Today I would like to honor my dear friend Jane, whose birthday it is today. Jane and I met in college at The University of Tampa, during recruitment week for the Alpha Chi Omega Sorority. I still remember telling the others how I wanted Jane to join our group, as her intelligence, warmth, and overall good nature would only add to the dynamic...plus, she would just be so much fun to have around! During the carnation ceremony in the final night of recruitment, I was fortunate enough to have Jane at my table and we have been fast friends ever since. I also remember during one of our college talent shows, that the music went out, and instead of panicking in the least Jane belted out a song sans microphone as she made her entrance up to the stage. Jane's theatrical training helped her to improvise then, as I am sure it helps her on a daily basis as she is a wonderful mom to four beautiful, smart, and caring girls! Throughout the years of our friendship, I have always been able to count on Jane to be generous with her time, treasures, and talents. From donating clothes to my fundraising sale before leaving on mission, to offering an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on when I was going through rough times, Jane has come through for me time and time again. I am also blessed to be the Godmother of two of her girls, Nina and Maria, and my love for them extends to all of her family! I loved the opportunity to babysit occasionally when I was still in Tampa, and look forward to reuniting with her and her sweet family when I return. In the meantime, I would also like to thank Jane for her shining example of what it means to truly live out your faith in your daily life. I really appreciate how, during our conversations, she understands and considers the "God angle" in my triumphs and struggles. Jane also takes God into account in all of her decisions, from how to raise her girls to how to be a great friend, daughter, wife, and all that she is to everyone in her life. Thank you, Jane, for your example, your caring, and the impact that your friendship has made on my life! Happy Birthday with lots of X's and O's, Valerie
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Yesterday I finished a two day seminar titled, "Seminario Psicoanalítico: Gravedad de la Psicopatología Adolescente e Intervención" or "Psychoanalytic Seminar: Severity of the Adolescent Psychopathology and Intervention."
Although the main speakers were two psychologists who also happened to be a married couple from Argentina, one of the guest speakers was from Hospital Viedma here in Cochabamba. What struck me about her presentation was twofold: 1) that she recently began working at the hospital as the first psychologist on staff, and 2) the stories she brought of the victims. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first story was of a thirteen year old boy who came in with 87% of his body covered in burns from an automobile accident. Not only was the little boy in really bad shape, but he had also witnessed his father die in the same accident. When he began to speak, the only request he had was for food, which even further added to the sadness of the situation, because the simple foods he wanted were not part of the diet approved for burn victims. Although the boy had burns on his arms, legs, and covering his entire face, not once in the week plus that he was in the hospital did he express any concern about his appearance. Since he was from the countryside, he spoke both Quechua and Spanish, and refused to speak in anything but Quechua until his little body stabilized. Once his situation was no longer life threatening, he switched to Spanish and refused to speak anything but the language of choice among the elite in Bolivia. Although this is interesting from a psychological perspective, what intrigued me more was his home life. Before the accident, he was the only child still living with both of his parents. As his situation progressed to physical therapy, his chief (and only) concern was the functionality of his body. Why? Because his day and night preoccupation was that he was now the only "man of the house," and he needed to make sure his mother had food on the table. In order to provide for his family, he had to do manual labor to work the land and sell their crops. Although he had two brothers of seventeen and twenty-two years old, both had already moved out of the house with families of their own. When one of his brothers came to visit him, he asked his brother about his father, and as his brother was trying to shield him, he told him not to worry, that his father was fine and was at home. After his brother left was the first time he mentioned his father to the psychologist, and he did so only to say, "Why did he tell me my father is at home? I saw my father die." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The second story I would like to share is of a young girl who was fourteen years and 360 days old. Why is the number of days important? Because the hospital only has resources to treat children up to fifteen years old, so they had to decide how to best proceed with an intervention, knowing they would only have five days in which to work. The young girl was brought in by her uncle and male cousin, and was heavily under the influence of drugs. After her stomach was emptied, she began to tell her story. She mentioned that she had several boyfriends, and that she snuck out of the house nearly every night to see them. She was persuaded by her cousins to go out late at night, where she smoked, drank, and had relations with several different men. Through the course of her story, she also told the psychologist that she was being sexually abused by her cousin. She also received an exhorbitant amount of money to spend on incidental items, went to a top school in the city center, and participated in what appeared to be a fully functioning upper middle class lifestyle. What was so heartbreakingly disturbing, beside the actual facts, about this child's situation? She thought it was 100% normal, and chalked it up to "lived experiences, a part of life." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the other attendees in the seminar was a torture victim, as the presentation was co-hosted by ITEI (Instituto de Terapia e Investigación sobre Secuelas de Tortura y Violencia Estatal, or Institute of Therapy and Investigation on the Aftermath of Torture and State Violence), and one of my ministry sites, CUBE (Centro Una Brisa de Esperanza or A Breeze of Hope). She was a white haired grandmother, attending the presentation because of her preoccupations with her grandchildren. What surprised me most about her, besides her willingness to openly admit to the group that she was a victim of torture, was that she had strong viewpoints and wasn't afraid to voice them. Even when they were contrary to what the group thought, and especially when she was defending the position of the most poor in a country where resources are scarce and discriminations exist between different social classes. In a private conversation, she told me that women in Bolivia are not considered strong and that they are looked down upon by men, and that she did not value her own worth. However, during presentations and question and answer sessions, she held her own and persisted in expressing her opinion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All three of these people reminded me that you can't judge a book by its cover, and that people are often not aware of their own strength. I pray that they have the help and courage they need to one day be on the side of a little bit bluer sky. Although I cannot fix their lives for them, I can listen to their stories, and I can share them with you. This post is long overdue, for two reasons: 1) I haven't written a thank you post in a long time and I have a lot of people in my life still to thank, and 2) it's my mom!!! I don't know where to begin...she has been my rock. She has supported me at all times, and she always has a positive word of encouragement, no matter what I am going through. My mom is intelligent, loving, caring, and endlessly gives of herself to everyone around her. Whether she is putting in extra hours at her job, volunteering at church, or helping my dad and brother at home after having worked a long day already, she is the classic example of what it means to give without expecting anything in return. She is also a great example of what it means to truly pray. As silly as it may sound, if my sister or I are looking for something and have already prayed to St. Anthony and are losing patience, what do we do? We call our mom, and within minutes you can be sure that we will encounter whatever our lost item may be. She believes in every prayer she offers up, no matter how big or small. She is always reminding me who needs a prayer, and I truly appreciate being kept in the loop about what is going on in our loved ones' lives. My mom has also taught me so much about what it means to truly love the little things in life. From her love for M&M's to her avid passion for reading, she has passed more than one pleasant "addiction" to me! She is always up for accompanying me in any task, no matter how mundane it may seem, with a smile on her face. I have learned how to bargain hunt, sing without inhibitions, and how to persist in anything that I want to achieve because of her example. Thank you, mom, for being such a strong example of what it means to be a genuinely kind and sincere human being, in a world that can only benefit from your gentle reminder of how we should treat one another. Love, Val This post is not easy for me to write, but it is real. I can't help but dwell on the fact that God gives us obstacles to help us grow. Over ten years ago, I was training for my second marathon. I was in the best shape of my life. I could easily down a pint of Ben n' Jerry's ice cream and not be negatively effected, because I was burning way more calories than I was consuming. However, if I had a run the next morning, I would not drink any alcohol, because I knew it would make me feel sluggish. My body, mind, and emotions were all in equilibrium.
Fast forward ten years. Although I was making the most important decision of my life, to finally follow God's call for me to mission, my life was not in balance. I had not worked out regularly since a car accident five years before, my mind was not being challenged, and although I was at peace spiritually, my emotions were a wreck. Although I preached the precedent of living life minimalistically, and I did so on many levels, a life of excess was starting to creep in without my consciously knowing it. I gave lip service to the fact that when I did not have an upcoming physical fitness goal like a race, I followed up by also not eating well, because there was not a pressing enough reason to do so. My competitive nature, however, during training for a 5K, 10K, triathlon, or marathon had always kept me in check before. When I started to feel like my body was headed in the wrong direction, my friends and I would sign up for a race, and I would have my next goal. After my car accident, however, I was strongly counseled against running for two years. If I could turn back time, I would have ignored that advice and kept my body in motion. What followed was a series of years in which I 1) stubbornly refused to work out at all if I couldn't run 2) tried to rehabilitate myself too little, too late 3) participated in easier races in which I really didn't have to train, and finally... 4) overtrained for a Ragnar Relay and injured myself further. This took me into my formation program with Franciscan Mission Service (FMS). To top things off in the area of physical health, I was living in the FMS house with twelve other people, and we were making joint decisions on grocery purchases with an extremely limited budget. Of course, some of the first things to go in an expensive city like Washington, D.C. were healthier (read: more expensive) food options. While this worked for me in college when I was in my twenties (and to their credit, I was sharing a house with a good number of "twenty-somethings"), it did not do wonders for me physically in D.C. We were fortunate enough to receive donations from places like Miriam's Kitchen when they couldn't use all the food donations they received (read: sweets). We also jokingly referred to ourselves as home-school students, because our classes were in the house where we lived, which meant all of our breaks were spent in the kitchen. With an intensely jam-packed schedule, I found plenty of reasons (read: excuses) not to work out. Although it was easy for me to turn down cake and ice cream for birthday celebrations at work when I was training for an upcoming race, I freely shared not only in the celebrations, but also in double servings of ice cream in the FMS house. And where am I on mission? In Latin America, in a culture where sharing food is synonymous with breaking down all other barriers, and as common throughout the day as eating (or skipping) lunch hurriedly at your desk in the United States. And talk about food...silpancho, salteñas, fried yucca, arroz con queso, humintas, buñuelos, dulce de leche cakes, and heladerias (ice cream shops) on every corner in the city center. What is missing from this list? Lettuce, fresh fruits, and vegetables...which bring concerns of parasites and amoebas, unless they are peeled and/or cooked, hence loosing some of their nutritional value. And they are really expensive. What has allowed me to abandon this eating lifestyle? Amoebas, SIBO, gastritis, and lastly duodenitis. In Spanish, I can use the expression "estoy delicada," to explain that I have a weak stomach and therefore cannot participate in the fifth cake offer of the day! And what has driven me to start working out again? My stomach struggling to process food quickly enough, and a lack of overall energy stemming from my current vitamin deficiencies (produced by illness and diet restrictions). It's funny how things somehow work out, in the way you least expect them to. I was thinking the past couple of days about how happy I am...in fact, I started singing along to "Happy" the other day in a trufi on my way to Chilimarca. I realized that not only am I finally starting to recognize my body again, but I am also eating healthy foods, exercising regularly, and following God's call in my life. In addition, I have been emotionally blessed to realize how much support and love I have in my home country by the way you have reached out through emails, cards, and care packages. It took me going all the way to Bolivia, and following a calamity of health events, to actively pursue my health again in the right way. I am constantly reminded that God has a master plan greater than we could ever imagine, and I am thankful for God's unending patience and love! |
AuthorValerie Ellis, who is in alignment with the Black Lives Matter Movement and everyone whose life is impacted, now or before, by times of social injustice. Archives
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