Stepping out of the Boat Again.

Several years ago I was part of a team that sponsored a young adult retreat based on the book “If You Want To Walk On Water You Have To Get Out Of The Boat.” This idea based on the scripture where Jesus calls Peter to get out of the boat and walk on water to him has become a central theme of my life journey.  My friends and I are always joking about where are life is in regards to our boat, which usually means our comfort zone.

When I decided to become a Maryknoll Lay Missioner in Brazil 2 ½ years ago it surprised a lot of people in my life including myself.  I left my comfort zone when I sold everything I owned, left my job, my home and most importantly my family and friends to serve the marginalized in Brazil.  These last few years have been amazing and also very challenging.  I have learned so much about myself and the world as I worked with women in prison, youth who come from the poorest neighborhoods in Brazil, refugees and so many other groups of people affected by poverty and violence.

As I was living my life as a missioner I was pretty sure I was constantly living my life outside my boat.  Doing my best to keep my eyes on Jesus so I would not lose my way in these precarious waters called mission. Little did I know I would be called to step outside what has become my comfort zone as a Lay Missioner to live another reality of mission.

I will be leaving Maryknoll Lay Missioners which has been a huge support as I began my mission work in Brazil.  Living in Sao Paulo, one of the biggest cities in the world has been a challenge for me.  The commute on very crowded buses and metros for hours almost every day has been hard on my health.  For example I have a lot of back pain and my blood pressure is high for the first time in my life.  For these reasons and a few others I have decided the best thing is for me to leave Sao Paulo. 

In Brazil the Maryknoll Family works together.  We have Lay Missioners, Sisters, and Priests.  The Maryknoll Sisters have missioners in Sao Paulo and in the north of the country in Joao Pessoa.  I asked to transfer to Joao Pessoa to live and work with the Sisters because I feel called to continue my work in Brazil.  Unfortunately, the Lay Missioners were not able to support me in this transfer.  So here is my leap of faith, I am going to go without the support of the Lay Missioners to Joao Pessoa.  Although Maryknoll collaborates together all three entities have different leadership and financial support.  The Sisters are welcoming me into their home and work but there is no money to support me. 

I believe this is where faith and hard work come together.  The Maryknoll Sisters run a holistic health center for women called Afya in Joao Pessoa.  I will write more about it in the future.  It is so amazing to be part of this organization.  The women who are part of the team there are for the most part from very poor and difficult backgrounds.  Many of them came to Afya searching for a cure to their health problems.  Over time they have been trained and mentored into becoming health professionals. Every day they open their doors to mainly women but also men and children to be part of the process of helping people find natural and holistic health care.  I will write more later about what I will be doing at Afya. 

As I step out into these uncharted waters I have to say I am again surprised to find myself here.  However, I truly feel called to continue my mission journey.  I have worked really hard to get the skills I have now as a missioner in Brazil.  I am not ready  to walk away yet. I have never been on this journey alone and I am trusting Jesus’ call to get out of my boat and I am trying to keep my eyes focused on him and not all the uncertainty around me.

So now I am trying to put my life back into the two suitcases I came to Brazil with (not being real successful with this task).  Next Monday I will return to Oregon until the beginning of June.  To work, do some fundraising and to touch base with my family and other support networks. 

I am very grateful to Maryknoll Lay Missioners who have been my companions these last years especially all the Missioners in Sao Paulo.  I am truly sad to be leaving the organization, however, I had to make a choice for what is best for me and that is to move to Joao Pessoa to be with the Maryknoll Sisters.  I am also grateful to be welcomed into a loving community there who really do an amazing job of changing lives every day.  I ask all of you to send me good energy and prayers as I take this giant leap of faith into the waters of love and compassion for the poor and vulnerable in Brazil.

When You Go Out In the World, Hold Hands and Stick Together

I have been reminded these days of this quote that I always liked and in which I feel really sums up how to live a good life and for me a life in mission.  The line I like the most is "when you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together".

I have an imagine in my mind of my brother and sisters and I holding hands and sticking together.  I have always felt like no matter what we stick together.  That has given me great strength and joy in my life.  Even now with great distance between me and my family I know they have my back and I am eternally grateful for their love.

In Brazil we have a community of missioners called the MBMC which stands for Maryknoll Brazil Mission Community.  I find comfort, strength and joy in this community.  The Maryknoll Family has the Maryknoll Society which is Priests and Brothers, the Maryknoll Sisters, and Maryknoll Lay Missioners.  We are three entities and our leadership in New York is different as well of our finances and we all have different vocations.  However, when it comes to mission we have a shared vision and love for the people of Brazil.  In our meetings we talk a lot about collaboration and where our ministries intersect and how we can live and work together.  But honestly at the end of the day I am just glad that I have people I can trust to hold hands and stick together with me as we go out into the world.  

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum.  See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com/  ]

Gift of Mission

The gift of mission is a multi layered one.  First I am given the gift or privilege to be sent by Maryknoll Lay Missioners to Brazil to service the poor and marginalized.  Hopefully, my presence and work with teens, women prisoners, and refugees is also a gift.  But my work and that of Maryknoll Lay Missioners would not be possible without the financial gifts and donations that are so generously given by people like you.

This Christmas and New Year Season I humbly ask you to help me with my mission in Brazil with a financial gift.  Financial Support can be sent to MKLM, P.O. Box 307, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0307 or online by going to https://app.etapestry.com/hosted/MaryknollLayMissioners/OnlineDonation.html?approach=5936%20-%20Carolyn%20Trumble&contents=of%20%20Carolyn%20Trumble%20in%20mission.

****Please write “Carolyn Trumble- Mission Account” in the memo line or intention box to support me in mission. All contributions are tax deductible.  Thank you.

December Newsletter

Making Memories with Cupcakes

 Two or three days a week I continue to work with teenagers from one the poorer neighborhoods in São Paulo.   The education center where I work provides a safe place for these kids to be when they are not in school, since kids in Brazil only go to school for half of the day.  It is also a place where we work to help them with life skills and have education in Communication, Technology, English, Music, Physical Education and Music.

One of the highlights for the kids and for me this year was I taught them how to make cupcakes. The shopping malls are beginning to sell  cupcakes but they are too expensive for the kids I work with.  So I showed them how to make them.  They loved it.  I am letting the folks borrow my cake pans so they can make them at home. 

 The eyes of the world are beginning to look to Brazil as they prepare for the World Cup and the Olympics.  New things like cupcakes are appearing every day.  However, for many in São Paulo things like cupcakes are too expensive.  Brazil is still a country that is divided between the rich and the poor.  So something as simple as making cupcakes can provide a special moment for the young people because for a moment they are kings & queens.

Zumba?  Not really, but it is a dance exercise class.

            Kim and I have begun a new ministry with women who are refugees and ex prisoners.  The house welcomes woman who have nowhere to go and without the home would be on the streets.  The women come from about 10 different countries and speak 4 different languages. 

            We asked them what they wanted to do and they said they would like an exercise class.  Most of the women work and don’t have time to exercise.  Also it is not possible to take a walk or run in their neighborhood.

            So Kim and I have begun this course.  You can see in the picture the video we use, this helps so much because don’t tell anyone but I am not really an exercise teacher.

            Last week was our second week and we had about 10 women and three adorable children from the Congo participate.  It went well, the women had fun and those kids stole my heart.

            More to come on this story as we continue our classes. 

PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING ME IN MISSION!

Please remember that MKLM funds my travel, medical, and living expenses, and other costs associated with keeping me in mission. I ask that you consider donating to the Maryknoll Lay Missioners so that I, and missioners like me, can continue to serve those in need worldwide.

You can directly support my mission work with MKLM. Funds donated will either be applied directly to support my work, education, and ministries or used to support the general fund of MKLM. Financial Support can be sent to MKLM, P.O. Box 307, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0307 or online by going to my blog http://2haveafulllife.blogspot.com.br/ from there select the link to MKLM Support My Mission.

****Please write “Carolyn Trumble- Mission Account” in the memo line or intention box to support me in mission. All contributions are tax deductible.  Thank you.

A Mother’s Prayer

This year the Christmas song “Breath of Heaven” by Amy Grant has new meaning for me.  It is the story of Mary’s journey of faith and fear.  As I listen to the song, I picture the faces and bellies of 15 pregnant Brazilian prisoners that Katie Coldwell and I offered a health class for this year.   The song details Mary’s words imaging how she  might have felt.  I heard these same words and emotions from the moms we accompanied.   Below are some of the words of the song and how I image they connect with the woman who sits alone in her prison cell in Brazil. 

I have traveled many moonless nights

Cold and weary with a babe inside

And I wonder what I've done

Although I do not know the story of each woman, I do know that most of the women were arrested for drug trafficking.  All but one of the women were already mothers.   These women have been through a lot of sleepless nights.  They worry about their babies and their children at home.  Some may say they should have known better than to take such a risk, however, I have learned it is hard to know what options people really have when faced with poverty.  Do they traffic drugs, or watch their children go hungry?  It is a choice no mother should have to make.

I am waiting in a silent prayer

I am frightened by the load I bear

In a world as cold as stone

Must I walk this path alone?

Be with me now, be with me now

During one of our sessions we talked about the fears the women have.  Their most imitate fears were if they went into labor would it be a time when they could be taken to the prison hospital, or would they give birth to their child alone?  If they needed a C-section would they get it in time?  And after they gave birth how long would it be until they were moved from the hospital back to a cell, an hour, a day, they did not know.  I can only imagine the fear Mary must have felt giving birth in a stable.  The uncertainty of finding a clean, safe place must have been frightening. 

No one really knows what Mary worried about for Jesus’ life.  I have a feeling she knew one day she would need to let him go.  These mothers in prison know too they are going to have to let their child go sooner than they care too.  They are allowed to keep their child in prison with them for up to 6 months.  Every once in a while we witness a child leaving the prison usually in the arms of what appears to be a grandmother.  It is such a sad moment for the child and their mother.

Breath of Heaven, hold me together

Be forever near me, Breath of Heaven

Breath of Heaven, lighten my darkness

The emotions the women have are really mixed.  We witnessed so much joy from our group as they shared names they had chosen for their babies, or when we would put our hands to a belly and felt a baby kick.  These women love their babies and find a sense of peace with them as they sit alone with just their babies in their cells.  On the other hand the lives of both the women and the babies are unknown.  The women worry about childbirth and rightly so.  Then there are the questions of the future and what will become of them.  They are just trying to hold things together as best they can in their current situation.  For most of the women they said their faith was a source of comfort in times of darkness. 

We were privileged to accompany these moms for a little while. We worked to bring some education on woman’s health and childbirth and more importantly to listen to them and encourage them. 

This song has become a mother’s prayer for me.  Around the world tonight I know there are many marginalized women who pray for God’s breath to comfort them and guide them on their journey.  This Christmas I  am praying for those moms who sit in fear and in hope in a prison cell in Brazil. 

(Eaton, Chris & Grant, Amy. “Breath of Heaven”.

Home for Christmas, Bug Music. 2006)

A Mother's Prayer

This year the Christmas song “Breath of Heaven” by Amy Grant has new meaning for me.  It is the story of Mary’s journey of faith and fear.  As I listen to the song, I picture the faces and bellies of 15 pregnant Brazilian prisoners that Katie Coldwell and I offered a health class for this year.   The song details Mary’s words imaging how she might have felt.  I heard these same words and emotions from the moms we accompanied.   Below are some of the words of the song and how I image they connect with the woman who sits alone in her prison cell in Brazil. 

Breath of Heaven

I have traveled many moonless nights

Cold and weary with a babe inside

And I wonder what I've done

Although I do not know the story of each woman, I do know that most of the women were arrested for drug trafficking.  All but one of the women were already mothers.   These women have been through a lot of sleepless nights.  They worry about their babies and their children at home.  Some may say they should have known better than to take such a risk, however, I have learned it is hard to know what options people really have when faced with poverty.  Do they traffic drugs, or watch their children go hungry?  It is a choice no mother should have to make.

Breath of Heaven

I am waiting in a silent prayer

I am frightened by the load I bear

In a world as cold as stone

Must I walk this path alone?

Be with me now, be with me now

During one of our sessions we talked about the fears the women have.  Their most imitate fears were if they went into labor would it be a time when they could be taken to the prison hospital, or would they give birth to their child alone?  If they needed a C-section would they get it in time?  And after they gave birth how long would it be until they were moved from the hospital back to a cell, an hour, a day, they did not know.  I can only imagine the fear Mary must have felt giving birth in a stable.  The uncertainty of finding a clean, safe place must have been frightening. 

No one really knows what Mary worried about for Jesus’ life.  I have a feeling she knew one day she would need to let him go.  These mothers in prison know too they are going to have to let their child go sooner than they care too.  They are allowed to keep their child in prison with them for up to 6 months.  Every once in a while we witness a child leaving the prison usually in the arms of what appears to be a grandmother.  It is such a sad moment for the child and their mother.

  

Breath of Heaven

Breath of Heaven, hold me together

Be forever near me, Breath of Heaven

Breath of Heaven, lighten my darkness

The emotions the women have are really mixed.  We witnessed so much joy from our group as they shared names they had chosen for their babies, or when we would put our hands to a belly and felt a baby kick.  These women love their babies and find a sense of peace with them as they sit alone with just their babies in their cells.  On the other hand the lives of both the women and the babies are unknown.  The women worry about childbirth and rightly so.  Then there are the questions of the future and what will become of them.  They are just trying to hold things together as best they can in their current situation.  For most of the women they said their faith was a source of comfort in times of darkness. 

We were privileged to accompany these moms for a little while. We worked to bring some education on woman’s health and childbirth and more importantly to listen to them and encourage them. 

This song has become a mother’s prayer for me.  Around the world tonight I know there are many marginalized women who pray for God’s breath to comfort them and guide them on their journey.  This Christmas I  am praying for those moms who sit in fear and in hope in a prison cell in Brazil. 

 (Eaton, Chris & Grant, Amy. “Breath of Heaven”.

Home for Christmas, Bug Music. 2006)

Santa I Know Him!!!

SANTA I KNOW HIM!!!!

One of the reasons I love this movie as much as I do is that my nieces and nephews like it a lot.  I can hear my niece Kristyn and nephew Jesse quoting Buddy the Elf by screaming, "Santa I Know Him!"  It makes me miss them a lot.

So why do I relate to this movie?  Sometimes when I find myself in those moments of standing out in a culture that is not my own, I feel like Buddy.  Granted I am not wearing an Elf outfit but sometimes I feel like I should be.  And sometimes I get those looks like the one on the managers face.  Sometimes it is just a blank look and other times it is one of frustration.

Then there are those moments when I want to jump up and down and scream "Santa I Know Him!"  (Scary thing is sometimes I hear these exact words in my head).  Santa is a metaphor for people or things that I know.  It is that connection with something from home or with someone who knows me for me.  I have had three friends visit me in Brazil.  One for a couple of weeks and the others only for a couple of hours each.  But these are my glimpses of Santa.  Of having moments where I am me Carolyn, and I feel like the other person gets me, and loves me for my true self.

Crazy thing is sometimes I get this way about other things too.  For example: we had cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving.  I was so happy I could have jumped up and down.  Maybe once a month I treat myself to a Starbucks coffee.  There is a Starbucks by my language school and I like to study there.  And sometimes I have gotten a care package with Reese Peanut Butter Cups or Hot Tamales, and that first bite is remarkable.

The other aspect of this movie is about Buddy exploring new things and making new relationships.  I too am lucky to have the opportunity to see the world through new eyes.  To discover things I never imagined.  It can be a little scary but mostly it is exciting.

And every once in awhile I come across something from my own culture, from my own language, and from home.  And I become like Buddy.  Excited, full of hope and joy, and grateful to connect with a piece of myself I don't encounter every day.

To Give Life

Yesterday I had the privilege to join a community located in a favela here in São Paulo as they celebrated a relationship of mutual support and love in the mystery of the Eucharist.  My fellow missioners and I went to the church located in the favela located on a hill directly overlooking the homes of their neighbors below.

I learned that the community on top of the hill had water before the community below them.  I am not sure of the details but somehow the two groups developed a way to send some of the water from on top to the people below.  And in doing so they gave life to their neighbors.  I was so impressed with the generosity of this gift.  Sometimes in this world we get so concerned about our own resources that we store them up for ourselves so we do not have to do without.  And yet these folks did not act in fear, they acted in love.  In doing so they nourished life not only for their neighbors but for themselves.

Water is life.  Without water we cannot go on.  Water to me is one of the most sacred gifts one can give.  During the Mass water from both communities was poured into a bowl and blessed.  Then we were all sprinkled with the water as a reminder of our Baptism.  The day our life began in Christ.  What a witnessed these folks were to me about the respect for life for all people.

Today Katie and I gave a health class to 9 pregnant woman in prison.  Our topic was delivery.  All of the woman have had children already.  Katie set up the stages of delivery and had the woman place things that happen in each stage in each category.  For example, the water breaks, you start to push, etc.    Some of the woman were very knowledgeable and others were still uncertain of what really happens and when.

In full disclosure I have to admit Katie and I have been reading up on this topic and asking a lot of questions to make sure our assumptions are correct since neither of us has given birth.  One of the questions that came up today was concerning the umbilical cord.  A few of the woman believed that the cord connected to the mother was cut and them placed back inside the mother.  I was surprised that more than one woman was under this impression.  We explained to them about the placenta and it helped that we had pictures in a book to back up our explanation.

I share this because I am constantly surprised by the difference that education makes.  It is a resource that I have been given.  I am sure these woman are good mothers and that they know a lot of things about life that I do not know.  But they are poor and not all of their education has prepared them to understand some things that I consider as basic.  Things that would ease some of their anxiety and fears.

We talked about fears today.  Fear of giving birth while in prison.  In Brazil their is an expression that goes "Dar a Luz".  To give a light or give birth.  In the coming days these woman are going to give a light to the world, they are going to be part of the process of giving life. What a beautiful gift they give to their child, their families and the world.  I ask that you think of them and pray for them as they struggle with their fears now and for them and their babes as they bring new life into our world.