Getty Ready for Congo

Our Day in Assisi

Some of the Sisters at International Night

Sr. Pat and I in St. Peter's Basilica

Sr. Salome and I

Bon jour!

I hope that you are all enjoying the summer. You are often in my thoughts and prayers.

My life in Rome continues to be full. Missionary month ended on Tuesday with a Mass in the catacombs of St. Peter’s basilica in front of the tomb of St. Peter. Last Saturday we celebrated “international night” with singing and dancing from the home countries of many of the Canossian sisters. Mary and I put together a slide show of some beautiful places in the United States and sung and played “America the Beautiful” as we presented it. Sharing the last month with sisters from so many diverse places was a blessing.

Two weeks ago, we four volunteers spent a Sunday in Assisi. What a beautiful place! St. Francis has always inspired me, so visiting his hometown was especially meaningful.

Beginning tomorrow we have a four-day break from formation sessions. Mary and I plan to go to Ancona and Loreto for a couple of days. It will be about a four-hour trip by train to the Adriatic coast northeast of Rome. I’m looking forward to a change of pace and some beautiful scenery.

Today I found out that my plane ticket to Congo has been purchased. I will be traveling with Sister Salomé, the Congolese sister who has been tutoring me in French and Madre Tina, an Italian sister who is the superior of the community in Aru. We should depart August 29, to fly through Brussels to Kampala, Uganda, where we will spend the night with the Canossian community there. The following day we will take a small plane to Arua, Uganda. We will be picked up there to go by car across the border to Aru, Congo.

Salomé has been answering my cultural questions about Congo along with my French questions. She has told me about celebrations of Mass filled with songs in four different languages (Lingala, Ki-Swahili, French and the local tribal language) and much dancing. She has told me that many outsiders are shocked by the material poverty they encounter there, and that the war has left the educational system and infrastructure in disarray. Salomé is eager to see her family whom she hasn’t seen in seven years.

The plan is that I live in the convent with the community of Canossian sisters until December when at least one more volunteer should arrive. The construction of a house for volunteers just across the road from the convent will be started by a short-term VOICA group in August. When construction is finished, the volunteers will move in there. Yesterday, a shipping container was packed at a port in northern Italy to be sent to Congo. It contains an industrial-size oven to begin a bakery, about twenty used computers to start a computer lab/cyber café and the solar panels for the volunteer house, among other things. We hope that it arrives without problems. I’m still awaiting word about the books I sent to Congo in May with your help.

I am excited about my upcoming departure, and I am hopeful that VOICA’s presence in Aru, will be a light to the people there. I am beginning to realize how distant I will be from what is familiar to me, from my own culture, from conveniences, from all of you. I will be living with Italians and Africans and using languages I don’t know well. It should be a great opportunity for learning detachment, openness and simplicity.

Please pray that I be filled with the Holy Spirit as I make my way to mission, for wisdom to prepare well. Keep praying for my facility in learning French, too. Salomé will be on pilgrimage for four weeks in Poland, and the French institute doesn’t have classes available at my level, so I’ll be studying on my own and watching lots of movies.

Peace to all of you!

Tricia

Formation So Far

Angel at St. Mary of the Angels Basilica

Dinner on the terrace with Sr. Pat and Maristella, long-term volunteer to Togo

Sisters waiting for the bus at the end of our street

Me at the Coliseum


My Vantage Point, Mass at St. Peter's

Buon giurno!

I’m settling into life in Rome as I relish all that I’m learning. A typical day begins with Mass at 7:00 a.m. followed by breakfast and sweeping and weeding the garden. About 9:00 or 9:30 we have a lecture or presentation that lasts two or three hours. At one o’clock we have lunch at the convent with the sisters followed by siesta time (when we do language study, update blogs, etc.). Around 4:00 in the afternoon another session begins and may go until dinner time at 7:00. The VOICA volunteers cook their own dinner to eat around 7:30. After dinner we have a group prayer and then we’re free until bedtime. Sundays are free.

“Missionary Month” began last Monday and will continue through July 24. About twenty Canossian Sisters from Italy, East Timor, Congo, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Argentina, Poland, the United States, the Philipines, Brazil, Sao Tomè and Angola are participating along with the VOICA volunteers. Nearly all of us are soon bound for mission.

After an introduction to Missionary Month and an address given by the Mother General of the Canossians, we spent three days “Walking in the Footsteps of the Martyrs”. In the spirit of a pilgrimage, we visited sites in and around Rome as we remembered the early Christians who lived, struggled and died there. These sites included: The Basilica of St. Paul, St. Paul at the Three Fountains, the Catacombs of St. Callisto, the Basilica of St. Prassede, the Basilica of St. Clement, the Coliseum, the Mamertine Prison (where Peter was imprisoned and converted his fellow prisoners and the prison guards) and St. Peter’s Basilica.

The visit to St. Peter’s Basilica was especially memorable because we were able to attend Mass celebrated by the Pope on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. This feast is also the day when new cardinals are commissioned. St. Peter’s was full of people from all over the world. It was a joy to get a sense of unity in the world at least for a moment.

Now we are going to stay “home” for a while. The upcoming topics for formation sessions include: anthropology of mission, Marian anthropology, mission in Scripture, the theology of mission explored in the documents of the Church, paths of evangelization on different continents, new models of mission, Mary and the Canossian charism and personal sharing of mission experience. One thought that struck me from today's session was this: Perhaps the "poor" of the world are the only ones who can show us the way from competition to cooperation, from pride to humility, from death into life.

The Sisters impress me with their kindness, intelligence, openness, education and lightness of heart. Rome impresses me with its antiquity, art, great green parks and as a center of Christianity. I am learning a bit of Italian from listening at Mass and to others conversations. I try to study French in a more formal way. Please pray that I have open ears, a quick memory and an agile tongue as I learn language. Two months seems very short for becoming proficient even just in French.

I am delighted to be here and feel that the Canossian charism and the VOICA program are a good fit for me. I still miss you all, though, and keep you in my thoughts and prayers everyday.

Love,

Tricia

Greetings from Rome!

Taken on the terrace outside our room at the VOICA house

Picnic in Y'voire with Therese and Paul


Ilaria, Lucy, Diggy and Mary in St. Peter's Square


Convent of the Daughters of Charity of Canossa


Diggy, Sr. Lisa, Ilaria, Sr. Pat, Mary and Lucy after one of our sessions

Statue of St. Magdalene of Canossia, Foundress of the Daughters and Sons of Charity of Canossa


View near the Canossian Institute at night



Dear Family and Friends,


I am thrilled to be at this first stop of my mission journey: Rome. Overall, my trip here went smoothly after recovering my passport which was accidentally given to another passenger at check-in, and being bumped to a Lufthansa flight and routed through Frankfurt rather than an Air Canada flight via Montreal. I arrived in Paris June 7 (with my guitar, but minus my checked bag), and got on TGV train to Lyon where I spent two days resting and exploring.

The evening of June 9, I began my stay with Thérèse and Paul, wonderful models of French hospitality. The following day we picnicked on the shore of Lake Leman by the medieval village of Y’voire and went on to see Evian and other villages in the area. Not sure that they had shown me enough that day, they got up at 5:30 the following morning to show me the town of Chambéry before my bus left from there at 8:30. The bus took me through amazingly long tunnels (Fergus, the longest is 13 kilometers) to Milan where I took a train to Rome where I arrived about 8:30 in the evening. I was met in the train station by Sr. Lisa, the assistant director of VOICA.

Sr. Lisa drove us through the crazy traffic of Rome to what will be my “home” for the next couple months. The Canossian Institute is situated on a hill a couple of kilometers south of the Vatican in full view of the Dome of St. Peter. The walled grounds are filled with grass, parasol pines, walkways lined with tall hedges and birds constantly singing. Across the road is and immense park. It feels like we live in the country, but in the middle of Rome. It takes about twenty minutes to walk to the Vatican. The buildings and land of the institute were donated by a childless countess. What is now the convent used to be servants’ quarters. What used to be the barn is now volunteer housing for VOICA. The buildings are hundreds of years old. They tell us there is even a tunnel from the convent directly to the Vatican (now sealed). I feel like I’m living in a fairy tale . (My lost luggage even arrived by courier the day after I did.)

Three other volunteers will be participating in formation this summer along with me: Mary, a nurse from Minnesota who will spend a year in Togo, Lucy a pediatrician originally from Malaysia, but most recently from Louisiana who will serve for two years in West Timor, and Ilaria, a banker from the north of Italy who will spend a year serving in Togo. Diggy also lives in the VOICA house. She is from the Philippines and served in Papua New Guinea and Togo. She also helps in formation. We began formation sessions on Thursday with Sr. Pat, the director of VOICA who spent sixteen years in Hong Kong teaching before becoming the director of VOICA ten years ago. The language of the formation sessions and the house is English.

In formation sessions we’ve begun to learn about the history and spirituality of the Canossians. June 25 through July 24 is missionary month when sisters and priests from all over the world come to share their mission experiences. In August we will learn more about theology, mission spirituality, culture and working in mission. September 1 is the planned departure date.

I will be going to Aru, Congo, near the Ugandan border where there is a great need for teachers. The Canossian community was established in Congo fifty years ago, but I will be the pioneering lay volunteer going there through VOICA. Sr. Pat says I will be working mostly with Italians, so I may want to learn some Italian along with my French. Mama mia;-0. I plan to spend a lot of time studying.

Today Mary and I attended mass in French at St. Louis church where the French Catholic community of Rome is centered. It happened to be their parish party/concert/gathering for beginning of summer break. I stayed for several hours and met quite a few people who speak French including a man from Acapulco, Mexico, who teaches biblical studies courses in New York and used to live in the St. Louis community in Rome. He introduced my to several other people there.

I love the international and Catholic flavor of Rome. The day after my arrival I attended a Mass and party in honor of Filipino Independence Day! Half of the church was filled with priests and sisters and the other half with diplomats.

My time in Europe so far has been filled with delight, surprises and excitement for what is to come. There are many, many opportunities to learn, grow and prepare here and I am thrilled to have begun.

A bien tôt, hasta pronto, ciao!

Love and prayers,

Tricia

Thank you!

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from Rome! All is well here with me. You are often in my thoughts and prayers.

I am eager to share my experiences of the last ten days with you, but first I want to thank you all for your generous and multi-faceted support as I prepared to depart from Denver. Thank you Ben, Kathy and Kristi for planning and hosting a delightful going away party with my Denver friends (and thank you Kathy for my song). Thank you Uncle John and Aunt Madelyn for hosting my wonderful Grand Junction goodbye party with our family. Thank you St. Dominic Parish for your blessings and financial support. Thank you Tony for letting me store my stuff in your garage and for giving me flowers each time I brought a load. It made my move much more pleasant. Thank you Lydia, José and Doris for your hard work and efficiency in moving my furniture and other stuff in you trucks the Saturday before my departure. Thank you Chuck Murphy and David for making the sale of my house possible. Thank you John for recording my song on short notice. Thank you Mom and Dad agreeing to receive my mail and take care of my affairs while I’m away, for assisting me with my last minute errands, for helping me keep my sanity the day before leaving Denver and for seeing me off at the airport. Thank you Paul and Thérèse for welcoming me to Europe with your wonderful French hospitality.

Thank you all for the many ways you have blessed me with your spiritual, emotional, practical and financial support of my plans and desire for mission. I couldn’t have made it here without you!

It’s amazing how God provided everyone and everything I needed for me to leave. I received an offer on my house June 1, the last day of my novena to St. Joseph, five days before my departure. The inspection was done June 3, and the closing is set for June 28!

Grazie, merci, gracias, thank you!

Tricia

Update and Note About Donations to VOICA

Hi Everybody!

I returned Tuesday night from a delightful, four-day stay on the Western Slope. It was wonderful to be with family and enjoy Colorado's beauty.

I've been busy with goodbyes, packing and the many details of making arrangements for my departure. Thank you to everyone who has helped me in doing this. I plan to leave next Wednesday, June 6. My flight will go to Paris via Montreal, Canada. From Paris, I will travel by train to visit the city of Lyon and then spend a couple days with my friends Thérèse and Paul in Annecy before taking the train to Rome on June 11. VOICA formation will begin June 13.

I wanted to let all of you who wrote checks to VOICA, that I am going to carry the checks with me to Rome where they will be deposited. This was what Sr. Pat, the VOICA director, recommended. I'm sorry for the delay and hope it won't upset the balance of your checkbooks. Thank you again for your generosity. Much good can come from your contributions.

I got news yesterday of an offer on my house which should be given to me in writing this afternoon. I pray that all goes smoothly and the house will sell, God willing.

I hope to be in Rome the next time I write.

Peace to all of you,

Tricia

Books for Kids in Congo

Thanks to all of you who supported the Books for Congo Kids Fund.
We've raised over $2000 to buy and ship books in French to the schools in Aru, Congo. So far, 192 pounds of new and donated books have been shipped to Congo. Thanks especially to the Denver International School and the Alliance Française de Denver for their contributions of books. In June, sixty pounds of educational magazines in French will be sent and over $1000 that I hope can be used to buy books directly in Congo to avoid shipping costs. Merci beaucoup! Here's a picture of some of the new books.

Goodbyes

Here are some pictures from goodbye get togethers. Thank you all for your presence, encouragement and support.