Next Sunday starts Advent, time of preparation for the birth of Jesus. JJ Mc Cathy sent me a enthralling book, The Body Takes It's Toll, describing the effect of trauma, abandonment, neglect, abuse, deprivation, etc on human development. The author insists that the earlier these demons occur, the more devastating the result for mind, body, and soul. He also contends that not only are they much more common but also the main cause factor in severe mental disorders. What does this have to do with Advent? Seen in this light, advents to birth start the essential conditions for positive, protected, secure children and adults. The interchange between mother and fetus forms the basis of whom we will become. The phenomenon carries over to the infancy narrative. The earlier the abuse occurs, the more devastating the consequences. Children who suffer theses consequences have to find ways to wall off the abuse and shut down relationships. The process does not function as a water faucet that can be turned on and off. When survival demands shutting down the emotional brain, the resulting condition impedes proper growth and distorts perception. In large part, the author arrived at this theory observing children who injured thselves. reacted violently with others, spaced out, shunted all human contact. How important is the time we spend in preparation for birth, and the attention we give to children, the great themes of Advent. We try to make December special for all children with celebrations, dance, pastorelas and posadas ( reenactment of Joseph and Mary's being refused at the inn and finding shelter in the stable.)

In this light, we started early. Blanca, the director of our Canoa center, asked me to find a place for an expectant, single mother of twins, who was being evicted from her apartment. "Tell me when she has to leave and expected delivery date." They occurred about the same time. We had been working restoring an abandoned, crumbling house. I told her that the mother could live there. But in there matters, dates do not always coincide. She delivered a couple of days early. We worked diligently to finish the house on a Friday about five weeks ago anticipating a Saturday arrival. On Friday mnight, they killed a man on the street at the entrance to the house. The police closed the area to all traffic until the body was removed. Finally, in the afternoon, the mother arrived with two tiny bundles, Joel and Leonel. Most often, the results of voluntary labor are hidden in the hands of the Lord. But I felt satisfaction that our Christmas came before the hour in double quantity.

One morning on the way to Mass, the daughter of the deceased, beloved coordinator of our chapel told me about a family living in a 6ft x 6ft tent, a single father and his three boys, two in middle school and one in primary school. They had not even a table nor chair; the kids did their homework writing on the ground. I wanted to experiment with a new method of construction that involves making a frame working out of metal studs laid on the ground and filled with a mixture of half bag of cement, one bucket of sand, and five buckets of ground recycled esp (Styrofoam.) We had made a sample batch and it seemed ok. The Padilla family helped me with a wood chipper; we crushed bag after bag of foam, pouring it into the frame work in the same style as "lift up" Constuction. I was quite happy with the results until it came time to raise the walls. Five of us could not budge them. I don't know how, but the next morning nine people showed up and with considerable effort, we managed to secure them in place. Luis Evora, Enrique Contreras, and team showed up a couple of days later and installed the electricity. They brought bikes for newly installed family, tables, chairs, and even a tv. The walls need to be stuccoed

and plumbing installed, but they are safe from the elements. One day we brought food for everyone, but they did not even have a spoon to eat. With the help of the kids at our carpentry school, we made and delivered a large kitchen cabinet and sink: our second posadas.

The third posadas remains a work in progress. A single mom with an elderly mother who barely walks and two daughters attends Sunday Mass. She asked help for a house. I went with her to see the site and said to myself that site the was impossible sloping steeply in two directions. A friend has a back hoe. He leveled off part of the land. Arturo Padilla came with his son Pablo to level three cement pillars upon which I rested a box beam made out of steel studs encased in plywood to serve as a base for a steel framework that Eloy Ojeda taught me thirty years ago how to assemble. For years, we have cooperated with a non profit that promotes self help houses. The director told me about a group from the Church of Jesus Christ in Utah that comes during Thanksgiving, Builders Without Borders, to construct houses. I called the lady in charge, Kelly McMillan. She said that she would try to include our house. Years ago I remember digging trenches at the La Gloria Childrens Home with a professor from BYU who taught the Book of Mormon. We passed a wonderful afternoon shoveling and talking theology, my version of ecumenism in the trenches. I told Kelly that I would pay for the materials if her group would provide the labor. They put up the walls and most of the rafters and partial sheeting. Angel and I worked four days to finish the siding, the rafters, sheeting, put up doors, and roofed in the morning when it rained in the afternoon. We need to hang drywall, slap down laminate flooring. Before Christmas, Luis Evora will install electricity and lighting while humbly acknowledging: "no longer shall the sun go down, or your moon withdraw, for the Lord shall be your light forever, and the days of your mourning be at an end. Your people shall be just." Is.60:20 Praying for same justice respect for human rights in the Holy Land and Ukraine, I wish peace for all.

I will open up rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the broad valleys; I will turn the desert into a marshland and the dry ground into springs of water. I will plant in the desert the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and olive. I will set in the wasteland the cypress, together with the plane tree, and the pine, that all may see, and know, observe and understand that the hand of the Lord has done this. Is 41: 17-20.

Isaia describes the sacred nature of rivers, trees, and mountains, objects of encounter with the divine. All trees foster life but even more the tree of the cross planted on the barren hill of Golgotha to proclaim the liberation of all peoples. Nikos Katzantzakis described the tree of Easter glory upon descending Mount Athos and calling upon a tree to speak to him of God and the tree blossomed.

The lady coach of the intergraded soccer team at the chapel at the bottom of a ravine in our area asked me to bless the site of a young man’s suicide. The icy wind made the utterly barren house even colder. Tacked together with discarded material, it provided minimum shelter. The outside kitchen used a mounded mud cavity for a stove. When his wife and children abandoned him, the poor lad could no longer withstand the misery. But the garden was full of trees with hundreds of saplings in small cans that he would give away to neighbors and anyone else.

Shortly after a friend called to anoint El Paisa, a tall, strangely, gentle soul who attended our Sunday Mass attired in a worn poncho. I barely made it to his hut hanging onto a collapsing barbed wire fence. I found him lying on the floor beneath urine soaked coverings that emitted a barely tolerable stench awaiting the “pelona” (grim ripper.) In the darkness, I found it hard to find his head while pronouncing the prayers of consolation of the last rites. An ambulance arrived to take him to the hospital, but he refused. The next morning , he mercifully went to his reward. The poor have no burial but rather are thrown into the “pozo comun” the dump for human remains. We celebrated his life and resurrection at Mass the following Sunday. Years ago I attended El Negro who lived by our chapel at the site of the old municipal dump who similarly lied on the ground floor of his shack. The neighbors had graciously sent him food that they placed beside him, but the dogs were eating his food. I offered to take him to a rest home but he refused. He had lost an arm working at the dump which was fitted with a crude hook which he dug into the ground where he wanted to pass his final time with his dogs. Isaia promises, “Yes, in joy you shall depart, in peace you shall be brought back; mountains and hills shall break out in song before you, and all the trees of the countryside shall clap their hands. In place of the thornbush, the cypress will grow, instead of nettles, the myrtle. This shall be to the Lord’s renown, an everlasting imperishable sign.” 55:12-13 Easter offers the same tree of life to the poor.

Milestones and News: Charles Astrue died. Three years ago at our last gathering in San Francisco when only 98 and still walking without support, upon leaving with a twinkle in his eyes Charles told everyone upon leaving that he was going to take his wife Miriam out for an ice cream cone. Bright, friendly cheerful, with a love of Latino culture, he was a genuine gentleman full of kindness and compassion.

Cristobol Marquez celebrates his 100th birthday on April 1st, a truly honest remarkable person of great virtue, promoter of justice and community service in La Purissima, Gto.

An Easter fiesta for all of our children on the Sunday following Easter,(those who have families want to be with them on Easter day) the first time for a community event since the pandemic reshaped our lives. We will sing including sign with the words, dance including those in wheel chairs, eat, and rejoice in the splendor of April’s glory.

The finishing of a 9.30 meter retaining wall, 2.10 meters high, and a scaled width from .90m to .30m , to .20m formed in solid concrete ( a dump truck and a half of sand and gravel) mixed almost all by hand for a new residence for those of other capabilities. We have spread out by hand almost thirty dump truck loads of dirt to level off the property. With your help I purchased 2 mobile classrooms which we will convert according to the international code for the handicapped.

Another apartment at the house for men for a 22 year old with hydrocephalus and autism, severely retarded who is accompanied by his mother. They had to put the father with Alzheimer’s in a home. We are currently working on a shared bathroom with almost all of the plumbing installed.

We have a fifteen year old boy who has come to the therapy center for years that the adoptive mother wants to turn over to the state agency for social welfare which has no place for challenged youngsters. We are searching for a solution. But we run up against the limits of our own competence.

The non profit corporation Apoyando la Juventud is ready to begin functioning after years of planning. De Colores will provide the seed money to get them going providing scholarships for university study and community work projects

Also for some time, we have been trying to promote exo skeleton support systems to enable paralytics to walk. We might or might not be on track to develop a workable system that will be affordable for our people both in Mexi co and Peru. Technological developments should be graded on their ability to change the lives of the many, not only for the privileged.

In 1935, the French minister Laval approached Stalin with the intention of stopping the persecution of Catholics. Stalin famously answered, “how many divisions of tanks has the pope?” Stalin has departed and Putin reigns. We join Pope Francis in prayer, our only armament, with all people of good will to stop the war, humankind’s ancient slave maker.v

With advancing years I have noticed that more frequently people ask for my health with a concern not previously detectable. In Tijuana they divide the priests in age groups; I am graciously included with the old farts. One says to the other, ”the weight of the years has taken its toll on me. I am stumbling to the finish line.” The other answers, “ I am a new born baby.” “How so?” “ It’s true! I have no hair, no teeth, and I just peed in my pants.” There go I but for the grace of God.

Today we celebrated our chapel ‘s feast day. 20 youth performed the ancient Aztecan dance (danza no baile.) It connects them with their cultural heritage, enables them to find the sacred in the movement of their bodies, and experience collective beauty. In past years we have had 50 dancers, but covid 19 has limited everything. We continue with Mass outside. Who needs cathedrals to pray?

Thanks be to God, we have finished the retreat center for youth groups, etc. It encompasses 2 conference rooms, 2 bathrooms, 4 private spaces, a kitchen, small reception area, and a tool room after five months of work

The sisters also had a suspended ramp 40 feet long by 9 feet wide that was shedding chunks of concrete. We demolished it and are now building a new one. Who knows how long this will take?

The granddaughter of a deceased friend is a psychologist . She asked for help to build a small house 20’ by 14’ with a bath. We will help her in exchange for her helping our challenged kids equaling her hours of service to ours of construction. There is always the risk of taking the bacon and running, but the reward will hopefully enhance the lives of some of our kids. It is always difficult to get professionals to volunteer.

My carpenter friend Tono has wanted to sell his land for some time. I offered him a plan to use the land at a reduced price. Serving Hands International has provided me with two portable classrooms. I am always grateful to them. They asked prayers for their founder Terry Caster of A1 Storage who is going to have a shoulder replacement. We only have to level the land and build a retaining wall and a perimeter wall.

We move our Christmas party for the kids to after Epiphany to celebrate the diversity of gifts who are our children to us and the inclusion of all Wise Women and Men. We will share a simple gift and community meal. All are welcome 11:00 at CANOA. We will acclaim with Isaiah that the Lord will blossom forth justice in the desert and praise before all peoples especially in the hearts of our children of other abilities.

MILESTONES: Deceased: Jose Hidalgo Hinojoso my great friend who accompanied on all of the projects from the hospital in Tijuana to the orphanage in Peru, of respiratory failure. Honest, faithful, trustworthy Graduated: Blanca Panduro from Tijuana UNUS University with a degree in Physical Therapy- the same course as for medical doctor learning all bones, nerves, muscles and distinct types of therapy. Next year she will become the directress of CANOA. Your support paid for her degree. 50th Wedding Anniversary My sister Carol and husband Tom: Anything that we can do to promote the dignity and sanctity of the family merits admiration. Actions speak louder than words. Threatened: the president and secretary of our Tijuana non profit organization. The secretary and her husband picked up their four kids and fled. The president has more limited options as she has cancer and needs treatment. Gunfire almost every night has replaced the quiet of a semirural village where when I first came 39 years ago no one locked their doors. Born: Emanuel, God with us in a stable among poor shepherds to bring us great joy.

Time for the children to go back to school. But there is no school. Classes are online. But the children in our area do not have computers. Time to go back to work, but jobs are scarce. Time to go to church, we opened up one chapel out of four. Our schools for remedial education remain closed. The one area that remains open is the care of our kids of other abilities. However, activities have been curtailed. Candelaria who has been with us for 15 years pleads to go to equine therapy. We do not gather children from different homes together to celebrate birthdays. Our Canoa center has continued to provide therapy with masks for the all, social distancing, thermometer check, disinfectant, thirty-minute limit, no singing, etc.

In the meantime, we have opened a new house right next to a parish church on the east side of Rosarito with the hope that churchgoers can take interest and support the project. We only had to paint, fix the roof, rework electricity and plumbing, and build wheelchair access ramps, plus new kitchen cabinets. Roberto lives there, fifty years old, movement impaired evidenced by sliding 6-inch steps, retarded (he still plays with his box of hot wheels,) but a truly marvellous person. He exudes kindness, consideration for others, graciousness, benignity, a deeply felt laughter, a wonderful sense of humor. He and David get along splendidly. We envision this house to take in older folks. The one overwhelming worry of parents with challenged youngsters is what will happen to them when I die. We also want to respond to the growing incidence of Alzheimer's among people with down syndrome as they advance in years.

With the help of Serving Hands International, we purchased a mobile classroom which we are slowly turning into a residence for our challenged people. We redid all the electricity including changing to LED lighting, built a bathroom which will hopefully experience all interior connections tomorrow, repaired the entire room, and built a ramp-garden area which would correspond to a twelve by forty-foot deck and ramp. Instead, through a friend who works for the city, we acquired eleven dump truck loads of rubble and dirt which we moved by pick and shovel to form a shaded area for the children complete with dwarf trees and plants. A refugee family from El Salvador is scheduled to move in today to start caring for our kids. We will have three houses connected to each other in administration, provisions, and supervision separated ten minutes one from another. I do not believe in large institutions that do not provide personal care, but rather In family groups to support and watch out for one another. I strive to imitate SOS which started in Austria at the end of the WW2 with the great number of orphans in Europe and has spread all over the world. They have a home in Tijuana where one of our young people was the director. I have also visited their home in Tres Rios on the outskirts of San Jose, Costa Rica. The challenge is to adopt the system of family type units to the historical and cultural circumstances at play in our area.

If official transactions required x amount of time before the pandemic, they now require x7. A water connection at CANOA, a simple eight-foot hook up to a new meter, extended over seven months. It took ten months to open a bank account to conform with revised laundering. Rest assured that I have enough trouble washing David's and my clothes let alone money. I do confess to finding coins in the bottom of the tub. All of this does not include hours waiting in line to be told to come back another day. Isais 30 “For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: By waiting and by calm you will be saved, in the quiet and in trust your strength lies…. Yet the Lord is waiting to show you favor; for the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all who wait for him.”

We are still struggling to open the new daycare center. Our biggest task now is to build a peripheral wall to keep out thieves. During the past couple of months, they have broken in six times to steal whatever they can find including the toys and books for the center. We know who they are- young drug addicts hopelessly caught in the cycle to support their habits who used to come to catechism with us but fell to the allurement of rapid pleasure over the painstaking struggle to create a better world.

The description of the Lord of Justice reminds me of the fortieth anniversary of Oscar Romero, the Saint of the Americas. We had no remembrance this year; all the churches closed. He gave all of us who struggle within churches hope by transforming and incorporating all into a church of the people, the church of the poor. How I wish that his spirit still remained with us.

Every year in September or October I go to San Francisco but not this year for the pandemic. Next year will be better. God willing.

Theophany Narrative:

Aldea of the Holy Family, project of the Institute for Integral Rehabilitation of the Incapacitated, Sabandia, province of Arequipa, Peru, January 2019.

Seven boys, all severely challenged, gathered around the kitchen table and given the task of peeling fava beans invite me to join them. The boy with one arm works twice as fast as me. Jilmar participates at the rate of a bean every twenty minutes every bean a testimony to the victory over the gyrations of severe cerebral palsy. No one checks to see how much nor how little each one produces. They have developed recognizable interest in one another, cleaning a noise, taking a companion to the bathroom, making room to-fit in another wheel chair. The common language is an almost constant laughter, both simple and profound that emanates from the heart. Never once a negative comment, nor derisive gesture break the camaraderie.

One comments, " I really like fava bean soup. '' Everyone laughs.

Another claims, " I like fava bean soup more than anyone" Everyone laughs even harder. When we finish, every one helps to clean up.
David takes out of his pockets a chewing size packet-filled with wafer thin cookies that he has broken down to the size of communion wafers. The children have nothing of their own. A small package of cookies is a treasure to be guarded in secret and consumed in delight. A mother often told me how she used to hide a candy for herself only to be discovered eating it alone and evidenced by one offer daughters. Significantly retarded and affected with constant drooling, David enjoys a special place of affection. He takes out each cookie end places it in the hand or in the mouth of every companion according to their ability to use their hands.
  Commentary (free verse) Deficient, demented, dispossessed, disenfranchised, discredited as a public burden, gathered around a table, apostles of other capabilities, vested in shop worn, threadbare garments, the boys peel fava beans, planted with palsied hands and harvested as fruit  of the earth, completing a sustainable cycle driven by devotion bereft of any productive demand.
Replete with glee worthy of being re imagined and retold, sowed upon the heart, they create a world of fellowship.
What benevolence, enduring and endearing, ineluctable of how to live together in canonizing acceptance, anticipation offends, memorizing engagements Constant laughter accompanies them, laughter worthy of being consecrated and distributed as communion in holy trust ozone another, bread broken, not horded, shared for the life of the world                                                 
 

Too often religions use to Bible to prove their own legitimacy instead of searching for the experience of the divine in the world.  Advent begins with three readings of Isaiah contemplating God in the original understanding of the ancient Hebrews, the One who made the heavens and the earth.

The magnificent readings around Chapter 11 described wisdom and intelligence as seeing the presence of God in the mountains, especially the holy mountain where all peoples and nations gather together as one, in the places where the rivers and the sea meet, in the blind, the lame, the hard of hearing, those of other capacities, in those who wrap justice around themselves, who judge not by appearance, nor hearsay, nor bribes, but have a voice to defend the needy and scatter the corrupt.

How harsh and dreadful to know how to discover God in the actual context of daily life. In November, six homicides right around our chapel and six thousand migrants along the border in the cold and rain. The psalmist asked we look to the mountains for help. Where does our help come from but from our God? The Advent season announces a time to wait for liberation, for the revelation of goodness found in the child born and wrapped in swaddling clothes in a stable Isaiah describes that waiting in steadfast, faithful hope: do what is right, and as much as you can and leave room for all others to act in the same manner.

Our children are well enjoying December, the happiest of all months. They went to dance yesterday to celebrate the day of the handicapped and try to get an apparatus so that Cynthia can walk. We are opening a community center for a range of classes open to all. We started with sewing and clothing design and will include other courses.

We are waiting for the plans from the architect for the new house for men and boys with challenges.
He is the same that is designing the new cathedral. I bit my tongue and did not implore him to dedicate his effort to our worthwhile project and not to that of the Bishop. But the Bishop has more pesos.

We have been offered land for a new center for vocational training. That will happen after the rains, sometime after Easter. I hope to move the carpentry shop there, plus electricity, and plumbing, but only with an ingredient of education in the Morality of sharing. No need to teach only how to gain a good living exclusively for oneself.

One more program to go together with remedial home work school- designed for youth to continue school and do community service- now in the paperwork stage. So much more to do in little time, only confiding that it be in God's time.

The Evening before the saints Halloween, 2018

Returning to Tijuana, I am overwhelmed by your generosity and kindness.  I appreciate your considerable goodness and trust.  Our small Christian community review.  The Sunday Gospel the question about this Sunday merits reflection: who has loved you & who have you loved?  Most answered their family.  One man answered "No one".

Another credits the groups for the love and support he never received previously.  I love all of you in spirit and truth.  The Gospel admonition to be united in charity makes us aware of how we are joined together in the image of the sacred heart overflowing with compassion for all even those great and small.

Back at the rach, another vision of reality challenges faith.  In 2 weeks, 4 have been murdered in our neighborhood.  On the cooper of over victim, an attached note designated who was next.  On the electrical tower, a large poster announced the same.  One person who used to live with us called to ask prayers having been warned of imminent demise - age 15.  3 weeks ago a priest from a close by parish was murdered.  People claim that he was abducted and held for ransom.  The archbishop of Tijuana refused to pay. If no one paid, there would be no kidnappings.  A good man from the chapel had his car stolen.  He published a picture of it on Facebook in case anyone spotted it.  He was warned to take it down because they needed a vehicle to abduct someone.

A Eucharistic prayer admonishes us to keep open the doors of hope.  Our young people bringing food, medicine to shut-ins working with kids at the school for homework, teach me hope.  Our special kids struggling to take one step - just one step, do the same.  We also put up our own lists.  They now include Saint Oscar Anulfo Romero ,Authenie voice for justice, human liberation and what we called the triumph of the resurrection is his people.

I started writing over a month ago. But we could not get a confirmation on a 20th at St James, 23rd and Guerrero date and place for the annual gathering until this afternoon. Oct 20th at Sts (two blocks west of Mission St. ) The other churches wanted to charge or were not available.

Yesterday was the feast day of cosmos and Damien, early Christian martyrs from Alepo, Syria( where massive destruction has accompanied the present civil war) They were physicians who never charged reasoning that healing is a gift from God. Interestingly, they were the first to be targeted in the persecution. Pope Francis compares the church to a field hospital, again no charge; but we have evolved into a church that charges for everything. Jesus counsels, ''What you have received freely, give freely.'' But we got you paying from Baptism to the grave, and we might be the cheapest option.

In Canoa therapy continues. We have a two-year-old with cerebral palsy making considerable
progress but a long distance from walking now smiling along the way. We have finished the project of installing new solar panels but await the hook up to a bi-directional meter. Hopefully, the electric bill will be reduced.

We installed a solar water system for the home for girls in Rosarito. It also awaits final hook up. After a year of effort, I finally got access to an operating room for oral surgery for the twins, Lupe & Carmen.
Next up is Anahi for a cleft pallet. Her appointment for consideration Is in January. We have eight girls which is the limit for care and still remaining a family home and not an institution.

We are taking the steps to start a home for boys. Property is in the process of donation. We built a fence and sighted levels. We drew plans but need the approval of a registered architect. All of this takes time and patience. The actual construction could take less time than the preliminary steps.

  The new house for the older members of the orphanage in Peru is about halfway finished. After almost 20 years, I plan to visit in January If anyone wants to accompany us.

The therapy center in Chihuahua continues to treat people free of charge. They are closing in on 2,000 patients. They have the advantage of a physical therapist who prescribes the proper course of treatment. We have started in the same direction in Tijuana helping a young woman with her studies so that she can provide the same service. One of our scholarship students just graduated as a psychologist, and another is less than a year away In law school. We are also planning to help with another program of scholarships based on community service. A lot more to do in limited time...........