MSIA travel staff were recently in South America, providing MSIA Services (Innerphasings, Polarity Balances & Aura Balances) as well as MSIA events. Staff member, Angel Gibson, provides this update from the trip:
DAY 15 — CARACAS
Today we rise and shine with half an eye on the TV reports as we go through our day of Services. It’s election day in the U.S. and the news coverage here in Caracas is riveted on our U. S. election happenings. While Las Girls are doing Services, el Guy, Vincent Dupont, is setting up sound and video for tonight’s You Are the Blessings Workshop. Gaby Grigorescu has been working for weeks on promotion for this event and the pre-registration has already filled up the available seats. John’s early morning radio interview with Elba Escobar has generated phone calls to the hotel asking for tickets for the workshop. The hotel staff is amazed at the interest that is flooding in. Gaby seems to be everywhere today with Mercedes Montero close behind. Santos Gomez is on hand along with Armando to pitch in for whatever is needed.
After Services we head downstairs to start ordinations in the seminar room. We’re also up on BBC.com keeping track of what’s happening with the election. The blessings start pouring in. Then the doors open and the crowd flows through the door. Lots and lots of new people to greet and it’s wonderful hugging old friends. Gaby, this evening’s MC, warmly welcomes the group and introduces PTS and MSIA as this evening’s sponsors. She then invites Leigh and John to the stage, along with Andreina Garbon who is the translator for this event. There are a few challenges with the sound and video components but John uses it all to look at what blessings are present in the midst of the mics and video machine not working the way we’d like it to. Leigh shares about her spiritual journey and then throughout the evening asks John questions that bring forward from him even more dimensions of blessings. At the end of the evening so many of the 200+ participants hang out sipping coffee and tea. We work on packing up the equipment even as we hug and kiss and catch quick chats with our Venezuelan friends and keep an eye on the BBC electoral reporting. Finally we all go to our rooms and turn on our TV’s. We don’t have to wait too long before the election results are in and we celebrate! What a day! Time for a little more email and then to sleep, “perchance to dream”.
DAY 16 — CARACAS
This morning Celia and I are up and at ’em with initiations before our regular service schedule begins. Many people around us are talking about last evening’s election results. It’s so fascinating to watch our country from a distance and through the eyes of other cultures.
Services fly by and we lunch together in our little “Mango” restaurant, enjoying some soup and arepas. Ya gotta love those arepas…sort of fat pancakes made of corn. So yummy and you can put cheese, avocado or whatever you want in them…we’re big fans of arepas and the kitchen staff keep them coming.
At the end of the day Vincent, Celia and I do more initiations and then it’s a free night for a little “take care of ourselves” time. Most of the staff opt for quiet in their rooms time; John, Leigh and I welcome the invitation to have dinner with some of our wonderful key volunteers who’ve been there for us before and during our visit here in Caracas. We go to Limoncello, an Italian restaurant nearby. The staff here are so into service and do whatever they can to make sure our food gets to us quickly. Though we’re all tired, we enjoy the fellowshipping, taking pictures of each other throughout the evening. Then as the hour moves towards midnight, we head back to the hotel to pack, do some email and surrender into sleep and the Traveler for the night.
DAY 17 – FROM CARACAS TO BOGOTA
Just a little more to do here before heading to the airport today…some initiations and Services. Then we descend with luggage, and Santos is there like a general directing the bellmen and we staff to the different cars. Magali Sanchez (Santos’ wonderful wife) comes by to gift us with the most delectable chocolates. We hug Magali and Santos goodbye…thank you doesn’t come close to how much we appreciate you. Mercedes and Gaby come with us to the airport to make sure all goes smoothly. Celia and I enjoy watching the scenery, especially of the mountains, as we descend to the airport by the beach. Ani moves into action once we get to the airport as she is an old hand at moving us through check-ins. Soon we find ourselves hugging and thanking Gaby and Mercedes for all of their beautiful and caring support that involved handling multitudes of details for and during our visit. They wave us through immigration. On the other side of security we all fan out enjoying different offerings of the Caracas airport until boarding time. We did have a little excitement that had us going from one end to the other to get to the correct gate as it seemed the airline was a little confused and kept giving different information. But finally we find the right gate and get onto the plane, most of us conking out within moments of the plane taking off.
We come to as the wheels make contact with the airstrip at the Bogota airport. It’s about 8:15pm. As we exit customs we see the familiar faces of John Marin and his beautiful wife, Virginia, and Leopoldo Villa. They direct us to bring our luggage to Leopoldo and head towards Alberto Arango who is waiting to take les girls or as we teased him, his harem, to the hotel. Leopoldo will wait for Vincent and Ani to finish in customs, and John/Virginia take Leigh and John. We all get to the hotel to find Ana Maria Gonzalez and Felipe waiting to finish our check-in and then with a quick bite to eat we’re ready to finish the evening as quietly as we can as it’s about 11 something already.
