CARNEW IN BRAZIL: Feliz Natal ~ Happy Christmas NEWSLETTER 2007

Christmas Newsletter from Brazil

21st December 2007

A Visit to a REAL Crib

Queridos Amigos,
Dear Friends,

Greetings from The Amazon Forest, for Christmas and the coming New Year! Christmas cards are a luxury here, so this email newsletter will have to suffice to carry my greetings and best wishes to you all. {In fact I bought out the shop last year of its full supply of five Christmas Cards!}

New wooden bridge being built on the main road. The lorry drivers set them on fire if they think they are ready to fall and in doing so force the local government to build a newer and safer one.

It is hard to believe that I am coming to the end of my second year here in Brazil. This time of the year the schools are coming to an end and the “summer” holidays are on the horizon. The rains have arrived and are starting to turn the roads into mud-holes especially with the help of the large truck loads of timber that are still sneaking their way {illegally} out of this area. The state here is called “Mato Grosso” which means “big wood”, but there is very little of it left here in my area.

A newly burnt out section of forest

But if I continue directly north for another three parishes I will eventually have to stop as I will not be able to go any further, because I will meet the real Amazon Forest. Before the rains arrived we had lots of fires as more of the forest was burnt and cleared. With the dust and the smoke we hardly saw the sun for August and September. Sadly the fires also kill lots of wildlife. The other day we stopped to lift a big tortoise across the road as it was trying to flee a fire on one side of the road. On another day we came across monkeys {Macaco} on the road, staggering around as if they were drunk, but really it was the effects of the smoke that made them groggy. I have even seen alligators {Jacaré (pronounced “jack-are-ray”)} on the road fleeing the fires. On the dirt roads it is not uncommon to “accidentally” run over snakes and spiders which are as big as your hand especially at dawn and dusk.

Furniture Delivery "Castanheira Style"

I am still struggling with the language but it seems to be getting a little better. The people are very patient indeed. I am receiving Portuguese lessons at the moment from the teacher of English in the local secondary school. The parish pays her a full teachers wage of R$7.75 (€3) per hour, a “slight” difference from home.

“Garganta de Diabo / Devil’s Throat” Falls at Iguaçu

I had my first visitors last January but they did not make it up here to my jungle retreat, and so I had to make my way down to São Paulo to greet them. They looked after the missionary very well, bringing me to see the “Wonderful” water falls at Iguaçu and the “not so wonderful” Rio de Janeiro. {Not my most favourite place in Brazil – very dangerous.}

Paddy & I at the falls

I made it home for June and some of July and met a lot of well wishers. I wasn’t long back in Brazil when Seán and Pauline produced a new nephew for me “Patrick Denis” whom I have yet to meet, please God next year. I even missed his Baptism in Tomacork Church and that was a very sad day for me here. I missed all the family celebrations, Paddy officiated. I also received the sad news of the death of Uncle Mick, who was a good friend as well as an uncle. He had asked me years ago to do his funeral when the day came, but sadly I was not able to be there, but my deputy (Paddy) stepped in. “May he rest in peace”. I said Mass at the same hour for him in a little wooden church in a community named after São Joaquim.

“Dom Franco Dalla Valle”

When I arrived back last July I was met at the bus station by our bishop here, “Dom Franco Dalla Valle” and he gave me a lift. That was the last time I was to see him alive. A few days later he died suddenly on his 62nd birthday after being rushed to Cuiabá Hospital {14 hours away}.

Arrival at Juina Airfield

He was buried inside his Cathedral and, without members of his family from Italy present. He was the first bishop of this new missionary diocese, which is nine years old. I never saw such grief in the faces of the people at his funeral. He was very much loved.

Two of the three priests ordained by Dom Franco ride on top of the jeep with his remains

Since we have no bishop, Pope Benedict XVI or as he is know here, “Papa Bento dezesseis” has appointed the Archbishop of Cuiabá Dom Milton as the Apostolic Administrator for the time being. Dom Milton has appointed a newly ordained priest of two years as the vicar General, the second in command.

L-R: Derek, I and Padre Raimundo {not two years ordained and now is the Vicar General (2nd in command), of the diocese. He is only one of three priests belonging to this diocese.}

He also delegated the parish clergy to celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation and that is what we are busy with at the moment going around to our 28 communities. Many communities are very excited about celebrating Confirmation in their little churches for the first time, as normally when the bishop comes for Confirmation they have to come into the main church for big parish celebration.

On the way to Mass in the "Assentamentos" (Settlement Areas)

There is none of the “rich” trapping with Confirmation here like at home. The Confirmation outfit consists of a new T-shirt with a parish and Confirmation logo on it and costs about €3.

Old wooden church of Santa Rita

Many people were very generous when I was home last summer, such as Paddy’s parish of St. Senan’s Enniscorthy and my former community of Tara Hill, Gorey and its people and many of my friends and neighbours at home in Carnew. At the moment I am helping a few communities with your funds. The community of Santa Rita have pulled down their wooden church, in truth it was nearly falling down, and at the moment they have the brick walls built and are ready for the roof. They are doing most of the work themselves. So at the moment we are saying mass in a shed next door.

New Brick church and Wooden Parish Hall at Santa Rita

Another community called Nova Canaã {New Cana} are building a parish hall and your funds will be helping there, again they are building it themselves and we just provide the funds to buy the materials.

Above & Below: Frame of Parish Hall at Nova Canaã

Another community called Santa Luzia is getting the electricity installed for the first time and I have offered to pay for electric fans. I suppose I should admit, it is as much for my benefit as it is for theirs as I “cook” every time I visit to say Mass. As they are not so far from the town we are able to celebrate a Sunday afternoon Mass, but that is also the hottest time of the day! I generally need to bring an extra shirt with me. We have a Brazilian order of nuns working with us here in the parish and I helped them out a little bit too.

At the moment we have a big project up and coming in the New Year. The roof of our “barracão” {big wooden shed}, which doubles as our parish hall is about to fall. It is only about twenty years old, but wooden structures do not last here in the heat and rain, so we hope to replace it with and Iron and Aluminium structure. This material is not local and so along with it’s cost we will have to bear the cost of shipping it up to our remote area from somewhere like far away São Paulo.

Parish Hall in the town community (Santo Antônio) - the roof is condemned and therefore the wooden walls, kitchen, meat room, etc.

When I was at home many people were curious as to what life was like here. My answer was that it is a bit like the Wild West of the movies, horses and carts, which are fast being replaced by the motorbike, cattle drives through town etc.

Cattle Drive through town - a little quieter than what the cowboy movies show.

The law here is nearly non existent or ineffective. Revenge is a big part of Latin culture. We had a parish barbecue {churrasco} here last May, just before I went home, and a man was stabbed to death by his neighbour in front of both their families and two military police men. It seems they were business partners a year before and it all went sour. The murder statistics for Brazil were released earlier this year and two of our parishes, “Coliniza” and “Juruena” are murder capitals number one and two for the whole of Brazil. I am not surprised about Juruena as I worked there on my own for three months after finishing language school and during that time there was seven murders in the parish.

Thankfully there are a lot of good things happening here. Roads are starting to be built {in the town anyway} and electricity is arriving to the settlements.

We had a huge gathering of Christian youth in the parish this October,

Above: Youth Mass. Below: some of the group

And it was good to see that their main concern was the environment and protection of the forest, trees and wildlife. In fact the theme this year for the season of Lent, in the whole of Brazil, was about the protection of the Amazon Forest.

Palm Sunday procession

We had a huge Palm Sunday procession from a small church in the town to the main church.

Palm Sunday procession

On Good Friday, we had the “nearly real” stations of the cross and again a huge crowd.

Good Friday Stations of The Cross

This young man, who played the part of Jesus had a deeply religious experience about it all.

Above & Below: People here love processions, even on Corpus Christi the youth closed off the street and built a pathway of sand-art for The Blessed Sacrament.

They worked all night using coloured sand to draw religious images for the route of the procession, and then swept it all up afterwards.

Parish Assembley

The weekend of 1st & 2nd December we had an assembly of the whole parish. Each of our 28 communities sent three representatives to the assembly and here we decided among other things, the issues and priorities for the parish for coming year. The people’s dedication is a blessing to see and experience.

Parish Assembley

You might be interested to know that each of our 28 communities has a co-coordinator who runs the prayer services; a catechist who teaches religion and prepares the children and adults for the sacraments; and a community leader who leads a committee of people who look after fundraising etc.; and if they have a trained Eucharistic Minister the community may have Holy Communion reserved in their Church, which he or she will distribute and the Sunday “Culto” (service of God’s Word and Communion –NOT Mass).

Baptisms in São Cristovão

As the priest can only visit once a month, it is during the monthly Mass that Weddings {Casamentos}, Baptisms {Batismos} and Confirmations {Crismas} takes place. It is not unusual to celebrate a few baptisms and a wedding at the same monthly mass, and with my poor language skills, this really gets very confusing for me (and I am sure the good people too). I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up baptizing the couple and marrying the baby and the God parents????!!!
Such is life on the Foreign Missions!

While visiting a local house I took this picture of a home-made Christmas Tree, made from plastic mineral (soda) bottles.