JUBILARIANS ALL! - Holy Name Province

Province, I guess like 12 years ago, is the
guardian and a very welcoming host. It was
good to see him again. A pleasant surprise is
that I ran into Garrett Edmunds, home from
the Holy Land for an operation. He is still
in recovery but is able to sit at meals and we
visit-- he telling me about his work in the
Holy Land and I telling him about my life in
Kazakhstan. It was very nice to talk to someone
from the Province.
I have been kind of bummed out lately about
this whole visa runaround. John Gibbons still
has it much worse that I do, since he still has
to leave every three months, while I have
to leave just once a year. This week he is
leaving St. Petersburg for Sweden where he
hopes to get yet another three months visa,
but the good news for him is that, after this,
he should be able to receive residence-- or so
he hopes. So John has it worse than I but I
am still very bummed out.
It is part of the problem of working in the
Russian Foundation: the constant hassles
with the visas, documents, permissions and
what not…Sometimes it just gets to be too
much. And the tendency is to just throw
up your hands and say, “ I can’t take it any
longer,” and the return to your home Province
or go elsewhere. Sometimes, late in the
evening, when I am really tired or it has been
a really bad day, I especially feel this despair.
Muslim neighbors are kind; it is just the government
that is a constant problem. So I try
to live in hope and plug along and figure that
tomorrow just has to be better.
Not much else to report in this letter. Summer
is great in Kazakhstan. It gets really
hot, not quite as hot as it did when I was in
Tucson, but still quite hot. Like Arizona, it is
a dry heat and so it is not too bad. The days
are long and I work in the garden every evening
as it starts to cool down. The markets
become full of fresh fruit and vegetables,
which are really nice to get since in the winter
months it is just impossible to get fresh
produce.
We have our little kids’ summer camp program
and then a week or 10 days retreat
with the youth of the parish and that is about
all for the summer. The college-age young
people come back from the universities they
go to in Poland and Russia to visit with their
families, so it is always nice to see them
again. After they graduate they rarely if ever
come back to Kazakhstan. And that is about
all; life goes on and is mostly very good….I
am thankful that I am optimistic by nature.
Until next time; please keep the Foundation
in your prayers.
But then, on the other hand, I feel very committed
to the young Russians coming to be
friars, and to the struggling Catholic community,
and so I try not to stay in despair but
focus on what is wonderful and good about
my life over here. And there I have much to
be thankful for in our life in the Foundation.
The parish people are great and my local
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