Theology 2 in Venezuela #12

(By Alan Paul Eilen)

Day 7 (July 22, 2007)

“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad.” My first Sunday in Venezuela was spent, first with people of “JesuChristo Resuscitado” parish. I was interested to see how many would come to Sunday services versus, say a “weekday” Mass. I was pleased to see that the church was about ¾ full for the 8:00 AM Mass. Later, in the afternoon, we went over to another parish to have a “Youth Mass” with bishop Mariano. Not surprisingly, it was a “high energy affair”. It was great to see all the young teens together. Of course, the good bishop had to single out the seminarians from the United States for recognition. Afterwards, one young lady (Karla) came up to a few of us to thank us for being there with them. We had a great time. That evening, we went out to a restaurant (Chinese food) with Father Schaeffer and a few of his teachers (catechists) from the parish. Even the waiters thought Stephen was Chinese – that has become a common and comical theme throughout our stay.


Day 8 (July 23, 2007)

“Monday, Monday” – we went on a cool boat ride with a few local people on the Caroni River and up to the Oronoco River. There is a definite visual difference the two at the point in which they meet. The Caroni appears much cleaner, whereas the Oronoco has a lot of sediment – a brownish color. We were delayed about 20 minutes in getting started, because the owner was out looking for the body of a young boy, who had supposedly drowned during the night or early morning, although the only thing he came back with was a big (@ 10 lbs.) fish – he was very happy. I gather that was the meal or ‘fish of the day’. Getting back to the boat ride, we went right up to beautiful waterfalls, which is part of the La Llovizna Park, which we will visit on Thursday.

This afternoon, we visited for 1-½ hours with Miguel Munoz (parish administrator), who talked about the challenges of running a parish in the diocese of the city of Guayana. With unemployment around 70-80% financial concerns abound. Yet, the people do what they can. Corruption amongst the government is not uncommon, as different officials come out to try to get their piece of the pie. Tonight, we are going to lay low, because tomorrow we head with Miguel and his two boys and a few others to drive down to the “Gran Sabana”, which is one of Venezuela’s revered National Parks, so we need to get to bed early, because we have to leave by about 5:00-5:30 AM.