On the road with Angel Harper, the MSIA Travel Staff and John Morton in South America for MSIA events and services….
This year our first stop in South America is Caracas, Venezuela. Celia and I are embraced and escorted by Santos Gomez and his lovely wife Magaly throughout our stay. It’s as though we are in a bubble of grace as we stay and do services at La Casa Sanchez-Gomez. We do venture out into the city to facilitate a Gratitude workshop in a pagoda under the stars with frogs chanting all around us. At least a third of the participants are new to MSIA and jump right into the processes enthusiastically. And what would be a visit to Caracas without a trip to an areperia for those wonderful Venezuelan specialties – the arepa – delicious corn cakes that we can stuff with our choices of vegetables, avocados, meat or poultry and Venezuelan cheese. Amazing! Our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Santos, Magaly, Gaby, Alicia, Chuyo, Armando, Nelson, Odoardo, Ismael, Yajaira, Xiomara, Eucaris Wills., and the precious other assistants.
Bogota
Celia and I are met at the Bogota International airport by the delightful Don, Alberto Arango. Always the gentleman he escorts us, umbrella overhead to protect us from the rain, to his car and brings us to our Bogota hotel where we all await John Morton, Vincent and Lesley Dupont who will be arriving later. It’s a good deal nippier here as we’re up to 9000 ft in altitude. Ani Pacheco, our fifth services staff person, who is moving right along in her training, also joins us this evening. Ana Maria Gonzalez and her wonderful Felipe, and John Marin, take us for a welcome and birthday dinner celebration (John Morton and mine) to a new restaurant in a nearby plaza. And we settle in to visit with our Bogota family and friends.
The next day we are on a fast roll with services, set up, and John doing a sharing in the morning for the Bogota MSS class and then in the evening an open Gratitude Workshop. Well over 100 people attend, many first-timers, to meet the Traveler in the flesh and touch in with these teachings of Soul Transcendence through the doorway of being grateful. Lovely musical contributions abound this evening with Esperanza Abadia and Guillermo Martinez singing Que Me Importa and Sandra and Helena Ortiz with Juan Antonio Garcia doing an interpretation of Pachabel Canon on violin and keyboard. We continue on with services — Ilse Arango rides chief honcha over us keeping us on schedule and ably assisted by her daughter, Ana Maria — and then the next evening John does a Discourse Subscriber seminar. Our contributors this evening are Mercedes Beltran with her own poetry and a lovely sing-a-long rendition of Alleluia/Ani Hu by Marcos Toledo and Lilian Vargas. Our Bogota visit is capped with a BlessingsFest decorated in fairyland motif by Ani Pacheco. We’re riding this velvety wave of Spirit now as each day we’re carried farther and farther along in love, laughs and Light. Thank you to Ligia, Myriam, John Marin, Ana Maria Gonzalez, Alberto and Ilse. Ana Maria Arango, Miguel, Pablo, and many others who put in time and their love to make our visit in Bogota full of sweetness and ease.
Santiago
Our overnight flight to Santiago starts off a little bumpy as most of our wonderful business class reclining seats, that we were so looking forward to, have been given away. Hmmm, what to do. Make the best of it. Now the good news is the flight crew felt so badly for us that they did what they could to make up for the snafu, including smuggling us business class dinners-yum! The other good news was that the flight was only 5 1/2 hours. Even better news is when we arrive in Santiago it is smooth sailing and we glide through immigration, customs and into the waiting arms of Jose Caraball, Peque, and Pedro who can’t get us and our luggage fast enough into cars and on our way to our hotel. Our hotel is lovely and will also be the location for services and all the events–very convenient and graceful for us. Our in-residence staff person, Nora Valenzuela, is also on hand to settle us in, translate, and also continue her initiation training and Jany Espinoza, the Santiago MSIA Rep is there to review the services schedule so we’re all on the same page. After a logistics meeting with Pedro, Jany and Peque we’re into a day of acclimating to a new time zone and catching up on a little rest before we go full steam into services and events the next two days.
It’s Thursday morning. Vincent and I meet with the Chile Living in Grace committee to review how they’re doing with their plans for having the first South America Living in Grace in 2012. Then Vincent is off to set up for the Living the Spiritual Principles of Health and Well-Being Workshop and I’m off to join the gals for services. Reymi Urrich is our grand services coordinator who oversees both today and tomorrow’s services, making sure translators are on hand and we staff connect up with each of our services. It takes a lot to manage the goings and comings throughout the two days and Reymi does a beautiful job with her assistants. Nora makes herself available all over the place to translate, handle administrative questions and sit in on initiations when she can. That evening Fernando Baeza welcomes the group as MC and we relax and enjoy John reminding us of the eight principles of Health and Well-Being. The next day it’s more services and initiations while John is sharing the blessings with the Santiago community at their specially orchestrated Blessingsfest. That evening we come together again with our fellow Ministers and Initiates. Our elegant MC, Katia Roa, introduces John who immediately moves with us to a place of deeper devotion and dedication and understanding of what it is to be a minister and/or initiate of the Traveler.
The next morning our enthusiastic volunteers are with us early to load us up for our ride to the airport. Our grateful thanks to Jose Caraball, Nora, Jany, Olivia, Peque, Paula, Pedro, Nigel and Helio, and so many who seamlessly worked together lovingly to support our visit in Santiago.
Buenos Aires
It is a quick hop over to Buenos Aires. We share the flight with Ringo Starr and his band of All Stars. Lots of fun to chat a bit with some of the band members and Ringo’s wife, Barbara, as our flight goes along. What’s lovely to see is how much Ringo and Barbara seem cared for by their own crew. Again we have a smooth entry and our friends, Cate Kirby, Ariel Presa, Juan Cruz, and Horacio Szacher are waiting with huge hugs and warm greetings to get us and our luggage fast on our way to our Recoleta hotel. I love, absolutely love Buenos Aires with it’s mix of the old and the new and it’s European cafes and boulevards. It is like a grand dame–very vintage! Our MSIA family is far from vintage though, enthusiastic, embracing, full of life! Cate has done a great job of delegating and lots of volunteers have pitched in to make “Light” work of all the logistics. Rafael oversees with Graciela the services, there’s a fleet of translators and hostesses, all is in readiness as we acclimate and prepare for three days of services and evening events. We have our welcome to Buenos Aires dinner in Porto Madera by the water. First course — the tantalizing grilled provoleta…we could make a meal just on this! Then it’s parrilla time — beef cuts on the grill — Argentinian style — yum! Our good friend and Mendoza MSIA rep, Eduardo Vera, meets us later back at the hotel as some of us have a late night cafecita to top off the evening.
The next day we get into our set up and services mode culminating that evening in John doing a baby blessing and facilitating another Health and Well-Being Workshop. Francisco Arturi is our dashing MC and Edda Diaz does a dramatic poetic presentation about St. Joan of Arc, setting a welcoming stage for the Traveler to work with us. No matter how many times I listen to this workshop presentation I get more and more out of it — so grateful for the reminders and keys for taking care of ourselves. The next morning we gather together for breakfast in the lovely garden room touching in with each other before we start the next round of services. Sitting in with us to continue their training as balancers are Paulo Fortes, Lana Barreira and Cristina Rivero. Lana is also helping out along the way with initiations which is an extra blessing for us. Tonight John facilitates a Loving Relationships workshop for Discourse subscribers. Horacio has been a man of many talents — one minute he’s our taxi driver and the next minute he’s overseeing all the details of the events as the Team Captain deluxe. Maria Elena Gey is an elegant Mistress of Ceremonies too. John leads us this evening to look more deeply at what is the key relationship in our lives — hint — the one we have with ourselves, and how we can expand and enhance this relationship as a foundation for any other relationship we have or want. Afterwards some of us can’t resist heading out into the Recoleta – an area of sidewalk cafes and stores bordered with trees — across from the famous cemetery in which Evita is buried. We dine al fresco enjoying our time outside with a gentle wind blowing and warm friendship flowing.
But wait, there’s even more…after yet another full day of services we get into cars that take us out into more of the countryside and the home of the gracious Marina Gancia for a celebration of more than 20 years of Insight and MSIA in Argentina. Marina’s children greet us showing us into their beautiful home studded with fascinating art and sculpture pieces. A buffet dinner is laid out and John is invited to bless the dinner. He first thanks all who have come and blesses the house and family and then the food. We can hardly wait to dive into the tasty spread that beckons us. Conversation is wonderful and varied as we’re filled in on the histories of Insight and MSIA in this area and the evening flies by. All too soon we must bid good-night as we’ve packing to do and more emails before we catch a few winks of sleep. The next morning Cate and company are waiting to have a last breakfast and escort us to the airport for our flight today to Sao Paulo, Brazil. We hug, kiss and wave goodbye to Cate, Rafael, Horacio, and Juan Cruz as we head up the elevators to our gates. What a beautiful visit and our heartfelt thanks to all who assisted so lovingly during our time there.
Sao Paulo
A few catnaps and potato chips and soon we are landing in Sao Paulo! Wow, this trip is flying by. Now we’re on Lana’s turf and she is everywhere doing everything as Marcello and Helena greet us at the airport. This time we have a bit of a drive — almost an hour — to our hotel in Jundiai in the heart of the industrial area. As we arrive at our hotel we’re met by more of our Brazilian family — Ana and Regina are especially eager to make sure all is in preparation for us. Sao Paulo is much more tropical so we switch gears. The rhythm here is different too — things are always changing — schedules, timing, food, etc — so we remind ourselves to relax and go with the flow, even while we hold a focus. Sure does make life interesting 🙂 We have our shake-down dinner with our volunteer group — Roberta joins us too — where the hotel gets to know and cooperate with our no onion, no garlic and no pork. We get familiar with our waiters Leopoldo and Marcel who very much want to make us happy. And we’re also getting accustomed to Portuguese which is similar and also very different from Spanish. Our “gracias” becomes “Obrigado” for thank you’s. Soon our beds are calling and we crash as there’s a full schedule laid out for us over the next three days.
The next morning has us one by one coming together at the breakfast table. The fruits and juices hit the spot — especially the pineapple and mint juice — yum! Like a finely-oiled machine we go to the services reception room where Eliete has our just updated schedules and our translators poised to be with us — and we’re off and running. Meanwhile Vincent is getting the lay of the seminar room and is doing his best in pidgin Portuguese to direct the hotel personnel, since we’ve had to draft his translator to help us in services. Miraculously Vincent pulls off setting up the room, services are done and that evening John facilitates a Spiritual Warrior Workshop. I relish hearing John talk about the Spiritual Warrior’s qualities of ruthlessness and impeccability and I reflect on who are role models of spiritual warriors for me. Adi Ribeiro gets her feet wet as translator for John and does an admirable job and Regina is a gracious MC for this evening.
Morning comes again and some of us enjoy a little workout in the in-door out-door gym, more yummie fruit for breakfast and then full on today with initiations, then services, then ordinations and then a delicious seminar for Discourse Subscribers. Adi continues as translator for John and tonight it is Sandra Sabete who warmly MC’s the contributions of the evening. Adi starts with a vibrant song – “God’s Wonderful People”, Marinalva Bukuvis shares her poem “Do You Want to Dance?” and then Roberta Vasconcellas evokes tender tears with her rendition of El Shaddai, dedicated to John-Roger and his presence with and among us. John steps onto the stage that is bathed in loving and shares deeply with us about going to the source, how spiritual exercises is the key. We float back to our rooms just conscious enough to take showers and lay our heads down so we can keep on floating.
Today is quite a day. We have full on services while a BlessingsFest is happening, and then we all pack up our suitcases and sound equipment and head to the airport to catch our flights that will depart shortly after midnight and in the wee hours of the morning. Lesley has magically taught the hotel how to make a vegetable potage that is nourishing us in the evening hours, and once again she sees to it that we have our special soup before we drive to the airport. As we load up our luggage, our precious Brazilian family are there to hug and kiss us and wish us God speed! We are deeply grateful for their love, caring and great fun that they have shared with us throughout our stay. Once we get to the airport our check in is quick and soon we find ourselves in the waiting room, relaxing and preparing to catch a few winks on our flights back to Los Angeles. Once again we give thanks for the tremendous caring, generosity, loving and joy that has been shared with us throughout our entire trip in South America. Thank you and may you be blessed a thousand-fold too!
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