!Felices Pascuas! 2008

Here is the latest message from Srs Jacinta & Marie:

Queridos Amigos,

Greetings from El Valle where all activities are now underway after the long school holidays. Already we are in Holy week and that has been brought home to us by the death of María Fernanda who had only completed one and half years and died last Friday. A group of us went to the house on Friday to pray for her and the family and on Saturday we accompanied the little coffin to the graveyard in the Valle. It was so sad to see the little grave and to lower the small coffin within. Please remember the family in your prayers. And so we continue to accompany Christ in his passion.

We continue with our services on Holy Thursday and Good Friday and Easter Sunday we have 5 adults for Confirmation and First Communion and a child for baptism so little by little the evangelization of the Valle is bearing fruit. Gracias a Dios.

I have just come from the Valle where we celebrated the Eucharist with the children from the College 250 in all and they were quite well-behaved!! As I work with the pastoral group, the priest asked me to say a few words during the homily.

Our Comedor (dining room)is going well and we are now opened 5 days a week with a group of mothers cooking each day and washing up. A new person has taken the role of co-ordinating everything which is a great help to us. Thanks to Appel du Pauvre for helping us with the funding and our Sisters in England with the Christmas appeal which provided funds too.

The Arco Iris Club (Rainbow Club) for children of 2 to 5 years is well subscribed. We have 22 children. Three mums help us with this and at the moment we are awaiting a new salon (thanks to a donation from Ireland and the Columban priests) the children will use this and leave the space they are now occupying for the Comedor. This should be finished in May. Buildings do not take long to construct.

Our classroom is open again for homework and reading and we have about 30 children each day and some come too on a Saturday to read a book so it is all go but we are happy that the response is so good.

We hope to run, with the help of teachers from Saint Marcus, a course on hairdressing. This begins next Tuesday,(no holidays for Easter here in Perú). So far 15 have enrolled and more will come on the day. Another couple are coming to teach craft work so the saloon is well used.

So we are on our journey towards the Resurrection and each one of you will be remembered in our prayers.

Marie and I are kept busy but we are pleased to be and there is time too to relax and get away now and again. One needs to see some greenery from time to time.

The light is coming slowly but surely. You need patience and much hope but the posts are now near the Capilla.

Next week we welcome our friends Fran and Tim from Austalia who will be spending 2 weeks with us. Fran will be able to see how much has changed since her last visit.

Hope you all have a very good Easter and t hank you for all your help so that we can continue our mission here in Jicamarca.

Con mucho carino a todos,
Jacinta and Marie

If you want to see photos of the work done at the project, there are two blogs which can be accessed by clicking on the links below:
www.thejicamarcaprojects.blogspot.com
www.thejicamarcaprojectsvalle.blogspot.com