Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The Nenzel Sisters

Andrea and Judith (Knight), the two Nenzel sisters, are safely back home in the Northwest - Andrea in Vancouver, WA or somewhere up or down the highways from there on the way to many PeaceHealth meetings, Judith in Nanaimo sorting through photos and memories to share with other family members.

It was a joy to have them both here, and it was fun to get to know them as sisters.  After working for six good years with Andrea, I know her pretty well, but it's always a new light to see the family connections, the shared jokes, the pauses, the likenesses and differences.

As you can see, it's not at all difficult to guess that these two are sisters, and since they're both tall and blond women, I had a rather nice two weeks of being short - not my usual experience in El Salvador.  We also got to hear, from Lita Calderon, Dina Dubon and John Guiliano, some good stories about Andrea's time here at the Calle Real Refugee camp from 1985-87.  My favorite was about Andrea using every one of her inches of height to insist peacefully and with great determination that an unhelpful local priest send a water truck up to Calle Real.  He did. 

It's always a moving experience for me to hear the Calle Real stories as I continue living my part of our Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace history in this country, which now stretches back more than 25 years.  And it's wonderful to see the love and gratitude that greet Andrea and Margaret Jane in this country.  The people remember who was there with them in a dark and uncertain time.

1 comment:

  1. Good morning how are you?

    My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.

    I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.

    For all this I would ask you one small favour:
    Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from El Salvador? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in El Salvador in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and a original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:

    Emilio Fernandez Esteban
    Calle Valencia, 39 Bajo C
    28903 Getafe (Madrid)
    Spain

    If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com, where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.

    Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.

    Yours Sincerely

    ReplyDelete