Loja Lights...February/March 2014

Loja friends Sandry and David Ludena and children

Bill got to know the Ludenas while I was in Haiti in January.  They worked together with others to help renovate a coffee house named El Sendero (The Path), a ministry of Service in Mission that provides a fun hangout for Loja youth, along with English tutoring and counseling.  And happy surprise...we learned David and Sandry Ludena are friends with Jean Fils Chery, the new priest at the Episcopal parish in Haiti where I work with women through Daughters of the King and the Haitian Batik Project.  Jean, David, and Sandry were fellow students in seminary in Cuba.  It's a joy to know and to help support the Ludenas--Loja lights--in their work with youth.

Jean Fils Chery helps model batik scarves made by some of his parishioners in Gonaives, Haiti

In March we enjoyed Loja's Botanical Gardens, a visit from American friends Robin and Irene, and a trip with the Ludenas around the Loja region.  At the end of the month, we visited Saraguro, a town not far from Loja where the people wear black in memory and mourning of Atahualpa, the Inca ruler killed by the Spanish in 1533.  

Botanical Gardens, Loja

Lunch on our Loja terrace with Robin and Irene

Outing with the Ludenas and extended family 

Another happy surprise in Saraguro...a reunion with Flor Maria Cartuche, leader of La Mega Cooperativa, a group of women who create beautiful beaded jewelry.  They use some of the funds raised since 2010 at the annual Santa Fe International Folk Art Market (where I met Flor in 2012) to support a women's shelter and work against domestic violence in Saraguro.

In Saraguro with Flor (in blue) and members of La Mega Cooperativa

La Mega's beadwork is sold in July at the Santa Fe Folk Art Market

The Internal Journey

I returned from Haiti enthused to help advance a long-standing collaboration on behalf of women's health, but was stymied by an interpersonal roadblock.

Journal entry:  March 2, 2014

Letting go of my need to fix things, make them right, make them work, allows me to be a better listener, encourager, helper.  Thomas A Kempis, in The Imitation of Christ, writes: "No one can hold fast to the true joy if he makes his boast in anything outside me [God]…he will not feel his heart expanding in gladness, but he will feel very conscious of oppression and contraction."  Oppression and contraction are exactly what I've been feeling, so what a release it is to be able to simply boast in God and his ways and mercies, knowing that in spite of our weaknesses he leads us on and gives fruit to labors that honor him.