March 15, 2011 - Day Two

Day Two of our experience began at 8:30 a.m. with Eric, a mission staffer, giving an orientation to our band of volunteers.  Philip was impressed with Eric’s happy and upbeat manner so early in the morning when he himself still felt groggy with sleep.

The task of the day was to bag items for a free distribution at the Mission Office on Wednesday.  The Food Pantry is housed at the St. Bonaventure Elementary School right next to the gym.  We heard the joyful sounds of children engaged in physical activity while we worked.

We very quickly developed an assembly line with Erin opening boxes of donated goods for Irene to bag: beef broth, chicken broth, chili, cream of mushroom soup, pickles, first aid kits, stain remover and napkins.  

 Grant, Nigel, Alex, and Philip began bagging dry beans and rice, which Adrienne added to Irene’s bags along with a roll of toilet tissue.  Daris  and Todd bagged flour until first Todd, then Daris had to leave to attend to other Mission tasks.  Yours truly opened plastic bags and doubled them for Irene to fill.

We worked straight through until 1:30 without stopping.  I think we were determined to finish before taking a lunch break, and we almost made it.  As Adrienne said, “I think we were all blessed today, because we worked so hard, and we got so much done.  We didn’t even want to take a break.”

Nigel pointed out that we filled, tied and loaded over 200 bags on the flatbed pulled behind the truck.  It had to make two trips.   Nigel also was impressed by everyone’s teamwork and flexibility in changing up jobs as needed.  Truly, our wonderful group of young adult college students expressed a great love of God and showed the love of Christ to all around them.

After our lunch break we made quick work of finishing up the morning’s project.  We are slated to help distribute the work of our hands and hearts tomorrow between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

We finished our day’s work early enough for some sightseeing on the Eastern Navajo Reservation.  Those who are new to our group this year: Adrienne, Alex, and Grant, saw the traditional Navajo hogans for the first time.  We saw a variety of colors of earth: red, rose, ochre, tan, white, yellow.   

 We saw sheer rock cliff faces: Castle Rock, Pig Face, Church Rock and the very famous Red Mesa.  Ronnie told us how to spot the presence of bald eagle nests on the red cliffs by the presence of white running down from a cleft – from their feces.  Both Todd and Ronnie gave us more information than I could hold.  I suspect that between the nine of us, we will all remember different pieces of information.

From the reservation we went on to Gallup on the famous Route 66.  It’s a small town with a rich history from the days when the highway was the only east-west highway.  Ronnie pointed out the famous El Rancho Hotel and Restaurant where the movie stars of old often stopped.  On our way back we crossed the Continental Divide, and Ronnie pointed out the old Fort Wingate where the army once stored much of its ammunitions and fired off rockets on a regular basis.

The final highlight of the day was Sister Adelangela’s real Italian Risotto with salami and for dessert, crema pasticeria.  Making the meal even more of a treat was the presence of Janie Shorty, a Navajo friend of our group from last year.  She added to our knowledge of Navajo customs and traditions from her own experience, and we were touched when she shared that our return was a blessing to her.  “For you guys to come back after a whole year is really amazing to me,” she said.

We ended our evening with the following Navajo prayer:

In beauty I walk.

With the pollen of dawn upon my path

I wander.

With beauty before me, I walk.

With beauty behind me, I walk.

Janie explained that the “pollen” of the prayer is corn pollen, and it is very hard to gather.  Navajo keep this pollen in small beaded pouches.  When they feel the need to pray, the take a pinch of pollen, offer some outward (to God) and place some on their heads.  Her description was really quite beautiful.  She also spoke about the sacredness of smoke in Navajo religion, because smoke rises (in a sweet aroma if it’s cypress) to God, and it clings to the person using it as a sort of blessing.  This immediately reminded us of our Catholic practice of using incense basically for the same reason.

She also told us that to “walk in beauty” means basically to live a good life in harmony with others, with nature, and with God.  Connected with this prayer I also think of Todd and Ronnie telling us that all hogans (traditional Navajo eight-sided dwellings) have the only door facing the east “lest the sun should find you asleep.”