tamingfears.com

Between Margaret and I, we had two packed weekends of psycho- therapeutic workshops with children in Talcahuano and along the coast of Tubul and  Llico (which were both totally destroyed in the tidal wave).

It’s amazing how the Lord uses these workshops. We are able to zero in on their emotional needs, show them the source of some of their pain and anxiety; and then give them Jesus in a much more personal way.   We prayed with 50 children to receive Jesus into their hearts.

Here’s one example of the kind of thing that happens in the workshops.  In one of the workshops there was a 14 yr. old boy who was very obnoxious and disruptive.

Margaret finally confronted him and said: “ I know you’re hurting inside and that’s why you’re trying to get all of this negative attention. But you don’t need to go down a negative road. It only brings you more hurt because of all the negative energy it generates from those around you”.

Then she went on to demonstrate to everyone  about different  tools for handling negative pent up hurt. Carlos settled down and listened attentively. Continue reading →

I actually made it to Tirúa, which was the last community devastated by the tsunami of 2010 before the end of December.  It got the biggest waves of all….30 meter high waves!

January has found me practically living in the public library of Concepcion, working on organizing the results of the questionnaires and getting those results from each school sent off to the schools, the psychologists working with the schools, the school district administration, and some individual teachers (who had expressed interest in receiving the results). I finally got all of the results finished and sent off after a massive amount of work!

I visited and returned to receive the completed questionnaires in 32 schools and 12 refugee camps. There were actually two different sets of questions in each questionnaire, which needed to be tallied separately. The number of students processed in the questionnaires ranged between 150 students per school in the larger schools and 30 in the smaller schools (with two separate questionnaires per child, you must multiply 150 and 30 by two for each school and consider if you wouldn’t feel just a bit brain dead afterward like I do!). Continue reading →

A lot of people, even in Chile, have never heard of Perales. Until about 20 years ago the road from Coelemu to the coast was so bad that you could only trudge through by ox cart (and I heard that it required some strong oxen to force their way through the  deep mud in winter and the deep dust in summer). Nevertheless, it wasn’t always that way. Perales, Vegas de Itata, and Meipo are communites along the Itata River as it meanders along and flows into  the Pacific at Perales. The Itata is a beautiful river, along with the countryside which surrounds it.

Up through the early 1800’s, Vegas de Itata  (up river  a bit from the mouth) was a booming port; in fact it was quite the city. Large buildings housed the municipal offices, stores, mail services, as well as plenty of entertainment facilities. There was never a dull moment (day or night) in this bustling city, as grains  were loaded onto ships and sent off to faraway ports. Continue reading →

My new friend from “La Loberia Bed and Breakfast“, Silvia Stein,  is a dear! Since this is a holiday weekend, she invited me to stay on, even though I finished doing the workshop on “Gaining Strength Through Overcoming Obstacles” yesterday here in Cobquecura. I’m so grateful, as “living on the road” has taken a toll on my and I need a bit of rest and a little haven to be able to relax a bit. It’s actually quite a miracle. The inner patio of this place, besides fountains and a profusion of flowers, trees, etc., has a collection of copihues (Chile’s national flower).

This really is a lovely hotel! Plus, the beaches here stretch on for miles and miles in pristine beauty. Along with interesting rock formations off the coast and a whole colony of sea lions, the countryside here is like stepping back in time: farmers move along slowly in their oxen carts; one room school houses  kept busy with children helping each other learn; forests, fields, and sea all blending together in a beautiful mosaic. Continue reading →

Quick update: I feel so encouraged! I’m in Cobquecura, a city pretty much still on the ground, I was paying to stay at a kind of hotel…however, it was expensive for me. Then I happened to meet a lady who spoke English. She lived in the States for 35 yrs. in Conneticut and New York. Her husband used to be in the Peace Corps. He’s American. I found out that there are several Americans around the area, who run exclusive type resorts on the coast.
I mentioned to her about my project and gave her the website. I guess she googled it and invited me to stay at her exclusive Bed and Breakfast on the outskirts of the town. It is an old colonial mansion that she redid after the earthquake. I stayed in the Gabriela Mistral Room, which has a huge painting of Mistral. This woman is also a quite successful artist.

Gabriela Mistral

(1889-1957)

Born as Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga in 1889, Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945.  Although Mistral is best known as a poet, she was a prominent educator, diplomat and feminist.  She served as Chilean consul in Naples, Madrid and Lisbon, and was involved in cultural committees attached to the League of Nations.  She held numerous honorary degrees and taught Spanish literature in the United States at Columbia University, Middlebury College, Vassar College and at the University of Puerto Rico.  Sonetos de la muerte, a collection of love poems in memory of the dead was published in 1914 helped make her name a standard within the literary community.  Her complete poetry was published in 1958.  She died in 1957.