AN UPDATE ON A FORMER BLOG POST
Looking back, I am very aware of God's guiding hand in my life, especially since he has called me to be one of his priests. I have always been aware of this fact, but since I got into volunteering in the island missions of the Caribbean, it seems that either he is intensifying his help or I am becoming more aware of it.
Like manna from heaven in the story of the Exodus in the Bible, it seems that help is coming from everywhere and in so many ways - even funny ways! God truly does have a soft spot in his heart for the poor!
A while back, I heard someone down in the islands talking about the need for "musical instruments." Before that Sister Nyra Anne, at Saint Benedict Home for Children, told me last year that she had a girl who showed some musical ability. She had gotten a violin from someone, but she did not have a bow to play it. Guess what? Someone showed up in my life with a violin bow to give her.
I had that request for musical instruments in the back of my mind for a while when, all of a sudden, someone who played the harmonica contacted me and asked if I would be interested in some harmonicas for the islands. What a great idea, I thought! It might be hard to come up with enough expensive instruments like guitars, pianos and trumpets to go around, but harmonicas would be inexpensive to ship, easy to maintain and more kids could have access to them!
As it turned out. this donor had a plan. He said he would contact the HONNER harmonica company to see if they would donate some harmonicas to the kids down in the islands.
He called me a few weeks back to meet him for lunch. We arrived at the restaurant at the very same time. He opened his trunk and pulled out a box with 104 Honner Harmonicas! The HONNER Company could not give them to him for free, but they gave him a huge discount!
I have already found a harmonica teacher (from Scotland in fact) down in the islands who is willing to teach some of kids how to play them. I will ask the teaching Sisters to help me find interested students. My dream is to create a couple of small groups of harmonica players to go with the kid-drummers who already play at Mass in some parishes.
With 104 harmonicas planted like seeds, surely a small number of them will go on to blossom and excel musically!
GUESS WHAT?
THEY ARE BLOOMING! THEY ARE BLOOMING!
This note, and the attached video, just came from Sister Carmen down in Saint Vincent. "We had our schools' Independence celebration yesterday during which the different grades performed an item among lots of other activities. So some of the harmonica students showed what they were able to do with the harmonica."
We hope interest is the harmonica spreads! Having a few kids playing before all the schools is a good place to start!
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