2nd Semester 2011, January and February

This semester has been filled with many ups and downs, twists and turns, yet it all continues to move forward in the same direction. Its hard to sum up everything that has happened over the past five months because so much has happened and yet it seems as if everything remains the same. Our lives are so hectic and busy, and yet so plain and ordinary. Yet in the midst of all the monotony and everything mundane, through the ordinary God has done the extraordinary. Amidst all the madness and confusion, God brought stability.

The beginning of this semester began with the tragic news that one of Mount Carmel’s former students had committed suicide. This sent out a big shockwave throughout the community of Benque. It especially affected my former homeroom, the class she was in. I will never forget the day that I and my former homeroom approached her house as we heard the wailing and moaning of her grieving mother. Everyone who heard it felt her pain. I didn’t want to go inside, I didn’t know what to do or say to a mother who had lost her child. I was terrified, but because I am called “teacher” I had to pretend to know what I was doing and that I was not afraid. We went in and paid our respects. To see the pain of a mother in so much grief twisted one’s heart into knots enough to wring tears out of one’s eyes. I’ve never understood Our Lady of Sorrows as much as I did at that point. I thought a lot of how Mary must have felt when she lost her only Son to such a horrible death. A dark cloud had descended upon Benque, over the next few weeks reports of more suicide and suicide attempts rolled in. It seemed as if crisis had taken over. Yet it was the community of faith that held everything together. Death and the Evil One had knocked on Benque’s door, but Benque with much grief responded with faith not by becoming focused on the evil surrounding it, but by ignoring it. There was a shift in thought that was necessary to happen in order to not give credit or attention to the Evil One. It is clear that those who were involved were longing for something more: they were longing for Love.

During the next month, my fourth form students were asked to apply everything that they had learned about that Love that everyone longs for in a chastity presentation that they would give to primary school students in the area. They were all so nervous and excited about how to make their presentation applicable to youngsters. It was beautiful to see because through learning how to teach it, they learned to believe what they taught and a transformation grew within them. Although they went to give presentations to help other students learn, it was really them who were learning and learning to Love. The excitement in their faces as they returned from their respective schools was contagious. It was clear that God was working in their hearts to teach them about the demands of true Love rather than the counterfeit form they are surrounded by.