Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Merry Christmas!

Well Christmas has come and gone and now we are getting ready for New Years!
It seems I have so much to tell since my last blog entry so lets see if I can limit it to the high lights.

First, lets talk about our diesel van. We now have a gas station with a diesel pump. Unfortunately a few weeks ago his pump broke. So we go see a wonderful man who has drums of diesel fuel in his back yard, and a garden hose. You pull in, tell Phil how much you want and he puts the hose into one of the drums, sucks on the hose and drains out the fuel into a 5 gallon bucket. Then he puts the bucket on top of the oil drum and sucks on the hose again, syphoning the 5 gallons into your gas tank. He does this over again until your tank is full and he knows how much to charge you. A pretty simple operation - until - he says he's leaving for the Christmas/New Years holiday and will be gone for 2 weeks. Thus eliminating our last source of diesel for what will be a very busy time. So I fill up the van, then bring down a 10 gallon gas can and fill that too, hoping it will get me through 2010 and Phil's return. We'll come back to this one.

With Christmas falling on Friday it creates a four-day liturgical series. Thursday night we rejoiced with the Christmas Vigil Mass at the US Navy base, then drove to Cargill Creek for the Christmas Midnight Mass. We started with an hour of carols at 11, then the Eucharistic Service for our Midnight service, followed by the 40 minute drive home. It was 2:30AM when we hit the hay, only to leap out of bed at 7 to grab a bite to eat and prepare for the 8:30 Christmas Mass at Dawn here at St. John's, then drive back to Cargill Creek for the 11:15 Christmas Mass During the Day. We finally crashed at home after our 4th different Christmas liturgies, with 4 different sets of readings and 4 homilies (phew!)
BUT
With Friday's Christmas liturgies done, it was time for the Saturday/Sunday weekend liturgies so we hit the ground running and did it all over again for the weekend.

After our last Sunday service I talked to one of our members whose daughter had just had a baby. One of the things we see alot here is that there are alot of grandparents raising their grandchildren. Their children live on Nassau or Grand Bahama, for work, but when they have babies they return home and leave the babies with their parents so they can go back to work. Ginni and I had gotten to know this family and that this would be the 8th grand-child in their house and none of them have been baptized. With the mother still home with the newborn this was an ideal time to visit so we said we'd come visit on Tuesday (I'll finish that story in a minute).

We headed home, but first we stopped off in Man-O-War Sound and did the first of our sick calls. This first stop is with a sweetheart of a woman. She is in her 90's, blind, and while she can be confused sometimes, she was on top of her game this weekend. We talked a long time before we started to pray and, after she had recieved communion and our prayer was over she gave me a big hug. Feeling my belly she said, "O Faddah, you be da big mahn, Faddah", then turning to Ginni she says, "Sistah been feedin you, Faddah, O yes, Sistah been feedin you". Everyone just about fell on the floor laughing.

From this stop we went to our next, another elderly woman who we've been visiting for several months. In her 80's this woman had just lost her son to cancer and she wanted to talk a bit. During this conversation we found out she had 18 children, 11 girls and 7 boys. When her husband died she was left with quite a mob to raise on her own, but she did it. With the death of her son she has now lost 5 of her 18 children. She'll take the ferry to Nassau on Wednesday to attend the funeral, our prayers will be with her.

Leaving her we finally were headed home to crash - but that's when we had the flat tire. A flat should not be a big deal, but a flat in a 15 passenger Mitsubishi van does bring a level of excitement. For starters, I discovered the lug nuts were screwed on, and then secured with super glue (only kidding, but you get my point). To get them off I literally had to stand on the handle of the lug wrench and then jump up and down until it moved - for all five lug nuts. Once loose, the next step was to jack up the car. (Did I forget to say that Ginni stayed in the van during all this to pray). To jack up the car Mitsubishi, in its wisdom, gave us a teeny tiny hydraulic jack. To reach the axle I ended up lying on my back (still in my Sunday best by the way) and reach past the muffler to position the jack - then slowly - s l o w l y - the jack began to actually move upwards. Eventually the jack reached the axle and the van began to rise. I slid out from under the van, took off the tire, put on the spare, re-fastened the lug nuts - all was well. Except how do you make this jack go down? Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

I could see a little nob on the side of the jack that looked like it fit into the notch in the jack handle, so I reach under the car (after lying on my back once more), and twist the little nob. Instantly all the air in the jack is released and with a rather loud hissssssss, the car lowers to the ground. A bit too quickly for me since I was still lying on my back under the van. Now I know for next time.

So we get home and put our feet up and try to find out how the Patriots are doing. I needed the good news of their victory after BC's loss in the Emerald Bowl.

Today is Tuesday - remember the newborn baby? So after all the driving on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the van has 1/4 tank of fuel so I carry my 10 gallon gas can from the garage to the van and drain half of it into the van. I sure hope I can stretch this out till Phil returns. Then Ginni and I drive back to Cargill Creek to meet the new baby. When we pull into the yard the other kids run out to meet us and lead us into the back yard. There is a small fire smoking up the yard to keep away the bugs. Its burning in an old tire rim and right now coconut husks are smoldering away.

I meet grandma, who is sitting on a bucket. "How have you been?" I ask "I've been very sick, I fell onto the rocks and hurt my shoulder - they took me to the Navy Base to get X-Rays but nothing is broken. I've been hurt for 4 weeks and nobody has come to see me." Well that wasn't the best way to start but we talked, and my VNA nurse-wife was simply wonderful with her. Meanwhile I met the cutest little 1 month old baby girl ever. The kids and mom all got a kick out of my picking her up and cradling her and rocking her - despite her very full diaper.

We talked about the delivery, her little tiny fingernails, her long eye lashes, the kids in a big circle all around Faddah. (Its funny, they call me Deacon and Faddah interchangably, and Ginni is either Sistah or Miss Ginni). Finally we asked the question and I was SO relieved that she decided that THIS baby would be baptized. Then I asked, "and what about all these?" gesturing to the other 7 kids. Here it was grampa's turn to speak "Yes, Deacon, we want all of them to be baptized". Alleluia!

So mommy eventually gets her baby back and takes her inside to clean her up and I pull out a pad and with the grandparents help we get the names, ages, grades, and parents of all 8 kids. Most parents were unmarried, some had several fathers, one set of 3 all had the same father who, we learn, was brutally murdered on Nassau. At one point Ginni said, "We should contact all their parents and get permission" and Grandpa takes control, "Dey left their chill'un wit us, we have no way to contact dem, WE are raising these chill'un, WE be de guardians, WE want dem baptized". It was powerful. It was a moment I'll remember for a long time.

All of the kids were bright-eyed, energetic, enthusiastic kids. I explained baptism to them, and to the grandparents and the eagerness with which they look forward to this was infectious. I am just so happy that this entire family will come forward at Mass in a few weeks and 8 kids from one family, from age 11 to 2 months, will be baptized. What an expression of faith, what a witness to the parish, what a Christmas present!

Enough for now - but there is more to tell - next time I hope to have a few pics of the manger scene outside of the church and the cross atop the church, now encircled with Christmas lights. The story of my climbing on the roof for that one is 'interesting'.