to you during my time there, and as always, I am more grateful than I can find the words to express for your continual support and your faithful presence in my life. Truly – thank you!

Nearly twenty-five months ago, I said my final tearful goodbyes to friends and family, boarded a plane, and began the first step of my “yes” to the Farm of the Child. Now, as my time rapidly draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on the growth and the grace, the beauty and the brokenness of my time here in Central America. As my dear friend and fellow community member Sheena reflected recently, it is sometimes difficult to believe that there was a time when my life’s days were not “asi” – as they are. Was there ever a time when I didn’t wake to marching bands practicing for September’s independence day parades or to the shouts of the homeless men outside my door each morning? Was there ever a time when I didn’t know how to salvage a pot of beans gone bad, or do workout videos with a Franciscan nun, or know (nearly) all the responses to the liturgy in Spanish? Was there ever a time when I didn’t bake brownies when my girls hosted study groups at our house, just as my own mom used to do for me and my friends, or try to make myself simultaneously invisible and omnipresent when they invited their boyfriends over? Was there ever a time I didn’t expect catcalls every time I left my apartment, or when I actually would have been surprised to see security guards armed with impossibly large guns keeping watch outside every bank, gas station and fast food restaurant in town, or when I didn’t carry, myself, the burden of fear that so much of the world, so deeply touched by violence, is asked to carry? Was there actually ever a time when I didn’t even know who Justin Bieber was?! It seems impossible, really, that this life I live has not always been normal, and perhaps even more impossible that in less than three months the sights and sounds and smells of my days will be so very different once more.

For better and for worse, my skin is tougher now, I think, than it was back then, when I arrived here so idealistic and wide-eyed and young two years ago. To be honest, there is a great temptation to share with you all in my updates only the beautiful, joyful, and “pretty” parts of my experiences here in Central America, to tie up a story neatly and digestibly, to give you something cohesive and tidy to carry with you on your way. The truth is, though, my time here has been quite the opposite of easy to wrap up in a neat package, which has probably contributed to my eternal absence in your inboxes – sometimes I feel like if I can’t wrap it all up well, I shouldn’t really even try. My friends Susan and Sean, who lived in Brownsville, Texas, for the past two years, used to have a sort of “motto” for their experience there: “Don’t try to make sense of it.” I think their idea is probably a good one, because to be honest, there is much here I do not know how to even begin to make sense of, and I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it to even try. I do not know how to make sense of, for example, the shooting that occurred in front of my house at 2:30 in the afternoon on a Wednesday in July, and of the cries of the women who mourned over the body in the street for hours afterwards, and of the violence that so intimately affects the lives of so much of the world. I do not know how to make sense of the desperation of one of our poorest neighbors at the Farm, who, pregnant for the sixth time and unable to care for the children she already has, asked me to translate for her to a family from the US her desire that they take her unborn child. I do not know how to make sense of the disparity between the needs I see, which seem so great, and what we are able to offer, which seems so small. Notre Dame, unfortunately, did not provide me with easy answers to such questions. The longer I am here, I think it’s actually the less that I know about anything at all, the more murky and gray everything seems, the less clear-cut the answers. I can only suppose that God, somehow, is in all of it, holding it all together, holding us all together, calling us anew to offer what we can, however incomplete and small and limited, towards the healing of whatever small corner of the world we find ourselves in and whatever souls we share it with.

In my last email to you all, back in February, I wrote that Central America has taught me about my place in the human family, about something we all share, deep down. I guess it’s in light of all this business of trying to “make sense of it” – of the reality of life here, of the disparity between rich and poor, and how small and incapable I often feel in light of the weightiness of the grief around me, that I’ve recently been reflecting on the limitedness of being human. Who among us, after all, really could make sense of it? Who among us actually could complete the world’s Work? Annie Dillard, in a passage about our smallness and God’s greatness, writes, “Week after week Christ washes the disciples’ dirty feet, handles their very toes, and repeats, it is all right – believe it or not – to be people.” At the Farm, our feet are, literally and metaphorically, quite dirty – yet over and over again, Christ comes to us, disguised as each other, as ourselves, and asks us if we will continue to try, to admit that we cannot do it alone, to acknowledge that we need each other, to be present and seek grace and in some small, very limited way, attempt to be instruments of hope and healing. So we offer what we can – however small and humble – and in acknowledging our finitude, we rejoice in the recognition that our smallness allows us to do not everything, but something, and to attempt to do it well. We show up. We seek beauty. We allow our feet to be washed, week after week, our very toes to be handled, and we say, it is all right – no – it is good – to be human.

And there is much beauty here, in spite of everything, and it is my daily bread, that which gives me courage and strength to endure, to show up, and to try to be as patient and kind as I possibly can (which on same days, isn’t much at all) with the two teenage girls I’ve been asked to share my life with this year. They continue to be exactly who they are – teenagers – sometimes hilarious, sometimes incredibly moody, perplexed by the questions of life just as I am, worried about how they look and what they wear, my teachers in faithfulness and generosity, the most honest critics of my cooking (“Hamburgers? But, with BEANS?! What?!”), brave and beautiful and incredibly wise beyond their years. So many of my finer and more memorable moments of the past two years here have occurred with them, sitting together at our kitchen table or on the couch, sharing stories about boyfriends or giggling over something funny that happened that day or hunching over school projects late at night with a glue gun and whatever bizarre donations of art supplies we happen to have in the bottom drawer at the time. They really are incredible young women, who, despite all the odds, are finding a place for themselves in the world, who have hopes and dreams and want to work to make them a reality, and I believe fiercely in them and love them and want so very much for them to succeed. And in the end, I guess, there’s grace in that – it’s not everything, but it is something, and if the Farm has made a difference even just for one child, then it is all worth it. It does make sense. God holds it all together.

This is probably the last time you’ll hear from me from this rinconcito of the world – in early December, seven of the other dear souls I have shared these two years with and I will say our final adios to the Farm of the Child and begin the journey to what awaits us back in our respective homes. I’ll probably write at least once more from the other side, but until then, please pray for me – for my girls, for our volunteer community, especially those leaving with me in December, and for all we will experience in our last three months in this small corner of the earth – that we might know much beauty and grace in our final weeks, that we might be gentle with ourselves and with each other, and above all, that we would trust in the goodness of the God who holds us all together. I am so grateful for each of you, and for the endless ways you’ve accompanied me in my journey here. It is a humbling thing to have received so much that I will never truly be able to repay. I hope to see many of you during my re-transition to the States next winter and spring, to hold your babies and see your wedding pictures and hear of your own journeys in these past two years, and to see once more how good is the God who holds it all together. Until then, know of my love, my prayers, and above all, my gratitude for the generosity and kindness you have shown me. May your hearts know much beauty in your own lives’ days in the months to come!

in love, and in gratitude,

Erin

¡La Muerte, Ya No Tiene Dominio!

Below is a reflection I wrote for the Farm's Easter newsletter. May the joy of the risen Christ be with you all!

Last night during our weekly Community Night here in La Ceiba, I sat in a circle with the three teenagers with whom I live with this year and reflected on this past Sunday’s gospel reading – the mystery of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9). On the table in front of us lay a single candle, a cross, and a paper chain. After reading the gospel together, I invited the teenagers to reflect on the transfiguration that they wish to see in our own world, and how they, as people who (like the apostles) have experienced the resplendent Christ and are called to witness Him
to others, each might cultivate that transfiguration in their own lives and hearts and in the world around them.

One by one, the teenagers tore off pieces of the construction-paper chain in front of them representing the shackles of oppression, injustice and sin that enslave us, and spoke aloud their hopes for our world. “Que haya un día en que…” That there might be a day in which… In which all might have a home. In which there will be no violence, and in which all nations know peace. In which no one will go hungry. In which every woman, man and child might be recognized with equal dignity as a person created in the image of the one Living God.

As I listened to these teenagers’ hopes and dreams for the broken, beautiful world they see around them and reflected on my own, and as we, together, reflected on what action we must take in our own hearts to bring these changes about, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps this is what Gandhi meant when he said that we must “be the change we wish to see in the world.” If we want a world that is more peaceful, we must cultivate peace first of all within our own families and our own hearts. If we wish for all to claim their dignity as children of the light, we must begin by recognizing the dignity of the homeless and the hungry outside our door. If we wish for a world in which no one hungers, we must begin by sharing our own food with others.

The prophet Jeremiah writes, “But in this place of which you say it is a waste… there will be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness… the voices of those who sing.” At the Farm of the Child, we are called to live as an Easter people – a people who live between the “already” and the “not yet” of the Kingdom of God. We witness the suffering Christ in the wounds of our children, in the hungry faces of our neighbors, in our own brokenness and need for healing. At the same time, we wait and work in the joyful hope that comes from the knowledge of what is to come – that three days after the most horrific type of humiliation and suffering, the stone will be rolled away, the tomb will be empty, and death will have no power over life. We envision the transfigured world we wish to see – a world that perhaps is a little more of what God had in mind – and trusting in the empty tomb, in the “slow work” of God, we hope and pray and work tirelessly to bring about this world, a world in which the voices of mirth and gladness
shall sing.

“¡La muerte, ya no tiene dominio!” Death has no power. On Easter Sunday, we will listen to these words spoken from the pulpit, and we will hear them resonate in our own hearts. Christ is
risen, and death no longer has the final word. This Easter, may we come to believe evermore in the power of life over death, and may God grant us the grace to work faithfully and tirelessly
for the transfiguration we wish to see in the world.

Christ is risen, truly risen! Alleluia!

persons becoming persons.

My dear ones,

This email has been sitting on my desktop for a few months now. The document
title keeps getting changed – what was once “Mass email November 2010” has
become “December,” “January,” and finally “Mass email February 2011” – but please know that
its tardiness in reaching your inbox is in NO way indicative of how much I think of and miss
you all. Once again, it’s been too long since I’ve written, but I guess soon enough I should stop
apologizing for that in every update and just admit that it’ll probably be another three (or four…
or five…) months before you hear from me here again. Don’t worry, the length of this email
makes up for my silence :) So very much has changed in my very humble life at the Farm that I
hardly know where to begin, but I guess NOW is good of a place as any – so here goes!

Today I write to you from the cinderblock apartment I share with two young women – Marina
(15) and Dalila (17), who make up 2/3 of the Farm’s adolescent program here in La Ceiba,
Honduras, about 3 hours away (or 4… or 5…. depends on your bus) from my last year’s
beach-side home just outside Trujillo. Alisha, my partner-in-crime/other-half/co-parent/fellow
volunteer, and Arturo, the teenage boy entrusted to her care, live in the apartment just next
door here in Barrio El Centro, where the sounds on the street - taxis beeping, homeless men
yelling, generators buzzing, and the occasional musical presentation in Parque Central next door
– float through our open windows day and night. The name of my new role at the Farm this
year is “encargada,” which literally means “the in-charged” or “entrusted”. That’s a pretty good
definition, I think, but I’m not sure it encompasses quite everything we do here… so I decided to
write my own definition for you, which goes something like the following:

encargada: n., adj.: doctor’s-appointment-setter-upper, dish-washer-reminder (“Please don’t
use that fork in the non-stick pan!”), parent-teacher-conference-attender, curfew-enforcer, live-
in social worker, “make-good-choices!”-sayer, financial-counselor (“Remember to save at least
75%…”) homework-helper, gratitude teacher, drain unclogger and cockroach killer, “are-you-
SURE-you-have-to-fry-that?”-asker, loaf-of-bread and pot-of-beans maker, turn-the-other-cheek-er, patient silence bearer and giggle-sharer, Settler’s-of-Catan-player, prayer-planner, boyfriend-approver (“Is he REALLY good enough for you??”), fundraiser and connection-seeker, music-and-movie censorer (Dear Mom and Dad, now I TOTALLY get why you didn’t let me see all PG-13 movies when I was 13), hospitality director, tutor, volunteer, bill-payer, grocery-shopper, advice-giver… and the list goes on. Usage: “She’s my encargada.” See also: parenthood (sort of).

As anyone who has parented teenagers knows well, sometimes they can be… well, frankly,
ridiculous. (Please consider this my official apology to parents everywhere, especially my own,
for being sixteen once myself. Um… sorry about that.) However, lately, the days I go to bed
feeling like I’m actually building relationships with these girls are far outnumbering the days
that I go to bed feeling like I want to wring their necks… which is obviously, you know, a grace.
Or something like it. And lately, too, I’ve been really surprised by how, out of nowhere, it just
hits me sometimes how much I really, really care for these young women – how proud I am of
who they are (most of the time), how much I want to see them succeed, how much I love their
laughter and their stories and to hear the hilarious things they talk about when they think I’m not listening. (“Oh my GOD, did you know Selena Gomez has received death threats over Twitter because of her relationship with Justin Bieber?! Why won’t they just come out and admit they’re dating already?!”) It’s not by nature of anything I’ve done, I don’t think, that that’s happened – it’s just kind of a natural effect of the fact that we try to share our meals, our home, and our lives with each other in an intentional way. Overall, without a doubt, my biggest joy here is found in these kids – and it’s definitely not always a feel-good joy, a “can’t wipe this smile off my face, how-can-I-keep-from-singing” type of joy – but it’s joy all the same, sometimes frustrating and messy but also deep and beautiful and true. I believe in them, and I want so much to see them become happy, loving, successful adults – and I believe deeply in this work, that it is good and meaningful, and that there is goodness and grace in being faithful in the small things that are asked of me here daily, even if it’s just killing cockroaches, making lunch, changing lightbulbs and helping with homework. I’m pretty sure that I, too, and being shaped and molded and formed by my time with these girls, that I’m learning from them things I never even thought to ask… and I think I’m growing in what Dorothy Day called (quoting Ruskin) our “duty of delight” – the duty to delight, that is, both in the hilarity and strangeness and beauty of our lives, and also in one another. Because that is what we’re meant for, I think – to be “persons becoming persons through other persons,” just trying to reflect for each other a little bit of the light that we have received.

-----

This past December, I’m in a taxi in San Pedro Sula, heading to the bus stop to get back to
Ceiba after a very quick trip to the States before Christmas. After the typical negotiating of
the taxi fare, answering the driver’s so-predictable-it’s-almost-funny question of “So… are
you married?” (the answer is always yes, if you’re wondering)… I, for some reason still
unbeknownst to me, wipe off the “do NOT mess with me” tattoo I usually have stamped on my
forehead when I’m traveling alone and begin to chat with my taxi driver a bit. He asks me about
life in the States (like almost every Honduran I meet, he’s either been there or has family there
himself), why I’m here, and what I think of Honduras, and we talk about “volunteer culture”
and why it just doesn’t exist so much in Central America. Finally, he asks me the unanswerable
question – how my time here has been. I fumble around for the words, and finally settle on
telling him that it’s a really challenging experience, but I know that I’m being formed here and
that I’m growing and learning a lot. Usually that would suffice for anyone, but this guy prods a
bit. “¿Y qué es lo que ha aprendido?” he asks me. What is it that you’ve learned?

I stay quiet for a minute.

“I am learning,” I tell him, “about humanity, and myself, and what exactly is my part to play
in this strange, beautiful mess of a world.” I go on to tell him what it is I love about Central
America – which is, I mean, a lot of things, but more than anything that it forces my very
humanity upon me, in such a raw, human way that there is literally no escaping it. I go to the
market here and am ambushed by vendors yelling at me, “¿Qué desea, mami?” The woman who
sells me cheese every week won’t let me go without giving her an update on Jennie, last year’s
encargada, who finished her time in December and is now back in the States. Ride on a public
bus, and there’s a good possibility you’ll end up with someone else’s small child sitting half
in your lap for a good part of the journey. Go on vacation with one of your teenagers to visit
the family members she lived with before coming to the Farm, and see that the well you draw
water from to bathe yourself with a bucket each morning is more than just a source of life – it’s
a gathering place of the community where stories are swapped and a commonality is established
through the act of doing something together. Central America demands from me a sharing of
lives and hopes and dreams and struggles, a recognition of the other, an acknowledgement of
something shared, deep down, that holds us all together. Persons becoming persons, right before
our very eyes.

This whole persons-becoming-persons stuff is messy, and I think we’re all tempted at times to
want our space, to NOT want to be ambushed at the market or have someone’s sweaty elbows
touching us at mass or to end up holding someone’s smelly child for a three-hour bus ride. But I
also believe it to be blessing and grace to be asked to recognize myself and others in this way, to
acknowledge our finitude and our giftedness and our common call to delight in one another.

But back to December. My taxi nears the bus station, and as the driver comes to a stop, he looks
at me and says, with all the cariño in the world, “Que Dios me la cuide y me la bendiga.” And
the thing is… in the non-creepiest way possible… I think he meant it. In Spanish, when you
throw the optional “me” in there, what was before just a kind wish (“May God care for you and
bless you”) becomes personal – it’s something like “May God bless you and care for you – for
me” or “to me.” In the course of that fifteen-minute ride we shared together, something was
revealed to each of us – something shared that runs deep down. Humanity, maybe. God, even,
I guess. A connection was made – and we were both changed. Persons becoming persons, right
before our very eyes.

To all of you, who continually show me your love and support in my journey to become more of
myself… thank you, as always, for your patience and kindness and your prayers. I have learned
so much from you all and carry you with me wherever I go, and promise that I hold you always
in thought and prayer, sending you love and light when I think of you – which is often. So until
my next five-month-delayed, excessively long email…

sending you light,
and grace,
and all the Justin Bieber gossip you could possibly want, from my chaotic Barrio El Centro…

que Dios me los cuide,
Erin

swimming lessons

My dearest friends and family,

Hello, hello, hello – and happy (almost) October to you from Honduras! Here at the Farm, we’ve been celebrating September, the "mes de la patria" (it’s kind of like the 4th of July, except here we have a whole month dedicated to patriotism and citizenship) in due style – in fact, tomorrow is the most important day of the year for my sixth graders. No, it isn’t graduation, nor is it the FCAT or any of those other standardized tests that were so very important in my own primary education. Rather, it’s the day in which my students will be tested on how well they’ve memorized and can sing, conduct and explain Honduras’ gloriously-long, seven-versed national anthem and the 37 obligatory questions and answers that go with it – all required by law for every Honduran sixth grader, and necessary to be able to graduate from our primary school and go on to the colegio.

You could (maybe) call it brainwashing, or say that it doesn’t help our students to learn to think critically and for themselves – those are fair criticisms, and I’d grant you them. But among the things I’ve learned this year are that you should pick your battles, and that there are some things you can’t change, and that when you can’t beat them, it really is a good idea to sometimes join them… so my fellow volunteer teachers and I have patiently grinned and marched our way, quite literally, through the month of September, sporting our Honduras jerseys and singing that gloriously-long national anthem with the best of them all the while. And truly, some of my very best moments of these past few weeks have been spent with my sixth-graders in that tiny little two-walled classroom of mine, laughing with them to calm their nerves and helping them with their conducting patterns – who knew my drum major years would come in handy in Honduras?!

I mention the national anthem to you all because when I write, I so often feel like I need to tell you something big, or beautiful, or exciting. But the truth is that the most of the things that are exciting to me, like getting coffee from Dunkin Donuts in La Ceiba or Thursday mail days, are probably pretty normal to most of you… and the majority of my "every-day", like cooking over a wood-burning fire for nearly 30 people or sharing a moment of simultaneous laughter and disgust with my roommates at 2 am because a rat has invaded our room, you might find note-worthy. In the end, though, it’s the little things, all added up together, that make this experience what it is… like standing on top of a desk and singing the national anthem with a sixth grader, for instance, or successfully driving the Landcruiser to Trujillo without stalling, or laying in the hammock in our courtyard with fellow volunteer Sheena at night, reading a book aloud by the light of a headlamp and simultaneously seeing a bright starry sky and fifteen of my closest friends’ underwear hanging on the laundry lines. What a beautiful, strange experience this past year of my life has been.

Being at the Finca is like a marinade, I think. For a little over two years, we sit and stew in this big, bizarre mixture of grace and suffering and resurrection, love and faithfulness and forgiveness and community. Maybe we offer a little of our own spice every once in a while – maybe in the end, the flavor is a just a little different because we’ve been part of it – but mostly, we sit back, and we listen and watch and learn and soak in the flavors of the experience, letting it touch and affect us. Change us. Transform us. And then, in the end, we go, and we are different just for having experienced these things, for having sat with them for so long, for having let their flavors touch us so deeply that they are inextricicably a part of who we are.

Among the things I have cherished from my first year at the Farm is the experience of teaching swim lessons to our youngest children on Saturday mornings. It’s one of my "small jobs," and I love it for lots of reasons – it’s great time with the kids, the ocean is amazingly calm and beautiful in the morning, and it’s pretty much the only thing I do here that I’m actually qualified for – thank you, Tuscawilla County Club, for preparing me oh-so-well to be a volunteer in rural Honduras! :) On Saturday mornings, Jackson, Darwin, Manuel, Jose Pastor, Brayan and Joel grab me by the hands and hold me tightly around the neck, and I ask them to kick with straight legs and float on their backs and blow bubbles. "Erin, venga!" they say – "come here!" they whimper, half-excited and half-afraid, wanting to show me what they can do now that they didn’t even know they were capable of a few months ago. But our ocean is big, and they are small, and when the water starts reaching their necks they panic and grab for me, and I gently whisper, "I’m here; I’ve got you; I won’t let anything happen to you; I won’t let you go." And soon enough, little by little, they realize they can, that they are enough, that there are hands to hold onto and arms there to catch. And little by little, I let them go farther and farther, swimming out into the big sea and discovering all it has to offer them.

My own sea, so to speak, is getting bigger soon. A few months ago I was asked to consider a change in job placement for this coming year, and come early November I’ll be packing up and moving out of this house which is OH-so full of geckoes and memories and dirty laundry and love, and moving to the big city of La Ceiba to live with our teenage girls who study and work there. My role will be "encargada," the ever-ambiguous mix of house-mom, live-in-social-worker, tutor, disciplinarian and friend, to Dalila (17) and Marina (15), and I have no doubt that it will be a year both of blessings and challenges as I learn to "parent" these two teenage girls, sharing in their joys and laughter, and bearing patiently with their moodiness and their silence. Overall, I think the change is a really good one, but of course my emotions are mixed – excited to share life so much more intimately with the girls, and of course to be closer to Dunkin Donuts :), yet scared to be leaving what has finally become familiar and worried that this physical place isn’t quite done with me yet - but I, like the boys to whom I teach swimming lessons on Saturday mornings, know that I don’t go into the big sea alone, that as Teresa of Avila so wisely says, "God is on the journey, too." So I put my hand in God’s and trust the arms to catch, and dip my toes into the water, tentatively at first, but then further and further still, until I see that, hopefully, the water really is fine.

On Friday, which marks the one-year anniversary of my time at the Farm!, things get a lot crazier around here as we welcome 10 new volunteers into our midst, who will add their own underwear to the clotheslines and undoubtedly slowly work their way into our kids’ hearts. There’s beauty in the chaos – so pray for us as the line for the girls’ shower gets a lot longer and we figure out how to cut the weeks’ chicken rations into 30 equal parts. I miss you and love you and think of you often – really, I do – and hope and pray that you are all WELL in the God who says that it is all very good indeed. I would love to hear from you – the new snail-mail address I’ll be using come early November is below, so please update your address books accordingly!

in much peace and joy,
Erin

Erin Ramsey
Apartado Postal #708
La Ceiba, Atlantida
Honduras, C.A.
C.P. 31101

some thoughts on mangoes.

Beloved,

Summertime is well underway at the Farm of the Child. It means kids riding bikes around the campo until dinner in a way that reminds me of my own lazy childhood summers, coming inside reluctantly only when their house parents call “A comer! Time to eat!” It means that God splatters paint on the sky nightly with some of the most ridiculously beautiful sunsets you’ve ever seen – best enjoyed while swimming with a child, or two, or ten. It means volunteers coming and going on vacation, and lots of wonderful visitors, and that the percussion of our nightly prayer is the rhythmical slapping of mosquitoes feasting on sweet-blooded legs, and that we start sweating before we even get out of bed in the morning. But among all these things there is to love about a Honduran summer, there might be one I love most of all – the arrival of mango season.

A few weeks ago, Jessica and Zulena, two of my fifth graders, showed up to school with plastic bags in tow. “Tenga, Profa!” They commanded. “Here – it’s for you!” Peeking inside, I decided that my job has some definite pay-offs – the bags were filled with sweet, ripe mangoes, gathered from the girls’ houses, so many of them I had to give them away before they rotted. (To let a sweet mango go bad – a sin!) Yes, mango season is in full swing, and even if you’re not lucky enough to be under the mango tree when a freshly-ripe one decides to fall, all you need to do is hand the nearest child a big stick and she’ll be more than happy to give it a good throw and get one down for you. Mango season reminds me that we are of the earth, connected to it in such a deep and intimate way that, as an old volunteer put it, we “literally cannot scrub it out of our skin.” It is one of the things I love most about the Farm… that I go to bed at night with dirt still beneath my fingernails, no matter how long I spend washing my hands, that a few minutes standing in the salty water of the Caribbean is the best natural remedy to soothe my mosquito-bitten legs. I wash my clothes in the morning on days when I think the sun can dry them by noon, and gathering firewood that's still slightly damp instead of the good, light kind can mean that dinner might be on the table a little bit later than usual. On a morning that our egg rations had run out for the week, fellow volunteer Keenan got up a little early and ransacked the hen houses so that we’d have some protein on the table for breakfast. And when the power goes out, we put our office work and our lesson plans on hold and enjoy the excuse to sit together and laugh by the light of a few flickering candles. Yes… we live on, with and from the earth, and we cannot be separated from it.

This grounding connection with the earth, these changing seasons, they remind me that time is passing here, that our kids, and myself too, are moving and changing and growing, although it’s not always easy to see in the midst of the dailyness of it all. I see this change in the smallest of ways. For example, Brayan, the Farm’s newest child, has finally learned my name after about a month of calling me “Sara.” (She’s a good six inches taller than me, but we both have glasses… I might be confused if I were seven, too.) Many of my most grace-filled moments this summer have been spent watching him learn to read as he follows along in the song books at church, with his patient first-grade teacher Ryan perpetually and faithfully by his side. After completing the mandatory 6-month waiting period, I’ve taken to the mountain roads in one of the Finca’s Landcruisers as I’ve begun stickshift driving lessons. Watch out, Trujillo! My 6th grade boys now follow up their “Profa, venga!” (Teacher, come here!”) with “por favor” a good 50% of the time without me having to shoot them a loving glance of a reminder that in my classroom, “please” and “thank you” are required. And, wonder of wonders…. Jessica has finally (sort of) learned long division. Day in and day out, they’re not necessarily huge or romantic signs that I’m really “doing” much of anything here. But I am coming to see that there is beauty in the smallness of it all, that I guess it is, as Dorothy Day says, “by little and by little” that we are saved.

The best way to eat a mango – a really good, sticky, sweet, soft mango – is to sink your teeth into its skin, rip away the outsides and literally suck the flesh and juice out of the middle. So I’m putting away my knife and my plate, and the temptation to cut my mango into neat little pieces and politely enjoy it without making a mess, because there’s just something about the experience of really digging in that makes it… I don’t know, more meaningful. And it’s like that with my time at the Farm, too. It’s tempting to try to cut it into neat, clean pieces, to digest it easily and come out with clean hands. But eating mangoes isn’t like that. When you finish eating a good mango, your shirt might be a little stained, and your hands will be sticky, and you’ll definitely need a good floss… but there’s a certain richness in the experience, there’s joy in the journey, and there’s a sweetness in it all. Of course, that doesn’t mean you won’t get a sour bite every once in a while, too. :)

To all of you who so generously offered me your time and welcomed me back into your lives and your hearts during my vacation back to the States in May, thank you. I can tell you with so much honesty that it was exactly the re-charge I needed to come back to the Farm more ready to be here, more alive and myself and really at home. To my amazing friends who made the journey to come and experience this place for yourselves in early June, thank you for your love and your energy and for helping me to see this place, and myself here, with new eyes. For anyone that is thinking of coming to visit, please do!!! On a final note, although I have reached my personal fundraising goal, the Farm is always in need of general funds, and I have a few special personal projects I am actively seeking donations for. If you have interest in continuing to support my work financially, please send me an email and I would be happy to offer some suggestions of ways to help.

As always, thank you for your love, your generosity, and for sharing in all that goes on here at the Farm. Know that you are always in my prayers and my heart. May the joy and the messiness of mango season be yours, too, no matter how far away you are.

with sticky hands and a joyful heart,
Erin

on resurrection

My dear ones,

School got called off early for rain on Monday this past week. I watched as a collective grin quickly spread over the faces of my sixth graders as our school administrator came to my classroom to tell me, in English, that the rivers were quickly rising and soon it would be unsafe to send the little ones home. My students let out a cheer. “Profa, we know what she said!” they told me with glee in their eyes – although their English isn't quite good enough to understand, the wind and rain that had been invading my classroom all day, forcing me to move all the desks into the middle of the room and loan my sweatshirt to shivering students, were tell-tale signs of early dismissal. And so, with laughter, I told them there would be no English homework, and bid them farewell, and watched them run across the school grounds, through wind and rain and storm, scampering away to their houses, some of which would provide them with less refuge from the storm than my two-walled classroom does.

Yesterday I finished my very first quarter as a first-year teacher. I suppose I would sum these past eight weeks up as frustrating, exhausting, filled with laughter and lots of failures and a few successes, a struggle on oh-so-many fronts, but, overall, blessed. First-year teaching, as many of my ACE friends have affirmed, is essentially a fight for survival, an effort to simply keep your head above the water as you are thrust headfirst into something you are completely unprepared for. First-year teaching, I am told, in ANY school, language, or culture, is an incredibly difficult task. But I teach in a classroom that, for all extensive purposes, has two walls, and is the size of my bedroom in Winter Springs, where a squirrel in the tree outside or neighbors buying Coca-Cola at the pulperia next door can be the downfall of a well-planned lesson. I teach in a school where many of my students walk a half hour or more to class each morning, where half of them won't show up on a rainy day because the rivers become too high to cross, where one of my fifth graders missed over a week of classes because she had to take care of her family members who were all sick with malaria. I teach in Spanish, in a school without new textbooks or fancy scientific equipment, where the snack my students receive at recess may be the first thing many of them will eat on a given day. I also, though, teach in a school that is considered the best and most rigorous in the entire northern third of the country, where I spend hours with my students not only in my tiny little classroom but in their houses, on the soccer field or in the ocean, or together in the chapel in prayer, a school where genuine relationships are invited and welcome, where my students have become much more to me than simply my job. From 7:15 am to 12:30 pm, Monday through Friday, I attempt to teach and they attempt (sometimes) to learn, and we laugh and struggle through decimals and the scientific method, and sometimes I lose my patience and raise my voice and want to throw my hands in the air with frustration. Most days seem like a wrestling match, and sometimes I feel pinned down by the weight of what's asked of me, or my seeming inability to really teach them anything at all. But somehow, in the thousands of tiny moments that we have spent together, in spite of all the frustration and my lack of patience, we are building real relationships, and because of that, it's well-worth the late nights and the early mornings and the fact that the fifteen of them consume nearly all of my thoughts and efforts and prayers and energy.

School mail is alive and well at Escuela San Pedro, and my fifth graders always look forward to Fridays when I distribute the cards and letters that have been written for them that week. I, too, look forward to that handful of construction paper which is delivered to me each week, because I generally receive a fistful of cards from my students which always make for a good laugh and are fun to share at the volunteer lunch table. A few weeks ago I received a tiny note scribbled with blue marker on lined paper from Jessica – the same “Profa, six weeks?! That's almost a month!!!” Jessica who you may remember from my last email update, who is now one of my fifth graders and the source of so much of my frustration and joy and headaches and laughter. The card, which I will undoubtedly treasure for years and think pretty accurately wraps up our first quarter together, reads:

“Profa, Usted es muy, muy bonita y muy buena, y, bueno, a veces es enojada. La quiero mucho, Jessica.” (“Teacher, you are very, very pretty, and very good, and, well, sometimes you are mad. I love you a lot, Jessica.”)

Oh, the honesty! :) The truth is that I suppose I hoped it would happen, but I didn't expect that I would love them so much so quickly, that my life would become so inextricably intertwined with theirs so soon. On Saturday night I will stand behind this very same Jessica, and I will watch and pray and probably cry as she is baptized at the Easter Vigil, and I will promise to love her and guide her in faith as I agree to be her madrina, her godmother. Oh, God, you are funny and surprising. I suppose there really is no turning back now. I watch Ana, who is fourteen and too beautiful for her own good, walk around with the neighbor boys who are probably not up to anything very nice, and I shake my head in a very mother-like way and pray that she keeps studying and stays out of trouble. I watch Zulena help a kindergartener tie his shoes, and I see Moises hauling wood to his house after school, and I miss Edwin, the little one with the big ears and the eager eyes who left school one day to go live with his mother who lives an hour away and who will not be coming back. The truth of it all is that my own life is now so intimately, so sacramentally wrapped up in not only Jessica's, but in all of theirs... and it is a very beautiful cross.

There is so much to tell you all from the past few months that I hardly know where to begin or what to say. I could tell you about my vacation with Nelly, one of our oldest girls, to visit her mother over our Christmas vacation, about sleeping with ten people in one room, on cardboard on the ground, because there are no beds or chairs. I could tell you about Roni, Dorfa and Luz, our three newest children at the Farm, and the transformation I have seen in them in their two and a half short months as part of this new family. I could tell you about hosting three incredible visitors – first my dad in January, and two friends from Notre Dame, Kristi and Nick, in March, and what a beautiful gift their time here was to me, and how much it has helped me to see this place with new eyes. There is so much to say, and somehow no words to express it all. But the short of it all is that I can honestly tell you that I think I have finally found a home here, that I truly am doing well, that it is very, very, VERY hard, but that God is good and present and I am learning and growing and dying and rising, so much, so many times, over and over again.

As we enter this most Holy of weeks, I reflect on the Paschal mystery in each of our lives, in our own death and resurrection. Here at the Finca, we enter deeply into the Way of the Cross. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus, and our nurse stitches up the forehead of a child who got hit in the head with a baseball. Simon helps Jesus carry the cross, and an older girl helps a struggling younger student with her homework. Jesus falls the first time; He is down now, and He will fall again. And so do we. But in the end, there is joy, there is hope, there is an empty tomb. We wait with hope because we know what is to come.

Know that I love you all so much, and I miss you dearly, and I am really, really sorry that it has been so long since I've written. I FEEL your thoughts and your prayers and your support, being lifted up and carried across oceans, enveloping me when I have fallen and I need someone to help me carry my own cross. Know how grateful I am, and how often I think of you here. I will be home for my first vacation in May and I hope to see/hug/have a nice long phone chat with many of you then. Until then, may you find, name and celebrate the Paschal mystery in your own life, and know that you are loved so very much from a tiny little two-walled classroom on the coast of Honduras, so many miles away.

In the Joy of what is to come,
Erin

ps: I've posted some pictures of my last few months' adventures and misadventures on my picasa page: http://picasaweb.google.com/erin.ramsey.1

pps: the newest edition of the Farm newsletter (of which I am the coordinator!) :) isn't yet out to print as of this email, but I'm betting it'll be up soon and it is beautiful. When it gets posted, it'll be available online at http://www.farmofthechild.org/scrapbook_newsletter.php

Parent Newsletter - Meet the Vols!

Periodically, the parents are sent a newsletter to keep them up-to-date on the activities at the Finca. Erin has authored this edition:
____________________________________________________________________________

5 January 2010

Dearest us-bearers,

Happy New Year to you from the Finca! After a relatively dry winter, January rains have (finally) arrived in full force, leaving volunteers sloshing around in rain boots, pulling out rarely-used sweatshirts from suitcases under our beds, and avoiding cold showers for days on end (or maybe that’s just me.) I, by the way, am Erin Ramse y, and I am one of the eight bright-eyed souls we call “newbies” who have just weathered our first three months (that’s a fourth of a year!... but who’s counting, right?) at the Finca and lived to tell the tale. Our past month has been chock-full of all the craziness, the absurdity, the grace and laughter and struggle that the Finca deals out daily. We’ve jumped head-first into a Honduran Christmas and New Year, complete with more tamales than any of us would ever really want to eat, plenty of dancing, and a few really beautiful liturgies. Some of us have gotten to experience what life is like in other parts of Honduras as we’ve accompanied our kids on vacations to visit family members or old house parents and inevitably have been offered countless glasses of Coca-Cola, weathered long bus rides with antsy children (no bathroom accidents as of yet!), and entered into the life of the poor in a new way. We've missed our families and friends, felt the giant hole left in our hearts with the departure of the oldies in early December, begun to feel more confident as we've started to fill the large shoes they leave behind, and been blessed with numerous visitors - including the entire Pennino family, the Tooher clan minus two, Kate's sister Emily, and a few long-time friends of the Farm - who always seem to bring us a spark of life, new stories to share around the dinner table, and, if we're lucky, chocolate. We've battled with the rapidly growing rat population in our house (here’s a shout out to Terry Mattoon, whose recently-sent, high-tech rat traps have given us the competitive edge we need on the frontlines), found our clothes molding over from the rains, and continually been graced, blessed and stretched by the challenge of actively loving each other which so deeply permeates this place. It is a difficult call, but we are learning. And it is good that we are here.

I'm not quite sure when the last parent letter was sent, or even to what extent we've all been introduced to you, newbies and middies alike... so, because my community mates, my sisters and brothers, are SO amazing, and in the spirit of celebrating their gifts, I'd like to take this edition of the parent letter to shine some light on just who exactly they are and the tiny ways they fill our home with joy, thoughtfulness and laughter daily.

Sheena - amazes all with her homemade Christmas cards; incredibly willing to say YES to all that is asked of her; quickly mastering the art of cooking rice and beans; thoughtful, spirited, and committed

Kate – shares lovely, in-tune guitar music for all to sing along to; pours out LOTS of love on our littlest ones; amazingly patient; is growing leaps in bounds in her mastery of Spanish; provider of granola bars and lice shampoo to all

Alisha – recently named rat-killing team captain; can spew prices for any Honduran meat and cheese off the top of her head; our fearless newest Landcruiser driver; always up for a great conversation; works incredibly hard behind-the-scenes to make sure the Finca doesn't fall to pieces

Keenan – victim of many practical jokes involving live chickens; singlehandedly inserting the word “absolutamente” into Finca vocabulary; putting in long hours in the school to take the Finca's colegio (6th-9th grades) math program by storm; already taking Finca bailes (dance parties) by storm with his highly-sought-after dance moves; friendly, fun-loving, and adored by our children

Kristina – gracefully leaps over cultural boundaries and builds bridges between all sorts of quirky, beautiful characters who live in the areas surrounding the Finca; first newbie to suffer a jellyfish sting and live to tell the tale; lover of dried fruit and dark chocolate; most consistent Thursday mail recipient; always shares her goodies; reflective, compassionate, and deeply generous

Ted – tests out Spanish slang on anyone who will listen; friend to all Finca animals; loves a challenging conversation, a game of chess, or a good book; most sought after community member in case of clogged toilets/car trouble/getting mauled by bears (don't worry, that hasn't actually happened... yet); spends free time learning to windsurf; smart, reliable, and always willing to lend a hand

Francesca – rocks socks with sandals in an effort to avoid mosquitoes; lights up our house with her frequent laughter; building wonderful relationships with our kids; thoughtful, soft-spoken, and considerate

Erin – newest giver of Finca haircuts to any and all brave volunteers willing to hand over a pair of scissors and their precious locks; battles with the fogon while trying to dream up interesting meal ideas for her community; attempts to manage large groups of children with grace and patience; sings in the shower; joyful, determined, and reflective

Peter – continues to weather the storm with two feet planted firmly on the ground as our fearless leader; named most-Honduran-like community member for his acquired taste of massive amounts of salt and manteca (lard) in food and use of Honduran habits; impressive comedic timing; intensely dedicated, perceptive, well-respected and very real

Beth – inspires volunteer running; cooking/baking guru and teacher to eager novice newbies; always available to listen to our health woes and provide smart, helpful counsel; caring, energetic, and thoughtful

Sara – dynamic storyteller who keeps our dinner table lively with all sorts of funny tales; manages the demands of the social work department with grace; always up for a good talk; personable, helpful, and full of life

Ryan – shows unbelievable patience with our littlest ones; keeps us in touch with the outside world with his knowledge of current events; provider of dryer sheets and Febreeze to all volunteers with molding clothing; kind, funny, and incredibly willing to serve

Quinn – shows incredible commitment to the education of our children; keeps our kitchen sparkling-clean (well, sort of, as much as is possible with unfinished wooden counters) and our spice rack organized; loves to sing and play guitar; dedicated, thoughtful, and considerate

Dan – IS Santa Claus, according to each and every Finca child; recently shaved off the beard which has made him the recipient of Honduran grief since August; keeps us laughing, belly-ache style, with tales from home; positive, hilarious, and encouraging

Jennie Maria – provider of fresh veggies and good coffee to all Ceiba visitors; gracefully acts as house-mom to teenage boys; fundraising and donation-managing guru; embodies hospitality; incredibly generous, intentional, and dedicated

Sayda – our lone Honduran community member who shows amazing patience with gringo Spanish; learning to balance her role as Ceiba girls’ house caretaker with university life as she begins classes this month; provider of ice cream and delicious beans to all who stay in her apartment; kind, welcoming, and a wonderful role model to our Finca kids

Beautiful, bizarre, and totally unique, each of them. How blessed I am to be their sister.

In just over a week our community will take a bit of a twist as we welcome into the grace-filled chaos of life at the farm not only a doctor from the United States, who will be joining us for a few months (welcome, Dr. Jeannie!), but also two new long-term volunteers!! With the arrival of Georleny and Scarleth, two Nicaraguan psychologists that have taken the leap to join our crew, we become a more fully bilingual bunch and a truly international volunteer community. Please pray for us as we prepare to welcome them in, and for them as they prepare to leave their homes behind and enter deeply into all that is life at the Farm. It is a difficult call, but we trust that God is with us, leading and guiding us and working within, around, and even through us to give us the grace to carry on, to love each other and our kids well. We miss and love you dearly. Please continue to hold us in your thoughts and prayers, as we hold you in ours, knowing and trusting that they are lifted up over oceans and meet, dancing together, in God, who holds us all together in Love.

with lots of love
from our humble home to yours,

Erin Ramsey
erin.ramsey.1@gmail.com

Andrea McMerty-Brummer
Director, Farm of the Child-USA

tel: 727-475-4459 (USA); 442-2512 (Honduras)
email: farmofthechild@gmail.com
website: www.farmofthechild.org

"Whoever welcomes a child such as this for my sake welcomes me, And whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me, but Him who sent me." Mark 9:37