Watermelon at Christmas Time and a Brief Reflection on Prayer

 



I had wanted to get a shot of the 3 of us, the Cochabamba FMS missioners eating watermelon at Thanksgiving. I then also missed the shot on Christmas day. I was able to get this one a few days after Christmas at our weekly reflection time. Note the Christmas Book on the table. Nora is blocking the Nativity Scene, but the star is right over her head!! *

We try to get together to reflect every week, share prayer, check in on what's happening in our ministries and lives, and almost always share a meal. This week was my turn, which means meeting at my house, cooking and preparing reflection. Theme of be joyful, pray constantly. (Paul/ Thessalonians I believe). There are many opportunities to pray constantly here, or at least frequently, while waiting for a bus while riding the bus, while waiting for a meeting to start (even during the meeting). One can pray while cooking for people who are coming to eat the meal, and when doing the dishes after all leave. *

I am impressed by two people I know that pray for everyone they know on their long morning walks. Though impressed for more than a decade, I have yet to incorporate anything similar into my prayer life. I tend to focus on a few people at a time. *

I also always like the idea at Jubilee, that would come around at devotions a few times a year, where someone would right down all the names of the people living there, staff and refugees, and sometimes refugees who had just moved to Atlanta, or ones we knew to be particularly struggling. We would divide the the slips of paper with names among all who were present at prayer time and we would prayer for those particular people. I usually kept those slips a long time to remind me to pray for the people longer. Sometimes slips from various prayer times would pile up on a little plate. I would go back from time to time and open each paper and pray again, sometimes for a volunteer who was long gone and back to school, or off on their next adventure. *

I hope everyone will keep me in prayer from time to time. God knows I need it! We will be having a three day retreat in January and will be joined by the other two missioners in Bolivia. They live a days journey by bus (actually 2 buses) so it will be good to reflect and pray with them. Our retreat will be led by our program director Rhegan and Fr Joe, ofm, who is the former co-director of FMS. He was codirector when I originally trained in 1999, and was my boss when I worked as office manager/bookkeeper for FMS. It will be great to have him here. *

I am excited also for Rhegan to come, she has mission experience in both Brazil and Bolivia. I met her many years ago while she was in training. I was able to spend sometime in the US with her, when I was there this year. I was very impressed with a couple training sessions I sat in on. The three missioners in training also kept telling me how much they were impressed with her and the training. *

Be Joyful always and pray constantly. The reflection included the idea that when one prays constantly, joy is the result. *