Time is getting close, and we keep on working very hard to be ready for our celebration here in Florida, the “ Festival of Life.” The guys are in good spirits and are working in every way to have the “ farm” ready and pretty. It is joy to see how little by little everything is falling into place. But we cannot control the weather. We just hope and pray that will be fine. So far, it has been nice, and it is cooling off a little bit. We just got again a lot of rain, and with the rain always come the mosquitoes. Our tents are up. Now it’s just a matter of tightening all the cables well and hoping that no windstorm will come!
We have been working a lot in St. Maria Goretti to prepare the site for the girls. Finally we got word that the team has been chosen. They receive the missionary blessing on the 1st Saturday, October 4, the Feastof St.Frances. Their names are Tina, Nora(Austria) Emilia, Chiara, (Italy) Kathleen, Lindsey, Lauren (USA).Now they are all together in the house in Marene to live as a new group and to prepare for the new mission. I did speak with them, and they are very excited. They almost could not believe that the time had come. Neither can we. Finally we are opening the house for girls in America. It is a nice group of girls with a lot of Community experience. I am sure that they are ready to come here to help the new girls that want to enter in Community. Just lately I have received a lot of requests from girls to enter. They will come a few days before the Festival and before the arrival of Mother Elvira. Mother Elvira is confirmed to be here to live our great celebration.
At Mary Immaculate work is going well. We are doing a lot of work in the old house finishing the drywall and also plastering the chapel. It will look very good. We are excited to finally finish the old house. We poured concrete in part of the foundation of the dormitory, so now we just need to let it sit, because we have too many other things to do. The guys are so buys because they are going back and forth to OLOH to rehearse for the show “Rejoice in Hope” almost every day. In the meantime, the place looks great, so much better then before. One good thing is that the old house is getting close to being finished. We really want to show Mother Elvira the best of our places.
The retreat also is getting close. This year it seems that we have more people coming, and we are very happy about it. So are the guys and girls from the Community. North Florida in the fall is a great place to be, because the weather is just perfect, about 70-80 during the day and 60 at night. Just bring bug spray because in Maywood and in our Community still we have a lot of mosquitoes. Also if you want to bring something for the Community, bring any kind of groceries, cleaning supplies, toilet paper etc. Those are the things that we can always, because our Cenacolo family is growing all the time, especially now adding the girls’ house. If you bring something for your son, please remember also those that do not have family. Do not just focus only on your son or daughter, but focus on the Community.
We can’t wait to see you, and I am sure you can’t wait to see your son or daughter. We are sure that will be a wonderful encounter, much different than when you had to make the painful and hard decision to leave your son in Community because of his addiction. Do not be fooled if he tells you that is ready to come home, because he is not.
Pray for us in our final weeks of preparation, and we will pray for you.
Grazie
Ciao