Jolly Junkanoo

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a Jolly Junkanoo to you all!

Junkanoo is a uniquely Bahamian celebration with bands and dancers and floats and the parade goes for hours!  Literally, it starts at midnight on New Years and goes well into the morning hours.  To say the costumes and bands are dressed to the max is an understatement - incredible stuff.

Just as an example - here's a pic of just one Junkanoo dancer - imagine a couple hundred - and that would just be one of many, many bands marching in the parade.

Christmas here was wonderful.  We had our usual full complement of Sunday liturgies and with Christmas being on a Sunday this year it actually made things simpler.  Here is a pic of our altar at St. John Chrysostom, fully decorated for Christmas! 

New Years will be a lot busier than Christmas.  We will have our 6PM service at the AUTEC Base, then a midnight Mass at St. John Chrysostom in Fresh Creek, then we'll have our regular Sunday liturgies beginning with the 830AM for those at St. John who couldn't make midnight, then the 1115 in Cargill and the 4PM up north in Mastic Point.  Its the Midnight Mass followed by the 830 that'll be the killer.

Midnight on New Years here is called Watch Night Service.  Its a British thing where the people want to be in Church to pray in the New Year.  It will start at 11 with carols and the liturgy starting at 1130 and running through midnight.

All in all we continue to grow the Kingdom of God here on Andros and we pray 2012 will be even more fruitful than 2011.  May God bless you all as well

Till next time

An Andros to Kenya connection

Well its Christmas eve eve and we've wrapped up CCD and are preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus here on Andros.  Our last week of CCD was actually a unique one so I thought I would share that with you.

One of the new things we are trying this year has a Maryknoll connection.  Maryknoll is a missionary order of priests and Ginni and I have been getting Maryknoll Magazine for years.  This year they introduced the Maryknoll classroom.  What they offer is a program, at no charge, where they will send a copy of Maryknolll Magazine for every student in your CCD program AND a teachers guide with suggestions as to how to use the articles in a classroom setting.  Well, with the keyword being FREE I had to check it out and so, in DEC we got our first box of 50 magazines.

The DEC issue had a story about a special Children's liturgy held in Kenya.  Over 30,000 children attended from all over the nation and priests, deacons, and bishops joined in for a wonderful day-long celebration of the children of Kenya.  At one point the children were given baloons imprinted with the message 'Pray for the children of Kenya', which they released during the liturgy.  The article described songs and liturgical dance, an offetory procession that included not only bread and wine, but stalks of sugar cane, fruits and veggies from family gardens - even live chickens as children brought gifts from their home villages.

Using this to teach about the 'Church Universal' and expose our kids to the needs of other missionary countries is a new thing for our kids and it went over great.  After the lesson, our primary school students cut out paper baloons with the same message the children in Kenya had used.  Then we took pictures of the kids and emailed them to the bishop in Niarobi.

Here is a pic of our class in Cargill Creek with their ballons.

Here is a closeup of the ballons - hope you can see the message.

A few days later I recieved a response from Kenya and when CCD resumes I'll be sharing it with our kids.  What a hoot.

Ginni and I have a friend who is a Dominican priest now serving in Kenya so for kicks I sent him an email with the same pics, explaining how we came to do this.  He replied asking who that old guy with the white beard was sitting with all the kids?   Everyone here in Cargill Creek knows - its SANTA!!

A few days later our friends at the AUTEC Navy Base hosted their annual 'Winter Wonderland'.  Its always great to see Christmas lights decorating palm trees. 

I especially like the Live Nativity that is part of the evening.  I read the story of the shepherd and the angels from the Gospel of Luke and as each is introduced children dressed as shepherds and angels join Mary around the manger where a baby is lying.  This year we had a 6 month year old baby with his Mom and Dad.  Its not the best of pic of the live nativity, but you get the idea.   This pic of the palm trees gives you a better idea of our Bahamian Christmas on AUTEC.

Finally, in my last post I said I wasn't sure if we'd have a priest for Christmas - well we will.  A priest from Serbia is studying at Boston College and has offered his service to the Archdiocese of Nassau and we are the lucky recipients of his generous offer.  What is so cool about this is that he is living at St. Columbkille's in Brighton, MA.  That is the first parish Ginni and I lived in when we first got married!  Small world.

I hope to post some Christmas pics in my next post - until then.

Deacon F.

Home again

Well we are back on Andros! WE - get it? Ginni is here too!

Gin left for most of November so being back home TOGETHER is a treat.

Thanksgiving was wonderful and it was fantastic to see all my old friends at St. Timothy's once more. Being up on the altar at the 9:30 and 11:00 Masses once again was very special.

The trip started with Thanksgiving in the Hamptons where my sons Joe and Mike live. Our oldest, Matthew, flew in from Houston with his wife and son as well so it was the first time all three of them have been together for awhile.

This Thanksgiving was extra special in that we me Mike's 'special girl', Catherine, and her family invited our family to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. Once we all sat down there were 28 of us. We brought the turkey and some veggies, and they provided even more veggies and desserts and let's just say nobody left hungry and we all carried home leftovers!

I must say that, coming from the mission field in the Bahamas, spending a week in the Hamptons was a bit of a culture shock. Everything there was elegant - absolutely over the top. Even the trip I took with Mike to the hardware store made me shake my head. Absolutely everything you would ever need is right there - no waiting for the boat to bring it in at all! While Mike picked up what he needed I was able to get a masonary bit for my drill back on Andros. Now I can fix that hurricane shutter that was ripped loose by hurricane Irene. (Getting a masonary bit like this usually means a trip to Nassau).

The day after Thanksgiving Catherine's parents invited Ginni and I for dinner and it was great to finally have time for just the four of us sit and talk. We had a wonderful time and look forward to getting to know them better over time - if only via the internet and email.

After a week in NY we headed back to Canton, MA and every minute of out time was booked. We had lunch and dinner with friends almost every day and took an overnight trip to NH to meet with new tenants for the cabin up there. There was also the do-to list of things needing to be fixed that got done.

Coming back to Andros was not uneventful. We got in on Friday and we were scheduled to do an evening Benediction at the Navy base - only to find that the van's battery was dead. So I pushed it down the hill to try to start it by popping the clutch, but to no avail. So one of the people on the base came and picked us up, we did the Holy Hour, Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and Benediction then he took us home, promising to come back the next day to jump the battery, which he did.

That next day we learned our toilet was broken - and I didn't have the right tools - so off to my hardware store to learn they didn't have any wrenches right now, but they could be on the boat on Wednesday So - Saturday evening we start our weekend liturgies and by Sunday morning the tail pipe on the van disconnects from the muffler (don't ya love it). We still did all four weekend liturgies but the van was a bit louder than normal.

Suffice it to say, I am writing on Wed, the boat from Nassau is on the horizon - one of our parishioners welded the tail pipe back onto the muffler, and we're almost back to normal.

This is exam week for our students here, after which they have a 3 week Christmas break. We have had two CCD lessons already this week and two to go, then it'll slow down a bit. Christmas is huge here with Junkanoo being a major celebration. Marching Bands dress up to the hilt and the competition is fierce. Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnival in Rio has nothing on Junkanoo in the Bahamas. I will definitely try to post pics -- its a two day parade if you can believe it.

Next week we go to Nassau for our monthly clergy meeting and it couldn't be better timed. I am so low on consecrated hosts that I will be bringing a ciborium and tapping the Tabernacle at the Cathedral once again. I hope I can stretch what I have to get through this weekend. I know that I cannot count on having a priest for Christmas so I need to replenish on my own.

Well, enough for now, I gotta go meet the boat and see if the wrenches made the trip.

Till next time - please keep us in your prayers.

Deacon Frank

Going Home for Turkey

Well on Monday I will be flying home for Thanksgiving but its been run run run to get there.
One thing we discovered a few months ago was that the Maryknoll Fathers have created the Maryknoll classroom for CCD programs. After checking it out and talking with them we decided to give it a shot here in the Bahamas.

Maryknoll publishes a bi-monthly magazine telling stories of their missionary priests, sisters and lay missionaries all over the world. They will send you a copy of the magazine for every child in your program and age-appropriate teachers guides explaining how to use the articles in the magazine for your class.

The first box of materials arrived this week for the months of November and December so I rolled it out to all our classes this week. Oddly it was the younger Primary school children that took to it, while the older Confirmation class found it difficult to grasp.

In either case it exposes the children to the "Church Universal" and the realization that the church on Andros is the same church in Bolivia! It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few months.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day here as we try something else that's never been done. Every year the High School has a "Career Day" where they invite the major employers and the College of the Bahamas to come to the school and the students get a chance to see the opportunities (and challenges) that await them. It struck me that we should host a Vocation Table at this event and when I proposed it the High School jumped at it - and so did the Vocation Director for the Archdiocese AND the Nassau monastery of Benedictine Sisters.

So - tomorrow I will meet the morning plane from Nassau and we will be off to the High School for what should be an interesting day. Keep it in your prayers - this is our opportunity to plant a few seeds and see what happens.

I started this post by saying I was going home for Thanksgiving. Monday morning I will start that journey - which means I have taught my last CCD lesson and my last RCIA class for 2 weeks! With that said this weekend will be crazy busy. I already said it starts with an all day Friday Career Day - then its the 4 liturgy weekend, but this weekend is special for a few reasons

First, its the Feast of Christ the King so our parish in Cargill Creek will be celebrating their patron with cake and soft drinks.
Second, it is also the day we perform the Rite of Acceptance for our RCIA candidates, indicating their willingness to proceed, and our parishes willingness to accept them as candidates for full communion with the Catholic Church so two of the four liturgies will have this special twist. Third - since I won't be there for the next week I need to set up each church for the First Sunday of Advent, meaning prep for the visiting priest (even though it could be a Deacon), and set up the Advent Wreath (et. al.) in all the churches, etc. The local sacristans will change the altar cloths to Advent purple but I'll need to remind them for sure. Suffice it to say it will be a busy day.

Just to spice things up, I also have a contractor doing a major upgrade to the church windows while I am gone. The south side windows are so eaten away by the salt air they no longer open and some panes of glass have fallen out. We're replacing them with double hung windows with less moving parts, which will be an improvement. Funding for this effort is courtesy of our parishioners who were so generous in support of the annual Archdiocesan appeal. By exceeding our goal to the extent they did we had over a thousand dollars returned to us from the Archdiocese and that refund will pay for the new windows - Alleluia!

All in all we are incredibly busy and the Thanksgiving break will be a nice breather before the Christmas rush.

Please keep us in your prayers
Deacon Frank

Its been almost a month

Hello again-

Sorry for the delay in blogging but life gets in the way. Actually, right now Ginni is back in the US getting in some nursing time. We are still without a tenant to rent our NH property and so, to continue getting what we need to pay mortgages, insurance, taxes, et al on the property we cannot sell in this economy, Gin needs to put in a month or so from time to time, and its time.

With that said, that leaves me to do CCD alone - not my favorite. Gin and I have done quite alot in the church but teaching children had never been one of them so we're learning what works and what doesn't on the fly.

One thing that we tried this year was to invite the Director of Youth Ministries from the Archdiocese to join us for a Day of Renewal with our Confirmation class. What made this a challenge is we involved all the kids from all 4 faith communities to come together so we had kids from Fresh Creek, Cargill Creek, the AUTEC Navy Base, and one from our newest community in Mastic Point from the northern part of the island. Let me tell you, some people just have the gift for dealing with kids and Jay has it. It was an all-day Saturday session and he brought his laptop and a projector and we had games and videos and talks and work projects - all in all it was a great day and we hope to do it again sometime after the holidays. Here is a pic of me helping some of the kids with a project. Jay is standing at the table behind me

working with another group of kids.

Since my last post we seem to have the diesel situation under control. The local station is still unreliable, and my friend who sells it out of his backyard has taken a step away from that so, when we can get it, I fill the van, another 5 gal gas can, and two other drums so I have a backup. Right now both my friend and the gas station are out so I have used the gas can and put one of the drums into the van this morning. The gas station hopes to get diesel on the WED boat. If he does, on THUR I will fill up my drums and the van and I should be in good shape. If he doesn't, then on FRI I'll drive north for an hour where there are multiple stations for me to re-stock. It is a pain, but its island life. If you can get it, great, if not do without. Unfortunately diesel is something I can't so without so when I can get it I hoard it a bit.

Something you may find interesting is my recent run in with more local residents of Andros that I didn't realize lived here. I think I told you earlier of my run in with a tarantula. Well that has to be superceded by the recent scorpion encounter. What made this interesting was that it took place in our living room, not in the great outdoors. This invader simply ran out from under the TV Table and headed right at me in a perfectly straight line. Gin had been reading a book on the sofa and if I hadn't seen it my guess is it would have taken up residence under that sofa - but I did see it. I yelled, 'scorpion'! and jumped up, grabbed a sandal, and smacked it. Gin looked up and said 'what?' and I said it again, then swatted it again. Incredibly - inside the house! Here is a pic next to a quarter so you get some perspective on size.

On the mission front, in addition to the 40+ kids in CCD I have 4 people in RCIA. Two have just started and 2 who started last year but, for a variety of reasons, had to take time off. If all goes well all 4 will recieve sacraments on Easter. We have been blessed to have been able to bring new people into the church as converts to Catholicism every year we have been here.

Lastly, our efforts to build a new church up north is progressing. The Architect thinks that the old church might be able to be restored so we hired a builder and he put a team of Haitians together with machetes to go clear the land around the old building. Once cleared he is less confident than the architect that the walls are stable enough. It turns out that 50 years ago they built with whatever they could get their hands on - conche shells, lime, sand, etc. While plentiful they were not that stable. So, they build walls 2' thick that could support the roof and be stable. Today, there are building codes and, after clearing the land, the 2' walls have deteriorated to the point we'd have to add something on the top and what remains at the bottom would crumble once we started. So while I would love to restore the old building, restoration in this case would cost more than new walls. I hope to have some costs soon so when I return home for Thanksgiving I might be able to solicit funds from friends and relatives. Keep this one in your prayers, we have had no Catholic Church there for over 40 years and the Catholics have been going to Anglican, Methodist and Pentacostal church since there is no Catholic church. We have a community of about a dozen who come to the Primary School for church on Sunday afternoons but I think once we put a sign up and start building that number could triple.

Pray for this effort, it has the potential of bearing much fruit.

Till next time.

Diesel and Voodoo

Well hello again - I knew that once CCD started my time would be scarse, and I was right, so the blog has suffered a bit.

Our newest experience has to do with diesel - or the lack thereof. I have told you that I have been getting my diesel from a local man who syphons it out of old oil drums and fills my tank. Well the local gas station has started carrying diesel and, since they rent their space from my friend, he asked me to stop using him as a source and start using the gas station.

So I fill up, no problem and off we go running errands, driving kids from CCD, etc. When, while half-way to Cargill Creek for Sunday services the van starts bucking and coughing and stalling and, in the middle of nowhere, this is not good. This is also a sign of bad diesel fuel. I have actually helped out a member of our church who was stranded once because of water in the diesel (a common problem here). It turns out that underground gas tanks are metal and metal tanks filled with diesel can get water in the fuel by simple condensation that takes place as the tanks are emptied. It seems anyone with diesel (but me) has experienced this problem and the only solution is to drain the tank and put in new fuel. So anyway, I nurse it to the church in Cargill and start setting up for church when, without my knowing it, one of the members takes Ginni's keys and goes off to pick up people in Behring Point who have no cars. So we wait and wait and wait, and eventually he returns with a bus load of people. "Deac, you got a problem mahn, der be water in da tank or som'ting".

So we have church and the people from Behring Point all hitch rides from other people and I nurse the bus back to Fresh Creek. Once home we call the people up north telling them we can't come to Mastic Point, but I have no way to get any message to the Haitians so I know they were just standing there in their church clothes all afternoon - what a bummer.

Now that I am home, what to do? So I gather up empty gallon water jugs, get a long hose and prepare to suck the diesel out of the van using the hose as a syphon. Well after about 10 minutes its clear this isn't going to work because the piple leading to the gas tank curves and then leads into the tank and my hose won't make the turn. So I crawl under the bus and try to follow the gas line to see if there is any other way to get the bad fuel out when I notice a drain plug on the tank. So I jack up the bus and crawl underneath it. I find the drain plug and unscrew it and diesel starts flowing into my old water jug, then the next, then the next, then the next - until I fill all 5 jugs and screw the plug back in.

Now I pull out my reserve diesel fuel that I save in plastic drums for use when a hurricane knocks the gas station (or my friend) out of diesel. The backup has saved me before and once again it will do the trick. Once I am about half full I take it for a spin and all seems well.

So I curse the gas station and call my friend saying his tenant gas station is selling bad diesel and I would really like to start using him again. He apologizes but doesn't have any diesel himself right now. So I sigh and start ferreting around for other sources of diesel on the island.

Later that afternoon - cough, spit, cough, stall, and the problem is back. Someone asks how old my diesel was that I had pulled out of the garage and I, quite frankly, didn't know. Can diesel go bad? Maybe, especially if condensation or rain got into the drum I had used.

So, once again, crawl under the van, jack it up, drain the fuel (did I mention the stinging ants that live here - they don't appreciate Deacons laying in the grass under his van one little bit). So for a second time I take a spin after draining the tank, but this time there is no difference.

My only choice now is to ship the bus to Nassau and bring it to the dealer. This is something I have avoided using local mechanics to do oil changes, filter changes and regular maintenance. Then I have the bright idea of going to one of my members who drives the local school but. That is diesel and he maintains it. So I drop the bus off with him - but this is where it gets interesting.

When I drop off the bus he says, "Deac, come with me" and he leads me to the front of his house. I really have no idea why we're taking this little stroll until he says "Deac, do you see this hole?" and there is a small circle about 6" across where the earth was recently turned over. Then he says, "See that one?" and points to another spot about 8' away, and then another and another. He tells me that he came home from work that morning (he works nights at a 2nd job) and he noticed the first one right in front of his front steps and then discovered they completely encircled his home. During the night, someone had come and dug these holes, filled them with some kind of white powder and pennies, then covered them up. When he found the first one he dug it up to see what it was and that's what he found buried in each hole. The only explanation, Voodoo. It turns out this is a common hex, or curse, supposedly anyone who steps on the buried pennies will become penniless.

So - I take some time to belittle the curse, explaining that Jesus is stronger than any hex and he believes in Jesus, "Yes Faddah, I believe in Jesus, I know this is bad but Jesus keep me strong". It was a rather interesting 20 minute conversation to say the least. Then I had to go deal with his wife who had her own fears on this topic, but she too was convinced nothing would come with it - but could I come by tomorrow with holy water?

Anyway - after that bit of excitement I walk home and he starts work on the bus. The next day is Monday and we need the bus to transport kids home from CCD. Monday morning, no bus, I wait as long as I can, still no bus. I end up calling someone from Cargill who works in Fresh Creek and he offers to take the kids home if there's no bus - and there wasn't.

At eight that night I hear our bus pulling into the yard. "Deac, it wasn't the diesel, and it wasn't the fuel filter - there is a 3rd primer pump filter hidden on the other side of the bus that looks like it never was changed - it was totally plugged with goo". He had found the problem.

Alleluia - Alleluia - Alleluia -- with that I feel more comfortable with the diesel from the local station and we are back in business. Hopefully we have de-bunked the Voodoo business as well and nipped that one in the bud, but I'd love to discover who is digging holes and filling them with pennies.

One last new thing on our plate has to do with crime. Violent crime is out of hand here, we are a nation of 350,000 with a murder rate, after 9 months, of over 100. That is an incredibly hi number if you study murder statistics. The local government has a firearms amnesty program for the month of OCT and the Archbishop has asked that all Catholic Parishes be a drop off point for illegal firearms if their owners are fearful of dropping them off at the police station. So, while nobody has visited us yet, should anyone want to deliver illegal firearms to us, we will take them and get them off the street and then deliver them to the police station ourselves. Just one more interesting twist to ministry in the Bahamas.

Keep us in your prayers - we sure can use them.
Till next time.

Just an update for you all

Hello my friends -
Well things here are starting to ramp up.

Our new AA group is meeting at the Fr. Gabriel Roerig Parish Center on Saturday mornings and it seems to off to a great start.

Our CCD program seems to be pretty well set and, when you add in RCIA, bible studies, Adoration, . . . our week will be very full. All of this will crank up the first week of OCT.

Next week we will be travelling to Nassau for our monthly 'Pastoral Day' where all the clergy of the Bahamas come together for a day of prayer and community. This one will be unique in that the Archdiocese of the Bahamas is implementing VIRTUS, an educational program for clergy and those that work with youth about protecting children. This is a program the Archdiocese of Boston implemented years ago and I have already taken the class twice - but I'll be doing it again here. Nassau has not had any cases of clergy sexually abusing children but this will do a good job of educating us about the issue and protecting our children.

Usually when we go to Nassau for this meeting we stay Wed-Fri and enjoy time away and get some shopping in for those items we cannot get on Andros. This will be a Tue-Wed trip however because of other things on our schedule. For example, when we did RCIA last year we had two women who have crazy schedules. The result was that when Easter came around they were months behind in their classes and we felt it best to defer their acceptance into the church. So - all summer long we have been doing make-up classes to catch them up. Then we have 3 new people who want to begin RCIA this year. So we will have the new people on Mon night and the catching up people on Wed night. The end result is we do the Mon night class, fly to Nassau Tues morning, shop on Tues, attend the Wed Pastoral Day, then fly back to do the Wed night class. Run, run, run.

The following week CCD starts so our weekly schedule will be
Monday afternoon - grades 7-9
Monday night - RCIA for those from Fresh Creek
Tues afternoon - grades 10-12 (our confirmation class)
Tues night - RCIA for those from Cargill Creek
Wed afternoon - grades 1-6 from Fresh Creek
Wed night - RCIA makeup from last year
Thurs afternoon - grades 1-6 from Cargill Creek
Friday - we saved for ourselves (except for 1st Fri Adoration and Bible Study the 2nd and 4th Friday evenings and a need to do homily prep for the weekend)
Saturday should be finalizing the homily prior to the Saturday weekend liturgy
Sunday is full with 3 liturgies from 8AM until 4 PM

It will be interesting to get back into all this after taking a breather over the summer
Keep us in your prayers.

On a lighter note - fruits and veggies on Andros seem to come in all at once. What I mean by that is you will have weeks of Mangos - and nothing else, but Mangos are everywhere. Then its cabbages, then sappodillies, then onions, etc. You get swamped with gifts of that one particular produce, from everyone (and I do mean swamped). Right now its avacados - they grow them huge here and they call them pears. These avacados are all delivered, sold, or give away, rock hard. They are inedible - but a week on the window sill and they are delicious. The problem is that you go from zero - to 12 really ripe avacados all at once. And the gifts keep on coming.

When we first arrived here 3 years ago I planted a pit near a sea-grape plant that was on its last legs. The sea grape is long gone but the pit took root and is now 3-4' tall. In another year or two I will be picking my own avacados!

The same thing happened with a mango pit - although I think this pit was just tossed aside by one of our children. It landed under a bush by the front of the church and now it is taller than I am!

My last bit of news is related to the community in North Andros. The Archbishop has given us permission to build a chapel there called Our Lady of Hope. I did some research on Our Lady of Hope and found the National Shrine to Our Lady of Hope in the US is in Tewksbury, MA. It turns out this was a devotion fostered by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI). Coincidentally, the OMI's used to be located at St. Jean de Baptiste parish in Lowell, MA - the host parish of St. Joseph High School for Boys on Merrimack St (where I went to High School).

I sent them an email explaining what we are doing and they sent a packet of prayer cards and booklets explaining about the apparition of Our Lady of Hope in France. We have distributed them to our local folks and I will be giving some to the Archbishop when we see him next week. God is amazing!!

Next week I will be meeting with contractors to try to get a sense of how much a simple chapel would cost to build - nothing more that 4 walls and a roof. The community in No. Andros has already donated enough to clear the land and put in the foundation but we clearly will need to do a development campaign to add those four walls and a roof. I'll let you know what I find out.

Enough for now - keep us in your prayers
Deacon Frank Tremblay

AA on Andros!

Well surprise surprise - two blog entries in two days - this is a record!
With Ginni away I just had to tell someone about my morning and today you, my blog readers, are the lucky ones.

This morning is rainy and overcast but, true to form, our local homeless man limped his way up the driveway for his daily sandwich. I had given him a Maryknoll magazine we had for something to read and he sat on the porch watching the rain and eating when a car pulled up.

I went out to meet whoever it was to find it was Ernie - an employee at the AUTEC Navy Base. He had a bahamian man with him and a 3-ring binder. It turns out that Ernie is active in the Alcoholic Anonymous group at AUTEC and he'd been coming off-base to meet with this man who had just started his road to sobriety. They had been meeting in a park, then in a local bahamian home, but today the home wasn't available, and with the rain, neither was the park and he hoped he could meet on the porch.

I told them they were always welcome to come here to have the meeting, but with my other friend eating his sandwich I thought they needed more privacy than this area and invited them into the rectory to use the screen porch. They gladly accepted and spent a little over an hour there.

When they were done I made a point of telling them that if they EVER needed a place to host an AA meeting for the Bahamians we would be very open to being a place they could meet. Ernie jumped at the offer and said, "OK, how about Saturday's at 9:30". So it looks like we are now blessed to have the first and only AA meeting on Andros! I couldn't be happier.

Then, Ernie looks at our homeless friend and invites him to come too! Now this fellow has a definite issue with rum and drugs and when he asked what AA was I explained that it was a meeting for people who had problems with rum and a way to help stay sober. He actually said, "You know, I could use dat Deac" and Ernie laughs (turns out Ernie knows him only too well).

Drugs and alcohol are a major problem in the Bahamas and on an island like Andros there are literally no resources to address the issue. If the established AA group on the Navy Base really is willing to come off base and conduct a Saturday morning AA meeting at our church it would be a great beginning to something that could make a very real difference.

Keep this one in your prayers - till next time.

Another week without Ginni

Well its been two months and finally Ginni is due back next week Wednesday, less than a week. In that time she's missed a baptism, a funeral, a hurricane, my first encounter with a tarantula, lots of work planning CCD, and yesterday my newest Bahamian experience - a camelion frog.

Yep, a frog that actually changes colors to match his (or her) surroundings. Now frogs are very common here, but to see one huddled up on top of a white bench we have in an open patio - and to see the frog also be totally white, well that was amazing.

Ginni has our camera else I certainly would have taken pics of this guy (and the tarantula) to share with you all. During her US trip she was going to visit our newest grandson so she HAD to take the camera for that.

On the spiritual front, tonight we are going to try something new at our monthly First Friday Adoration services. Instead of my doing a short reflection we will sing the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. This should be interesting since those that attend the Holy Hour are somewhat musically challenged. I trust that God will understand and accept what we offer.

While summer is a slow time for me here this month is crunch time to get ready for next years religious ed classes and RCIA. I have been cranking on the laptop to put together a curriculum for the High School and the Primary School kids we will have. We estimate that this year we will have almost 50 students. Before she left Ginni and I decided that since we have no 1st communion kids this year that we would use the parables to teach the Primary School kids about the life and teachings of Jesus. For the High School kids, however, it will be Confirmation year so our classes there will have to cover the doctrine they will need to learn. Suffice it to say its alot of material to pull together. Doing this without Ginni also has the risk of her coming back, looking at what I've done, and say, "Gee - did you forget about ---", and she'll be totally right and I'll have to re-work it. For now all I can do is keep plowing away and we'll see what happens.

A complication we always have is primary school. There is only 1 High School so we can grab all our kids off the bus as it passes the Parish Ctr and do them in one class. The Primary Schools are spread all over the island so we have kids in at least 4 different schools over a wide geographic area. Planning how to pull them together when some parents don't have cars, parents work, schedules don't cooperate, . . . With minimal to no parental catechists.

Once Ginni returns the planning and scheduling of our classes will be a big one.

Well, enough for now
Keep us in your prayers

Funerals and Hurricanes

Hello again - much to share so let me get right at it.

Since my last post I have been awakened by early morning visitors at my door several times. The first was at 4AM when someone came to tell me that I was needed at the clinic because someone had died. I threw on some clothes, grabbed a prayer book for this type of situation and 15 minutes later I walked into the clinic, which was packed!

It seems that at 2AM this man, a known asthmatic, knocked on the door of the doctor's house, told him "I be dying" and collapsed. Once at the clinic they tried resusitating him, but to no avail, the asthma had been putting a strain on his heart for years and this attack would be his last.

When I arrived the crowd literally parted like the Red Sea and I walked straight into the examination room (there is only one) and, surrounding the gurney were his family and closest of friends. I began to pray spontaneously, then opened the book and read the Rite in praying over the deceased. After prayers they took him to the morgue amid much wailing and crying from the crowd.

I stayed for a little while, but this was a Saturday night (now Sun morning) and, having an 8AM liturgy, I left to try to get a bit more sleep (unsuccessfully).

Here in the Bahamas when someone dies on these remote islands they ship the body off to Nassau since we have no morticians. Usually the funeral is 2 weeks later, always a Saturday morning.

I helped the family plan the funeral and it was clear to me that since he was only in his 30s this would be a huge event - I was not wrong. Every seat in the church was full, I added 8 pews I had in storage to an open patio area we have outside the church and that filled up, then people stood outside peering in the windows. During the service, once again there was the Bahamian wailing and crying and falling down and fainting and screaming and it was clear that he was much loved by all. After the formal funeral service we walked (in 97 degree August heat) to the cemetery. The herse had gone to the cemetery to set up the awning over the gravesite and, with such a huge crowd, the herse could not get back to the church. The church parking lot was full, the driveway, both sides of the street leading to the church - absolute grid lock - so the pall bearers carried the casket out the church, down the driveway to the street, then placing it on the gurney we rolled the casket all the way through town to the cemetery with the entire church walking behind us singing away. Quite the send off - Bahamian style!

The second early morning visitor was knocking on my door a few days ago at 6AM. Their teenage daughter was sick and they needed a place to stay until the clinic opened at 8. She was running a temp and doubled over with cramps. Now, I should explain that Dengue Fever is rampant on Nassau and she had just visited there. This is a mosquito born virus that is quite nasty. Hundreds of cases have been confirmed, 3 have died, and the estimate is that the number of actual cases is in the thousands. We did our best to keep her comfortable, not an easy task, and eventually they left for the clinic. They returned a few hours later en route home to tell me the doc had given her a shot for pain, but all they could do was let it run its course. Island medicine can be a challenge.

As you know, this week hurricane Irene has decided to visit the Bahamas and I have been in prep mode all week. The US Navy has evacuated AUTEC and I put up over 50 hurricane shutters on our house and the church and just when I thought I was about done, with only 3 windows to go, discovered that the frame the shutters connect to was missing on one window. I found the frame in the garage and, although it was bent and rusty and stashed away because it was a wreck, I was going to have to use it.

What complicated this is that it was the top bracket of a window using 88" shutters where the window sill was about 6' off the ground. I have no extension ladder so I took my step ladder, leaned it against the side of the church, climbed to the very top step and, holding my drill over my head, drilled the pilot holes for the screws into the concrete wall - not an easy task. Then I repeated this on the other side of the window for the 2nd screw. Balancing on the balls of my feet I then had to screw in the screws (again over my head into concrete). Suffice it to say the screws did not cooperate and each took quite awhile to penetrate the cement. Once done I hoisted the hurricane shutter into place, to find I had hung the bracket 1" too low and the shutter wouldn't fit. So, up the ladder again, take out the screws, take down the bracket, drill new holes, screw new screws to get the bracket in place - all the while balancing on the topmost step of this ladder leaning precariously against the side of the church, while Irene is sending me the early waves of 30 MPH gust, lightning, and the occasional gale of rain which caused me climb down and wait for it to pass. Finally done, the shutters up, I called it a day after 12 hours of getting the shutters up on the church and the rectory. I was pooped!

Today the storm is nearer, it is a constant 40MPH wind with gusts to 60 but the storm itself has veered to the East. It will still do a number on the Bahamas but my island should be spared the most destructive force of the storm which will be here tonight, tomorrow and finally leave the next day.

Gotta run - till next time.

Emancipation Day on Andros

Well its been a month already since my last post - time sure flies!
Today is the first Mon in August which in Emancipation Day in the Bahamas. In 1834 the British Empire freed all slaves and outlawed slavery. It would be 30 years later that the US Civil War would decide this issue for the US.

There are alot of things that have happened over the last month. Ginni has had to return to the US to finalize agreements with our new renter in Canton get some nursing in to replenish our funds after several months with no rental income. God bless her!

We had our meeting with the Archbishop for our annual review. It was a wonderful meeting with the Archbishop spending over 2 hours with us. We reviewed a wide range of topics and he approved our work in North Andros, authorizing us to start work to build what will be the only Catholic Church in North Andros. He even told us that it should be named Our Lady of Hope Chapel! So last weekend I went north and told our people there the news. They have already donated almost $2000 - enough to clear the land and put in the foundation. We will see how it goes. Summer is actually a tough time to do any development work. Most people have left Andros for friends and family in cooler climates. Even our Haitian friends up north have left so we will see how this effort progresses but we are thrilled with getting the Archbishop's blessing.

One thing that is kind of related to this is that the Bahamian government is requiring we have all church lands surveyed. This has resulted in my learning about church land sprinkled across Andros. It may be reasonable to consider selling a plot or two in order to raise the funds to build Our Lady of Hope - time will tell what happens with this one, but the idea that an entire new faith community might spring up from our work here is exciting.

Along those same lines, about a year ago a priest visited us from Providence RI. It turns out when he was in the seminary the Archbishop was his classmate! Well, he was taking a class in FL and, being so close to the Bahamas, he called his old classmate and they had a bit of a reunion when the Archbishop invited him to take the short flight from FL to Nassau. After visiting for about a week the Archbishop asked if he'd like to help cover one of the remote parishes over the weekend. He said yes and, since we were long past-due in having a priest, he spent that weekend with us on Andros. Well he saw what we do and the need for priests here in the Bahamas (it had been a L O N G time since we'd had a priest). He heard Ginni and I talk about our ministry here, some of the adventures we had experienced, and he met the Bahamian people. Well - he's back.

During our meeting with the Archbishop he told us that Fr. Doug would be returning to the Bahamas long-term. Ginni and I looked at each other and just about jumped out of our seats. He is a wonderful priest and we could not help but feel we played a part in his making this decision. After his visit with us we kept in touch via this blog and he, and his parish, were very generous in supporting our renovation of St. Gabriel's Church into the Fr. Gabriel Roerig Parish Ctr.

Fr. Doug will be on Long Island - a remote island much further south than we are. There is a Bahamian Deacon there already and they have 6 churches needing coverage so Fr. Doug will have his hands full. Keep him in your prayers. This year on Long Island is a year of discernment and it could extend beyond this year - we sure hope so.

Just to give you an idea of our need for priests - we have not had a priest here since Easter (yes that was April and we are in August and there is no shot of our getting a priest for awhile yet). I went into the weekend not sure if I would have enough hosts but I made it by the skin of my teeth. I will need to fly to Nassau this week to get more consecrated hosts. Fr. Glen, the rector at the Cathedral has been very generous openning his tabernacle for me whenever we get into this situation.

With Ginni gone and no CCD I have some time on my hand until I began to work on what we will do next year for CCD. Next year should be a Confirmation year for us (confirmation is a 2 year program here). So I have been working out schedules and classes for primary school and then the secondary school Confirmation Program. I have a ton of work to pull this all together, right now I have a skeleton and now I have to put the meat on the bones.

This past weekend I was blessed to baptize a 4 year-old boy visiting his Grand parents on Andros. Grammie and Grampie wanted him baptized and, after getting permission from his parents in Nassau, I had a Baptism-prep class for them and the God-parents, then on Sunday I filled my conche shell with water and we welcomed in one more member of our Church.

Finally, I think I should mention the heat. I know alot of you in the US have been sweltering in the heat of summer but this is 'wicked awsome hot'. I did 3 liturgies on Sunday and literally soaked through all my clothes with sweat each time. So 3 liturgies, 3 changes of clothes - I was so ready for a shower when the day was done!

Well, enough for now - please, please, please keep us in your prayers.
- Peace

Vacation, Independence Day, and back to work

Well its been a month since my last post, delayed primarily by a 2 week trip to the US, so let me try to catch you up on things.

My last post was after an angina attack that put me in the hospital for a few days, followed by the Vicar General's direction I should do nothing for a week or so. So, that's what I did. Once we were back on Andros with new medications and a relatively clean bill of health we got a surprise email from one of our tenants saying that things were tight and they didn't think they were going to be able to make their rent so - they were leaving in 2 weeks. Despite having a lease committing them thru September they were simply abandoning thier lease and leaving.


While this was a shock, it was complicated by our having told the other tenant that since they had been unable to make their rent payments we were exercising our option to ask them to leave (they were a tenant-at-will month to month renter). So - while I was to avoid stress and take it easy, all of a sudden we had no tenants renting our home and that income was how we paid the mortgage, insurance, taxes, etc. We had tried to sell the house prior to starting this ministry but, due to the housing market, were unable to do so and we rented it. Now we still have the financial obligations but with both tenants leaving we are in a financial bind.

So Ginni headed home to deal with finding new tenants and get in some nursing to make a few dollars. We had planned to take a few weeks in June to go home for my nephew's wedding, but now our trip had double duty - the wedding and the house. Originally it was a one week trip to go to the wedding but now I had to arrange coverage for two weekends here in Fresh Creek because of this renter situation. In the 3 years we have been here I have never been away for two weekends in a row but the Archdiocese assured me they'd find coverage and I was to deal with the problems at home.


A week after Ginni left I followed. The tenant who left on two weeks notice had left, but had left alot of personal items behind, while the tenant we had asked to leave was still packing up. The house was in chaos but we were able to clean one apartment and begin showing it to possible tenants pretty quickly. With a few possible tenants on the hook we sent off their credit info for credit checks and then took the vacation we promised ourselves we needed.


Ginni had traded a timeshare we have for a week in the Berkshires and it was great to be back in that part of the country where I grew up. I grew up in Pittsfield and we stayed in Lee. What a difference from the dry flat tropics of Andros. Here were green mountains and hills, lush green seemed everywhere, while the rain had yet to arrive in Andros and our grass literally crunched under your feet there. The first 3 days we drove thru back roads and visited my old house; Bear Town State Forest, where I used to camp; and used the putt-putt mini golf and pool at our resort. Later in the week it rained a bit so we visited the Norman Rockwell Museum, a local winery, the National Shrine of Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, walked the grounds of Tanglewood, and even rediscovered the old ShadowBrook Jesuit Seminary (now a Yoga Center). Ginni and I met on a retreat at ShadowBrook when Ginni was at UMass so it was wonderful to see the place again.


With the rain persisting we left a day early to deal with the house and spent a day following up on possible renters and cleaning before leaving for my nephew's wedding and an overnight stay in Lowell. A high point of this trip was seeing our newest grandson again. I hadn't seen Leo since the winter when he was only a month or two old - he's a different little boy now at 6 months old. Sitting up by himself, smiling and rolling over he will be a handful once he starts crawling! What a cutie. The other high point was our son Mike brought a date to meet the family. A scary step with my family but one she handled very well. Mike has been dating her for several months and he is smitten - time will tell where this leads.


Anyway, now its back to the house and finally getting the upstairs tenant to come and remove their belongings. We also hired a friend from St.Timothy's who works as a contractor to come and fix a long list of items needing repair who made great progress while we were in the Berkshires and at the wedding. One thing we found was that, with the housing crisis, alot of people looking to rent are people who have lost their homes by not being able to pay their mortgage. Consequently, the credit checks are all pretty horrible. We finally settled on one man who was divorced, but liked the larger apartment because it gave his kids a place to stay when visiting on weekends. His credit was just as bad as the others but his mother was willing to co-sign and her credit was great. So we do the final meet the day before I have to fly back to Andros, his mother signs, I sign, and Ginni and the tenant were to sign a few days later when he would bring his security deposit and the 1st month's rent. So, I fly home and when Ginni meets with him he can't come up with the money and his mother really doesn't want to loan it to him. So that falls through and we are back to square one interviewing tenants.


Ginni has to return to Andros and currently our friends are showing the apartment and collecting Rental Applications and sending them off to the credit check company, who email the results to us. Doing this from the Bahamas is a royal pain, but we have no choice.


Anyway - when Ginni returns I meet her in Nassau and the next day it is my followup appointment with the Doctors who treated my Angina attack. All the test results were fantastic, I have no coronary blockages at all, 100% clear, and the drugs have my pressure down - all is well. The Dr that did the MRI says I have arthritis in my neck that will continue to cause me discomfort but no heart issues. So I can resume life and get back to work.


With the Dr's under control we fly back to Andros and Ginni has her first day home in about a month. Of course as soon as we get home the power goes out, the water pressure drops to zero, and the heat and humidity is through the roof. Eventually power returns, we unpack settle in, and Ginni goes to take a shower. First, she runs into a 3" spider crawling up the shower curtain, kills it, turns on the water - and there is none. She takes a bird-bath in the sink and comes into the bedroom. She turns on the lamp on her nightstand and it flickers so I suggest it needs a new bulb. She goes and gets a bulb and when she comes around to her side of the bed she says, "OH, Oh, Fire!" and I see that the extension cord from her lamp to the outlet had split and now it is spouting sparks and fire. Well she unplugged it and we cleaned the scorch marks off the tile and replaced the extension cord, then climbs into bed - that was Ginni's first night home.

So the first week back has been uneventful but July 10 is Bahamian Independence Day and so on Saturday, July 9, after our normal Saturday liturgy at the Navy Base, I head over to the Queens Park for a ecumenical prayer service led by all the clergy here in Central Andros, followed by midnight fireworks. Since we were away I didn't have any particular role other than being present on the stage - until the moderator realizes they need to fill about 10 minutes before the fireworks and she turns to me and say into the microphone, "before we end tonight why doesn't Deacon Tremblay come share a few words". So, thrust into the spotlight, I do an impromptu talk about to be truly Indepent, we need to be Dependent upon Jesus. Then remembering last week's homily about our being yoked to Jesus, I took off on how the Bahamas has done exactly that, explicitly stating in the Constitution that the Bahamas are a Christian nation. I guess it was pretty well accepted, I got a few AMEN DEAC's from the crowd and I filled the 10 minutes without embarrasing myself.


Next week we will be helping ANCAT, a local conservation group, with their summer camp for youth. Our new Parish Ctr will be a gathering point and our van will be a resource to get campers from point A to point B, but we will benefit from learning more and more about the the flora and fauna of our island and they teach the kids. It will be a busy few weeks but an opportunity to learn and share the faith a bit when opportunity presents itself to both the kids and parents.


Summer time is also a time for us to begin planning next years CCD curriculum and we will begin doing makeup sessions for 2 women who were in our RCIA program and had to withdraw due to work requiring literally all their time. If we can catch them up in July and August, they can resume in Sept and receive the sacraments next Easter! PTL!

Another item coming up is our annual review with the Archbishop. We will have been here 3 years in Nov (imagine that) and when I sit down and list all we did last year in preparation for this meeting I am amazed at what we were able to do. CCD for 57 children, RCIA, funerals, baptisms, restoring St. Gabriel's church, a parish mission, . . . the list just goes on and on.


I want you to know that WE know, without you and the Holy Spirit we would probably have been sent home after the first year. Your prayers and support are a major reason we've been able to do what we have done - THANK YOU.
So - until next time

Not Quite a Heart Attack

Well as you can tell from the title of this blog entry we have had some excitement here.
While driving North to Mastic Pt on Sunday for our 4th weekend liturgy I began to experience chest pains. I thought it might be heartburn and ignored it - even asked Ginni for some TUMS. After the service it persisted and I asked Ginni for a 2nd TUMS on the drive back. Throughout the night it persisted and when I went to lie down the pain from my chest thru my should blades was so intense I had to sit up. Gradually, I was able to lie myself down and had a fitful night sleep.

While it was better the next morning it was still there so Ginni loaded me into the van and we headed off to the clinic. The local clinic does not have a ton of high tech equipment but they do have an ECG machine and that showed I had 'right branch blockage' and the DR recommended I go to Nassau and have a blood test. (Blood tests can tell if there has been heart damage). So we go to the bank, get out some money, pack a bag and head to the airport to get the last flight off Andros. Once we landed we took a taxi to Doctor's Hospital for the bloodtest. They took my blood alright, and then did their own EKG. The next thing you know I am in ICU with 4 IV's and a machine doing my blood pressure every 15 minutes.

The next day, with my blood pressure normal and the pain gone they wheel me to the Cath Lab and insert a catheter in an artery in my thigh and push it on up into my heart to see what they can see - and the good news is they could see no blockages, nothing at all wrong with my heart or arteries.

The cardio doctor explained that I experienced 'acute unstable angina'. Angina is what happens when the heart muscle isn't getting enough blood. Now the question is why. Usually its a blockage, but I didn't have any. It turns out in 2% of angina cases it can be caused by smoking, or drinking, or stress, or drug abuse, etc. In my case, the 4th liturgy of the day may have done it but I actually enjoy the long ride thru Andros to get to Mastic Pt so who knows. Bottom line is I am on drugs for hi blood pressure and chlorestoral and all is well.

I was kind of blown away by the love that just flowed over us throughout this experience. The Archbishop came to the hospital and prayed over me. The priest Ginni stayed with during all this showed up with the holy oils and gave me the sacrament of the sick (I now have recieved all seven sacraments). The Vicar visited as well and made a point of telling me I was to do no work at all this weekend. So, while I am on Andros, its rest, rest, rest. Saturday we will have a visiting Deacon do all our liturgies and I am on the bench (which is driving me nuts).

So, after getting back on Andros, the phone has been going non-stop with people telling me how much they were worried and how much they prayed and how glad I am well. To say that this outpouring of love was overwhelming is not overstating the case. I feel totally swaddled in the sincere love and concern of all these people and it is the most affirming, uplifting experience you can imagine.

Enough for now, I hear Ginni driving the van into the yard and I don't want to get in trouble.
Peace

Water

In past blogs I commented on the fact that the quality of water here is pretty bad. In periods of drought it is worse (which is what we have now). We have a water filter outside the house that is connected to the water main that feeds the residence, but it still doesn't feel safe to drink.

Anyway - the way our water filter works is that it does its job just fine, but when it is clogged with goo it basically just stops letting water flow into the residence. So our cue that its time to change the filter is when you go to take a shower and the water starts strong, fades, and eventually stops. Last night it started as a fade so it was a bird-bath wash up in the sink using our reserve water bottles we keep under the bathroom sink.

This morning I walked down the hill to the street and turned off the water main, then came back up the hill and disconnected the water filter, pulled out the old one, slipped in the new one and hooked it up again. Then, back down the hill, turn on the main and back up the hill to make sure everything was screwed in tight and nothing was leaking.

You would think that at 8AM this was a pretty easy job, and it was, but at 8AM it was already in the mid 80s so when I came in and Ginni gave me a hug it was, "Oh my, your shirt is soaked, did the filter spray you?" I didn't have the heart to tell her it was soaked thru with sweat at 8AM.

Anyway, she was happy that she could now flush the tiolet and do a load of laundry (Ahhh, the simple things of life).

Gosh its hot

We have had a day or two in the mid80's with a great sea breeze so it has been wonderful - then a front came thru yesterday morning with lightning and thunder and about 20 minutes of driving monsoon-like rain. It only lasted about 20 minutes, but when the sun came out all that water went right into the air so now its low 90's with 80% humidity - talk about oppressive!

Then, to add to the heat, one of the many abandoned homes we have here mysteriously came ablaze and burned to the ground. The AUTEC fire department sent their pumper but it was a woodframe house that had been sitting in the sun for several years so it went up like straw. Nobody was living in it so nobody was hurt, but now we have this smoldering source of smoke that is filling the air, and will continue to for another day or so.

With the heat, tempers get hot and we have more occurances of domestic violence here. I have been asked to intervene in two different family situations, which can be a bit dangerous. Most recently our local alcoholic friend who visits us daily for a drink and a sandwich appeared with a bandage on his arm. It seems he was helping a local man feed his pigs and, when they returned late, the man's wife asked him why they were so late. He told her they had to stop in a particular town for gas and she went balistic - it seems her hubby has a sweetheart in that town and she turned on her hubby with a vengence. It was then that that hubby started beating our alcoholic friend with a broom for telling his wife where they went. The wire wrapping of the straw at the end of the broom sliced his forearm open as he was defending himself - thus the bandage. I'll need to pay that family a visit later in the week too.

With the heat growing we know summer is near. I announced that our CCD classes will end at the end of the month, which will give us a bit of a break (Amen), but we will be working with a local conservation group this summer to teach some of the children conservation activities they can do to help preserve the pristine environment we have here. We did this last year and it was great fun for the kids, and for us. We also learned alot about the eco-system here and we look forward to learning more this year.

As we continue to reach out to new people we have had success with a few families who had been practicing Catholics, but haven't come for the last 4-5 years. What we are finding is a whole group of 2-3 year old children that have never been baptized. Speaking with these folks it is clear they all consider themselves Catholics and they want their children baptized - especially if the child is a handful. More than once I have heard the mother say, "Oh Faddah, des chillun need da water Faddah, dey be bahd Faddah", and the child is sitting there looking up at me with these big brown eyes, as cute and innocent as you can imagine. So we talk, they get to know me and we get to know them, and eventually they show up on a Sunday. We talk some more and eventually they come to me with God-parents who are Catholics that received Confirmation and we plan a little Baptism prep class. It doesn't sound like much, but this type of evanglistic outreach has resulted in quite a few baptisms.

One thing I am noticing is that unless we go to the home and seek out these 'unchurched Catholics', they would stay at home and we'd never know they were there. Once we know where they are, AND we go to them and sit on the porch and talk - THEN there's progress. One step at a time.

Finally, one last bit of news is that Saturday is our church picnic. A Pentecostal minister has a small fishing lodge that he is letting us use Saturday afternoon so we should have some fun in the sun, people showing up with food and drinks and, like scripture says "Everyone shared what they had in common". We did this a year ago and it was a big hit - hopefully this year will be the same.

Till next time.

Easter and beyond

Well I cannot believe I haven't posted since Palm Sunday.

Suffice it to say we had a very busy Holy Week and Easter. Last year, once Easter was finished, we didn't see a priest again for 4 months dramatically complicating our First Communion children who were looking forward to First Penance and First Communion. Consequently, this year we decided to do First Penance and First Communion during our Easter services, which were fantastic.

Fr. Bill Martin, once again, travelled from Vermont to be with us for Holy Week. Fr. Martin is a retired Air Force Chaplain who enjoys staying at the AUTEC base. He is also an avid fly fisherman so whenever he's not in church, he is wading in the surf looking for the elusive bonefish - and Andros is the bonefish capitol of the world!

We did 4 Palm Sunday services to kick things off, then I had a few days to prepare for Easter. This began with preparing for the footwashing on Holy Thursday (we only did one of those with all parishes coming together for that one). Then there were 3 Good Friday services (Fr. Martin did the one at AUTEC and did two, one at Cargill Creek and Fresh Creek. Then it was off to build the fire pit for the Vigil, prepare the candle that St. Timothy's in Norwood, MA had graciously donated, set up for an enlarged choir and prepare the oils for those who would be baptized and confirmed at the Easter Vigil. Oh, and don't let me forget that during the afternoon, we did a First Penance Service for the children.

When Fr. Martin saw the fire pit and the driftwood I had accumulated he commented that wood that has been saturated in salt water doesn't burn that well, creating a bit of anxiety for me, but when the fire was started it was the best we have had here. Literally, flames were 3'-4' high and it went off without a hitch. My singing the Exultet - not so much. Practicing that 5 minute solo was great, but real time my voice cracked once or twice, c'est la vis!

For me, the high point of the Vigil is conveying the sacraments on my RCIA candidates (yes I said MY RCIA candidates). We had 4 people in the program this year but 2 had missed so many classed due to the demands of their job we decided they should wait - but the other 2, a husband who was baptized and confirmed, and his wife, who was confirmed, were literally beaming! Then, 4 children joined them and all 6 recieved their first communion.

The Vigil took about 2 and a half hours and then on Sunday we were at AUTEC for an early morning Easter Day service, where another child recieved First Penance before the service, and then First Communion during Mass.

After AUTEC we headed south to Cargill Creek for another Easter Day service where, yet another child recieved First Penance before the service, and then First Communion during Mass.

This particular service had another great event for me, one of the children from the community at the northern end of Andros in Mastic Point was baptized and recieved First Communion. I was so thrilled to see the fruit of all those hour-long drives up north bearing fruit in this way.

So - Easter was a hit! He is risen, yes He is truly risen!

After Easter the Archdiocese has its annual Clergy Retreat, so I packed up for a week in Nassau and Ginni headed back to the US to get in some nursing time (late rent from our US tenants is creating a financial challenge for us). She should be back mid-May.

I can honestly say this was the best of my retreats here in Nassau. It is my 3rd Easter retreat and this one was quite good, focusing on the role of Clergy, our ministry, our call, how we work together (or not) - very real-world practical material from a Fr. Ron Knott from St. Meinrad's Seminary in Indiana.

Now that I am back on Andros (sans Ginni) it is CCD prep all morning, and CCD all afternoon. I do have a few marriage prep/baptism prep/RCIA sessions to fill my evenings - and then there is the ever-present need for homily prep, writing up the parish bulletin, Sundays' Prayers of the Faithful, and the financial reports - all those behind the scenes things that need to get done to keep the place running.

Well, enough for now - please keep us in your prayers - till next time.

Happy Holy Week!

Well I just came in from going out with my machete to chop palm branches for Palm Sunday and it made me realize I hadn't posted here for a few weeks, so here we go -

First off, you cannot imagine how much I appreciate the support staff at St. Timothy's during Holy Week. Music issues and liturgical planning issues are all screaming through my head while, back in Norwood, a team of dedicated folks deal with all these details. Not so here on Andros, let me tell you. Cutting my own palms is just one of many details.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me try to catch up on a few things that have happened over the last few weeks. First is Jr. Junkanoo. I may have mentioned this before but we finally got our cable back that allows us to download pics from our camera so I wanted to share these with you. Junkanoo is usually a Christmas Mardi-gras like celebration and it is huge here. In the sping the children all over the family islands have Jr Junkanoo competition with costumes, bands, floats -the whole nine yards. Here, for example, are the junknaoo drums that have been set out in the sun so the goatskin can stretch and create a better sound.

These are actually old garbage cans, and oil drums that have been decorated with actual real goatskin stretched over the top. We have 2 in our church as part of the music ministry!

Here is an example of one of the floats.

You cannot imagine the amount of time and energy it takes to make one of these. Put about 20 kids in home made costumes behind the float, with drums, horns, whistles, cowbells - all dancing up a storm and you begin to get an idea of what Jr Junkanoo can be. Add about 10 of these floats and the party can go on for hours.

Leaving Jr Junkanoo for a moment - I have told you that CCD pretty much dominates our mid-week workload. All the support we got from home helped us to restore St. Gabriel's church in Calabash Bay and we have been using our new Fr. Gabriel Roerig Parish Center for classes.

Here is a pic of the building mid-construction

Here is a pic of our first Marriage Prep class that we held at the Parish Center. We've come a long way baby!

Most family island parishes send their engaged couples to Nassau for Pre-Cana. Its a real feather in our cap that we were able to do our own class locally. Having done marriage prep for several years at St. Timothy's in Norwood gave Ginni and I a wealth of experience that we were able to put to good use in this class.

Most recently, the Archdiocese of Nassau just held its CHRISM MASS. This is the liturgy where the Archbishop consecrates all the holy oils that will be used over the next year. Here is a pic of the consecration that gives you a nice view of the sanctuary and the crowd of priests and deacons around the altar.

Here is a pic of the recessional with your's truly in procession. What was a treat for me at this liturgy was that I was selected as one of the Deacons to bring up one of the oils and present them to the Archbishop for consecration. It was a honor to be asked and I was thrilled to be involved in such a way at such a sacred moment.

Well, enough for now, this will be a crazy week for sure. We will welcome new Christians with baptisms during the Easter Vigil, and bring others into full communion with the Church through Confirmation. This year we will also do First Penance and First Communion during Easter so it will be a joyfilled day. (We learned to do First Communion early when, last year, we didn't see a priest on Andros for 4 months after Easter!)

Pray for us - we certainly need it! Till next time

Beyond Busy

Well my friends you cannot imagine how many times I have said, "Oh I gotta put this in the blog" and yet I haven't had a minute to blog - literally.

Lets see, where to begin - well, ever since Ginni returned (and she is already planning her next trip to MA), we have been booked solid, with not a day to ourselves. This is primarily due to our scheduling our first pre-Cana program. We have two couples who want to get married. One is a Bahamian couple, the other a couple from the AUTEC base where he works, while she is still finishing college in the US (FL). This complicates life since, he cannot attend the 10 week series in FL and for her to attend it here, she needs to fly to Andros.

After talking to both couples it was decided that the best thing to do to cover all the material was for us to do two all-day Saturday sessions. It would be a challenge, but she committed to flying back to back weekends from FL to Andros - so we had a plan. Now all we needed to do was build a pre-Cana program.

We spoke with the Archdiocese of Nassau and got a clear understanding of their requirements, then we talked to the parish in Florida and got a list of what they needed to satisfy the requirements of their diocese. Using material we had brought with us from the Marriage Prep program at St. Timothy's, and a six CD set provided by the Archdiocese of Nassau, Ginni and I put together six presentations, and we folded in the six CD's, to come up with a pretty comprehensive program. We were able to get another Bahamian couple to join us for discussion groups and we were good to go. It went off without a hitch and we got a wonderful picture of us all but now we cannot find the cable that goes from the digital camera to the PC so showing you those pics will have to wait.

Now, while all that sounds nifty, you cannot imagine the amount of work putting all that together was, plus keep doing our regular 4 CCD classes, RCIA, and 4 weekend liturgies. To say we did not have a minute is no joke.

Bottom line - we pulled it off, but it meant two, very full, 7 day weeks with no break BUT IT GETS BETTER. In the midst of all that we had a death in the parish. So, while preparing and presenting, we were dealing with a family in mourning and the planning of the funeral.

In past blogs I have mentioned the grandparents raising 7 grandchildren. It is a difficult situation and we are trying our best to help this family in so many ways - everything from food packages to proctoring exams when we learned one girl had been kept home to do chores so often she missed final exams. Well - a year ago Grampa died and it was a very emotional funeral. The death that surprised us all now was Grammie, who died of a sudden stroke.

So our plate runneth over. The funeral was this past Saturday and, after planning it all out with the family, coordinating the vigil and the funeral with the mortician (all morticians here are in Nassau so we had to plan details like shipping the body back to Andros on the ferry). And the elephant in the room that nobody is discussing is willing to discuss right now is what will happen to the grandchildren. Will their mothers take them back? Will the adult children of Grammie and Grampa who are here (all unemployed) suddenly become responsible. Pray.

To describe a Bahamian funeral is not something I think I can do in this blog. Suffice it to say there is emotion. Family members were crying, wailing, falling on the floor, and more. I had 3 surprises during this funeral. First, our representative in Parliament showed up. I think he was there because this family was a major supporter of his party, not because he was particulary close to Grammie. Second, well after the service had begun, the Anglican priest comes walking down the center aisle of the church, in his vestments and comes into the sanctuary and takes a seat. I was blown away! Unannounced, he just arrives. Suffice it to say he did not have a speaking role during the funeral but I MUST talk to other Bahamian clergy to see if this is the norm here - do clergy just show up at funerals of other denominations here? It was not something I would ever have guessed was possible but I guess it is.

The third thing was the most scary. I said Bahamian funerals can be emotional - well we are at the cemetary, the pall bearers have the casket over the hole. It is supported by three straps that are connected to a mechanical gear that, when cranked, will lower the casket. There are 2 pall bearers on each side and one at the head of the casket. Well, the cranking begins, the casket begins to descend, and the pall bearer at the head of the casket, her son, yells "Oh no mama don't leave me" and dives onto the casket - yep, right on top of it, spread eagle! Well the straps at his end of the casket give way and thank God the other pall bearers were still holding on otherwise it would have come crashing down. It took a good 15 minutes to pry him off the casket, all the while screaming and crying. Not an experience I look forward to repeating.

So Ginni and I are going into our 4th week without a break and we're a bit tired, but now Lent is upon us and Ash Wednesday is looming. I will do 3 Ash Wednesday liturgies, one at each church and the final one will be an Ecumenical service at the Anglican church, with me preaching. Last year we hosted, now its their turn. I actually just had a phone call from the Anglican priest wondering what I was doing for ashes. It turns out that, although he is hosting the service, he has neglected to do anything about actually having ashes to distribute - so he wondered if I could provide them. Fortunately I had asked parishioners to return last years' palms for burning to make ashes and I have an impressive pile. He wondered if he could have them by tomorrow! So tomorrow morning I will be burning palms.

Did I mention Jr Junkanoo in all this? Junkanoo is a Christmas festival where local groups make floats and costumes and have bands and dancers and all march down Bay St. on Nassau and are judged. It is a MAJOR BIG DEAL here. Well, the local Minister of Youth and Culture pulled together Jr Junkanoo competition for the primary schools of Andros and, somewhere in the midst of everything else I described, we had a Jr Junkanoo competition here in Fresh Creek. Again I got some great pics that I will post the day we find the lost cable. It really was quite impressive. All the children, the teachers, and adult volunteers did a fantastic job. We saw the start of the competition and 3 of the 7 groups, but had to leave to get back to the rectory to teach our RCIA class (you can only double book yourself so far).

So, right now Ginni is leading choir practice and instead of writing an Ash Wednesday homily I decided to take time out and get something onto this blog for you all. If you can believe it, there is more, but enough for now.

Pray for us. PULEEZE Pray for us.

Another death and our 1st Pre Cana Program

Hello All - well this week we flew to Nassau for our monthly clergy meeting and actually had a great time reconnecting with all the other Deacons and Priests in the Archdiocese.

Just prior to leaving we learned of the death of a parishioner. She had a stroke and was airlifted to Nassau, then later died in the hospital there. This ill be an emotional funeral with much wailing and crying but it will be awhile for this family to get themselves together. I'll share more about this in another post.

Right now Ginni and I are putting a ton of energy into putting a Pre-Cana program together for 2 couples preparing for marriage. Thank God we worked on the Marriage Prep program at St. Timothy's - without that experience we would be up a creek. We actually are creating a bit of a hybrid program combining alot of what we did at St. Tim's and using a 6 CD set recommended by the Archdiocese. It really is a very well done series of talks on human sexuality and marriage that, when combined with the practical components of marriage prep really results in a good program. So Ginni and I will deal with topics like Expectations, Adjustments, Communication, Finance, etc. and we'll let the DVD deal with sexuality then jump in to deal with all the questions that come up. We plan to fit all this into two very full Saturday's - starting the day after tomorrow!

While this is dominating our time right now we are still teaching 4 CCD classes and RCIA so it is run run run - hurry hurry hurry - Oh, did you look at the readings for Sunday yet? sigh.

We had a priest on New Years, but not since, so while we were in Nassau I picked up more consecrated hosts to hold us over until we know a priest is coming. Before you know it our kids will be ready for First Penance so we hope a priest will visit us within the next month or so.

Enough for now, I will stay in touch
Peace
F.

Snow, sleet, freezing rain (and other storms)

Well as I watch CNN from the rectory here on Andros I can see that the snow up north just keeps coming and coming. I really feel for all my friends and family dealing with 10-15" of new snow, plus sleet and freezing rain with temps soon to drop into single digits. All the while here it is mid 70s during the day and 60s at night.

With that said, in the summer they will enjoy 80 degree temps while we melt with temps over 100 and are forced to scan the horizon for hurricanes. Look at it this way - when you have a storm up north you shovel it and life goes on -- if we have a storm down here, we may have to rebuild our house.

Anyway - while I bask in the lovely Bahamian weather I am dealing with a variety of other storms. The violent crime here continues to escalate with 12 murders in January to start off the new year. At this rate we will clearly set another record in 2011. It is a concern for me because I have a few family situations that are beginning to become potential sites of domestic violence.

One woman has asked me to help her get her son out of her home. He is a drug user and has become increasingly more violent in his outbursts. I dropped by unexpectedly and we were having a chat under a mango tree when he returned yesterday. Not knowing I was there he came around the corner, clearly irritated about something but backed off when he saw me. What gave me pause was the 2' machete he was carrying. His mother and siblings saw him, their eyes got big and he began to say something to one of the kids when I stood up, stopping him mid-sentence. Seeing me and just nodded in my direction saying, "Faddah", then turned and left. It is clear that I need to do more here but the level of social services and police support is minimal so it will be a challenge.

On another front, one of my CCD kids has shown up with what look like cigarette burns on his scalp. I spoke with a nurse in town and she said that there is a scalp fungus they are seeing in school children and she has a free shampoo to address it if I could get the boy to the clinic. It would also be a way to evaluate if it is the fungus or abuse. After speaking with the mother about the fungus and the free shampoo she promised to take the boy in. I learned later, however, that the mom showed up at the clinic to get the shampoo, but didn't bring the boy. So that is still something I'm concerned about.

Ginni remains in the US getting in some nursing time (between the snow storms). One of our tenants have left and, lacking that rental income, we need the extra money to pay mortgage, insurance, taxes and water bills on our home up north. Clearly it would be better to sell them but the real estate market is still pretty poor so we are stuck in the landlord-tenant mode in order to pay the bills. We are hopeful she will be able to return in another week.

This week includes the feast of the Presentation (when the infant Jesus was brought to the Temple in compliance with Mosaic Law) and a tradition in our church is that on that day all the candles to be used in church over the next year are blessed (Christ is the light of the world so we use this feast of His presentation in the Temple to bless our candles). Since our parishioners can be on boats fishing, or off island, or working - rather than having a special liturgy I did a short Candlemas service at the beginning of all our liturgies on Sunday. It seemed to be well recieved and I was glad I could do something to make the liturgy a bit special.

Thursday is the feast of St. Blase, so while I blessed the candles at the beginning of our service, at the end I invited all who wanted, to come forward and have their throats blessed. It was quite the liturgy (all four of them).

Speaking of 4 liturgies, last Sunday after our 4th liturgy, I was driving the Haitian man home who has been attending services with us in Mastic Point. I asked him about the return from exile of ex-president Baby Doc Duvalier to Haiti. I was shocked to find out that he, and just about all Haitian people are thrilled he has returned. They're very happy he has returned from exile and are confident he will not go to jail but will be eventually elected President of Haiti once more. His english is poor so I couldn't really get much more out of him as to why he was so well recieved - other than the fact that when he arrived, and his limo was driving to Port a Prince, Baby Doc was tossing money from the limo windows - I guess that is one way to get a political following in a country ravished by poverty. Nobody is asking where that money came from in the first place. Time will tell where that goes.

Enough for now - please keep us in your prayers - especially for those family situations I'll be dealing with.

Peace

Back on Andros

In my last post I asked you to pray that the 2' of snow in Boston wouldn't impact my flights back to Andros and it clearly worked. All my flights were on time and today it was mid 70s all day long while I know Ginni was wrestling with sleet and freezing rain .

I have had a few experiences in my first week that I thought I would share with you. I arrived late Friday and found out about 3 deaths that took place while away. Yes, one was another murder in Nassau. A school teacher who is related to the owner of the local grocery store was shot and killed while away. Our parishioner was clearly upset and called from Nassau to tell me she wouldn't be in church Sunday since she was going to be dealing with this. While we live in an 'island paradise', crime and violence in Nassau is out of control.

One of the local addicts is someone that frequently visits the Church looking for a sandwich or a soda. We have some history with this man, not all of it good. He has a history of committing robberies in town and most people have shunned him. On occasion he has taken advantage of our generosity and I've had to cut ties with him more than once. It has not been a good relationship, but eventually we reconcile (until the next time). There is clearly a pattern.

Anyway - his mother is one of the 3 deaths I mentioned earlier. She died in the hospital in Nassau and, since the family doesn't have the money to ship the body back to Andros for a funeral, the funeral and burial were in Nassau - which meant our friend had to go to Nassau. Coincidentally, the church where they held the funeral was the Cathedral - a rather impressive venue to say the least.

So, this morning I am praying my Morning Prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament and from behind me I hear "Deacon, can I come into the Church?" Well I wasn't expecting that in the midst of the dead silence of my Morning Prayer so I jumped about 3 feet, but then told him that, certainly he could come in. (You must realize that in the 2 years we have been here he has come to our front door to ask for food almost daily - but he has never set foot inside the church).

So he comes into Church and sits in the back and I continue Morning Prayer and I hear the pages of a missalette being turned. It struck me that here we are, together in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Me, the Deacon, with my prejudices about this man, and he, the addict, having just lost his mother, sits in silence just a few pews behind me. Ahh, the unifying presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

After about 5 minutes I hear the phone ring in my office and, since I was actually expecting a call, I went out and left him alone in Church while I took the call. When I came back he stood up and we talked a little. His experience in the Cathedral was moving and he knows he does bad things, but asked if I thought it was OK for him to come back to church. He knows some of the members might give him a hard time, but he wants to try. He also asked if I thought it would be OK for him to go to confession the next time we have a priest. Well, this was like a wave crashing down upon me. I am thrilled he has had the experience he has had and I really do hope he shows up on Sunday. I do know that some of the local folks will ask me if I know what I am doing since 'clearly he is only here to case the joint' (I've heard that before). But if there is a glimmer of hope that he is serious, it is worth the risk.

After we talked, he asked if he might have a sandwich and, since all I had was peanut butter and jelly - he took it gladly and was on his way. Keep Herbie in your prayers.

Now then, let me tell you about that phone call. Arnie had called a few days earlier asking me if I could find the baptismal records of his father. He thought his Dad was born in the early 1920's in Small Hope, which would take some researching on my part so I took his number and promised to call him back. Well his number was a cell phone and calling cell phones on Andros can be an adventure. In the Bahamas you buy your cell phone and then buy phone cards. You enter the phone card number into your phone and you have that much credit for your phone. So you can get a $20 phone card and use $20 worth of phone calls - when you have used all your minutes your phone is busy if anyone calls. So, you guessed it, after I find Arnie's Dad I call his number and I get that rapid busy that says to me that he has no minutes and all I can do is hope he calls back - which he did when I was praying Morning Prayer with Herbie in the back row.

So I take the call and explain what I had found and he was thrilled and asked if he could come get a Baptismal Certificate of his father's baptism and I said "Sure, why don't you come over around 10AM" Fine, all set - I figure Small Hope is the next town he shouldn't have any problem getting here by 10. Well 10 comes and goes, 10:30, 11, around 11:30 there's a knock on the door and its him. We talk a bit, I give him the Certificate, and he explains that he is trying to prove his Bahamian Citizenship. There is no record of his birth (the keeping of Birth Certificates is better now, but 40 years ago if an island midwife didn't bother to send a notice to Nassau, the birth may or may not ever get on the books and, in his case it didn't). So he was able to get a legal Affadavit that he was the son of Alton and, if he could prove Alton was a Bahamian, then he could prove he was a Bahamian - except, there is no Birth Certificate for Alton either! The fact that the Church maintains Baptismal Certificates however, would prove to be his salvation. With Alton's Baptismal Cert he could show Alton was born in the Bahamas and, with his Affadavit he could prove he was Alton's son and he would be home free. Of course if Alton had ever bothered to get Arnie baptized it would have been much easier, but that's another story.

What impressed me about Arnie however, was not this story. It was what he went through to get to me and pick up the Certificate. It turns out that while his Dad was born in Small Hope, the next town to Fresh Creek. The reason it took him so long to get to me was that Arnie lives in Lowe Sound - at the very northern end of the island and has no car. Arnie hitch-hiked for 60 miles to see me and when he left he was going to do it all over again to get home. What an amazing testimony to his perserverance to straighten all this out and prove he is a legal Bahamian.

And finally, there is Jane. Jane is 89, blind in one eye, and since her recent stroke she is homebound. In her house there are 4 daughters, all with several children, all unmarried and the fathers of these children are nowhere to be seen. Anyway, we know this family pretty well and I have been bringing her communion for several months on Sunday afternoon. For the past two weeks one of the boys in the house, about 10 years old, has been coming to church on Sunday, all by himself. This week when I brought her communion she started by asking 'Did you see my boy in Church today?' I said I did and she said, that's my grandson and I want him to be Catholic just like me. She has been evangelizing her grandchildren! The daughters consider themselves Catholic, although they don't come to church and none of their children are baptized. I have spoken to them about it but hadn't gotten anywhere - but Jane has!

When she told me she wanted this boy baptized I said, "Well that is nice Jane, but we need his mother to give permission for that to happen". At which point Jane turns to the door and yells, "Theresa, come in here, Deac wants to talk to you!" In comes Theresa and in a few short minutes she agreed to have her son baptized - and his little brother! I explained she needed to find God-parents that were Catholic and we planned to do a Baptism Prep session, then schedule the Baptism. THEN, she tells me to come in the next room to meet her cousin who just had a baby and wanted to have her baptized as well! So off I go and there's a young mom with a 2 month old sweetie in her arms, and the Daddy - so I give them the same little talk about God-parents and planning a Baptism Prep session and it feels like we are on our way to 3 new members of our Church - all because Jane was doing her job, without pressure, without guilt, just simply witnessing to the importance of being a Christian and, in God's time, people heard her.

So, as you can see it has been quite a week. Ginni is still in the US so I am flying solo with CCD and RCIA and the choir misses her terribly (actually everyone misses her terribly). So please keep me in your prayers.

Till next time