You made me laugh…and that is something I have not done in a very long time.

You made me laugh…and that is something I have not done in a very long time.

My brothers doing a clown act where a "dog" steals a soccer ball. In this case the "dog" can do a flip.

Hello guys, I hope everyone is making it through the winter ok especially those on the east coast. I saw the severe weather on the news and hope it does not last much longer, I can’t believe all that snow.  It is summer here in Buenos Aires, Argentina (don’t be jealous it is ridiculously hot), which is when most citizens go on vacation so all the parks and recreational areas are very busy. There is a really big park, (like central park) down town and the directer of the park asked us to perform there every weekend and holidays like mardi gras weekend which was four days straight. He reserved a spot for us and very large crowds gathered each night. Families come from all the surrounding regions to enjoy this park, as many are very poor they are grateful and excited to enjoy our show free of charge. 

The kids love seeing magic and their eyes just light up. This one little girl just could not figure out where the flowers went I had just disappeared and needed to search all my pockets to try to find them. I use the puppet theater I made and both kids and adults enjoy listening to stories and listening to my crazy puppet pretend he can do magic and juggle even though he can’t move his arms or mouth on his own. After he fails to even hold the juggling balls, he simply says he needs to practice, but is ready to juggle flaming swords over a volunteer! 

There is no medicine like laughter, that reaches so deep, makes the old feel young and a troubled child content. Real spontaneous laughter does not come often in life, and when it does we usually remember what or who it was that made us laugh. So we use the medicine of laughter to touch the life of a sad soul, to reach deep and crack their wall a bit so that we can then put a seed within them which is the hope of the Gospel. AS I scan the crowd and see faces full of suffering and sorrow, slowly begin to soften, then smile then laugh, I know that God wants us to be right where we are, and that is what makes me complete. 

We do a theatrical, poetical act that conveys a child returning to the Father (like the Prodigal son). One women came up afterward and told us that a year ago her husband had been murdered and she has felt so lost and destroyed inside. She said at times she comes to this park to watch other families and just sit alone in her sadness.  She said when she heard our music she was drawn to come and when she saw the act of the child returning to the Father, for the first time she felt hope and that she was not alone but does have a Father. So many think of God as distant, aloof, and abstract. They think of laws, morality, perhaps a church, religion or doctrine. But all these are so far from the truth. Jesus referred to God as His Father over 100 times and said “..I am returning to My Father and your Father”(Jn.20:17)… He does not expect us to try to be good, but rather to be humble, to talk to Him and to believe Him.  

A beautiful rainbow appeared when I was performing for the crowd.  

Even in a wheelchair, my brother always gets out to do his part.

The down town center is so very busy and we spent many days walking the streets talking to crowds and individuals and caring for the many homeless that sit in the corners. Everything is pretty expensive here like the taxis, so that means a lot of walking. One day I added it up and I had walked over 8 miles just going down town, running errors and getting groceries(at least I’ll stay in shape right?) The economy here is on the verge of collapse so there is a lot of poverty and even the middle class find themselves struggling. Up and down most any given street you will see mattresses with sleeping bodies, men and women looking through trash cans, fabric or cardboards hung around to attempt a shelter and very poor people barely hanging on to life. One man I talked to told me that when the night comes he will just weep thinking about all that he has lost and what has become of him. He said as a young man his parents threw him out and he couldn’t find a job, he has a bench in a city park that he calls home. He told me he used to have a beautiful dog that he really loved and it was always just him and the dog, then one day the dog ran away and now he was alone. A tear rolled down his cheek as he said, “ I know it’s just a dog, but he was all I had…”. I was thinking, when you or I see a bench we think about a place to rest a minute, maybe eat lunch, maybe pose for a picture or meet with someone. But for so many, they see a bench and they think home. 

One lady I got to know had to be almost 80. She was very clean, jolly and grandmotherly but sat on the street with a cardboard sign begging. The sign explained how one day the power in her house just went off and then a few days later someone told her she had to leave. Her son stopped paying the rent and she had to move out to the street. The women explained to me that when she was younger she would always walk this same street and give clothes to the needy, and now she was in need and no one came by to help her. Another man that I became good friends with was named Fernando. We was 70 something and had been in a horrible accident caused by a drunk driver. He lost his leg, suffered paralysis to his left side and lost much of his vision and hearing.  He migrated to Argentina from Italy and used to work as a renown chef and baker but since loosing his leg he cannot work and now calls out to the passerby’s to help him. He has a loud booming voice, a big smile and calls me his angel. I gave him a  T-shirt and he wore it every day since, (now there will always be a Fighting Irish fan on the other side of the world:)Go Irish!).  

My friend Fernando.

Another man named Hector, used to be a sea captain on a large merchant ship. He traveled the world and has seen many things but now as I spoke to him he was so torn up inside and said that he has so much regret in his past it is like he can not live in the present. He left on the ship angry with his father and then years later received a message that his father had been killed. This and other things that he said were to painful to speak of, kept him in a prison of sadness. I spoke with him and shared many things with him about forgiveness, Gods profound love and about forgetting the past to find a future. I saw him from time to time. The last time I saw him he told me that he was a candle about to go out and that I gave him a spark to burn again. He said for the first time he found the bridge called hope and he gave me a neckless that he got for me with my name on it. It touched me to think that maybe I made a difference in some way. We can seem so strong on the outside, but inside, we are so very fragile. If suffering were money, we would all be rich and all though all the things that each of us have been through are different, and are problems ma be completely unique, the answer is the same. Jesus. 

We use a screen that we made to project video behind us and as a teaching tool.
 The words here mean, "Don't give up".

God gave us great favor with the director of all the federal prisons and he organized multiple performances in many prisons. We made a large screen which we use to project a video on behind us (remember a while ago I told you that we were working on a video with footage of the national parks, time lapse photography with the message of the “Door” and another place). We use this both as a backdrop to our performances and as a teaching tool to explain many things in a visual way. We were able to use this at most all of the prisons and it was very effective. These men and women have never seen such majesty as in the West (like Glacier National Park, Colorado, the fall in New England) and were captivated by seeing God in such beauty. We had a beautiful time in a women’s prisons and they were so grateful and moved. The director told me that he had never seen anything like it. 

 

In the women's prison.

There were a number of prisons in a city a long ways from the center that they wanted us to visit. They had planned for us to go up and back three days but since gas is expensive and we also had other events scheduled, we decided to combine these visits into one trip up there and one day, one looonnngggg day. We first went to a prison for young adults, all under 21 and spent a while with them. They loved participating in Capoeira and also learning a little Tae Kwon Do  which we use to teach about the power and necessity of discipline. We try to link a specific idea with each act that we do, even some of our magic routines, so that they will remember things when we leave and have practical help and answers. The directer here was so warm, kind and accommodating it was a welcome blessing after many times of going to prisons a dealing with people that just dont care. Often we will drive way out to a prison only to find that no one communicated we were coming to them and we have to start from scratch to try to get in, wait hours and sometimes have to come all the way back another day. 

  

After the young adult prison we went to a maximum security complex with multiple prisons inside. They wanted us to do five performances, each in a different facility. It was 1pm and we only had until 5 to present at all of them. One had to be canceled due to a fight that broke out, so we had four hours and four prisons.  Setting up and breaking down all our equipment is no little task and to do it quickly takes a lot of work. To get it all in and out we had to lift it over a type of turn table gate and carry it up stairs (it totals around 500 lbs). We wanted to give each presentation quality but also had to keep it under an hour or we would not make it to all of the prisons. Gods grace was with us and it was a phenomenal day.   We have many different acts, dances, routines and videos in our repitar and so we vary what we did and which members of our family did them so that we could all get a breather here and there and make it the whole day(barely:).

My mom performing in one of the prison amphitheater, I know its a bad picture, sorry.

The men were so very grateful and many were in tears when we left. As usual I am getting too long in my writing so I won’ t tell  you tuns of individual stories. But this one man named Cladio will always stay in my head. He said that he got mixed up in a series of  robberies and was going to get out of it all but loaned his cell phone to someone who ended up committing murder. They traced it back to him because all they found was the cell phone and now this man was serving a life sentence. I could tell he was telling the truth. I have not met many prisoners that have a life sentence and it is hard to know what to say. He knows that he will die in prisons. He said his son is fighting for his innocence on the outside, but he knows that there is no way to prove his innocence and holds little hope he will get out. I encouraged him with the thought of eternal life, that this life is really just a shadow, and if he would focus his time to seek God, he could find eternal life. 

Cladio is the guy in the blue shirt.

We were all very blessed after a day like this and know that our strength was well spent. We collapsed in our van and headed back to the center. Traffic was bumper to bumper and it took a long time to get home, the rest was a blur until we hit out mattresses. The other prison was scheduled for the following day and it was a bit tough to get up early as we were all very tired, but Gods power truly is made perfect in our weakness.   Security was more intense getting in  and they had to search the van and most of our gear. We always just kind of hold our breath hoping they are not going to open the magic chest and prop box because then their curiosity kicks in and we our in for a long search as they have to look at every little thing and touch all the cool magic tricks or get a demonstration of the trick (just to make sure it is not a security risk of course).  We had a powerful witness and got through to a lot of suffering men. We spoke to men from Italy, Iran, Briton, Colombia and South Africa as well, each with their own story. There were many political prisoners, some serving very long sentences. As I said good bye to an older gentleman, he grasped my hands and said with a smile, “Today my daughter, you made me laugh…and that is not something that I have done in a very long time”.