Our Trip to Brazil: A Reflection

I have worked for Maryknoll Lay Missioners for over 23 years. Almost from the beginning I have wanted to go see the missioners where they worked, but I couldn't afford to go.

Personally, however, it remained very important to me, more so as the years went on. So now, on the verge of retirement,  I can finally afford to go. I planned for months, and I talked about it with my close friend Marci. She said, "This is more important to you then the Camino, isn't it?"

 

I knew she was right. The Camino had been a powerful experience, but it was up to me to derive the meaning from it. There was no direct connection to my life. This pilgrimage, to Brazil, was deeply personal. I came to MKLM to do meaningful work that would make the world in some small way a better place. My job was part of that, but indirectly. I would meet the missioners and hear stories about their work, but I longed for direct exposure. Now I would finally make the journey with Mary by my side to see what all my efforts had been supporting. Was I helping to make the world a better place?

 

We spent about 9 days in Brazil from October 14th to October 22nd, and the whole time I felt like I was in Heaven. As I reflect on those days, the thing that strikes me the most was the kindness and generosity of the missioners who basically took care of us while we were with them. They welcomed us into their world and helped us see what they were doing there.

It is very difficult to find people in Brazil that speak English. I thought that people who worked at hotels and restaurants would speak English. This was true to some extent in Rio, but not in Sao Paulo, Joao Passoa or Olinda. The few who spoke English didn't speak it very well. It led to some comical situations. I called the front desk to say there was a problem with the television. The clerk asked, "Do you want two?"  That puzzled me, two televisions? When help arrived, it was an employee carrying two towels. Fortunately, he knew how to fix the television.

The missioners were always going above and beyond in helping us with the language hurdle. When we first arrived in Sao Paulo, Joanne spoke to the clerk about checking us in early. She resisted, as the lobby was filled with people waiting to get into their rooms (it was a holiday weekend). Joanne pointed out Mary and told the clerk that Mary wasn’t feeling well and really needed to lie down (Mary was actually just tired from the 9 hour flight). The clerk checked us in, and the manager cut the early check-in fee in half.

After spending the day with Margarita at the favela where she worked, she took us to our hotel, and then she came in to speak to the desk clerk because we were having problems with our Wifi (critical in keeping contact with the missioners). When they told us we would have to move to another floor, Margarita came up to our room and helped us pack and move our belongings to the 12^th floor. When she left, she asked us if we needed anything else or if she could do anything else for us (the standard parting from all the missioners in Sao Paulo).

We kept Kathy busy in Joao Pessoa with arranging our day trips for us (not that we asked her to). We wanted to go to Olinda (a very scenic town overlooking the Atlantic Ocean), which was a two-hour drive from Joao Pessoa. She contacted Franciso at our hotel to find us a driver. He found one, but once the driver found out we didn’t speak Portuguese he refused to take us. More phone calls and bargaining from Kathy.

Eventually, Francisco, who had the day off, drove us back and forth for a six hour day trip. We all had lunch together at a restaurant Kathy had chosen, which had an incredible dish featuring fish in a cream sauce baked in a pumpkin. We ate the pumpkin as well as the fish, and we needed three people to finish the dish. Franciso also drove us to the Mirante Skybeach to see the sunset from the tallest building in Joao Pessoa, again thanks to Kathy’s work.

And it wasn’t just the missioners who treated us with the utmost kindness and generosity. A small woman with glasses was our waitress at the daily breakfast buffet at the hotel in Joao Pessoa. We would fill up our plates at the buffet, and as long as we were seated she would come by with other plates of food for us to try. With the help of my Google translator, I told her that everything was delicious, and her face lit up as she pulled me by the arm over to the omelet chef to let her know what I had said. The next two days she would rush over whenever she saw us and continue to bring us plates of food. When we left after our last breakfast, I wrote her a message on my translator: “Today is our last day. We just wanted to thank you for your kindness to us. You brought joy to us each morning. Richard & Mary.” She grabbed my phone and wrote the following: “I call myself Andrea. You two guys have been a prayer to me.” The translation could have been better, but we got the message. She shook my hand and Mary gave her a big hug.

There are more stories I could tell, so many kind and loving gestures from the missioners and others we met. I believe God has called on us to love each other and help each other.

 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor? … The one who had mercy on him.” Luke 10: 36, 37

That’s what I received through this trip, a feeling of being loved and that there were people looking after us. If we all treated each other this way, what a wonderful community we would be.