In Doha on March 15th AND in Houston on April 2nd - RITES OF CONSECRATION, THOUSANDS OF MILES APART!

Our family's Catholic Church community has had two monumental events take place within a few weeks period of each other. Not only was The Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Rosary consecrated on the 15th of March here in Doha, but our own Houston/home community celebrated the same with its consecration of the Co-Cathedral on the 2nd of April! And our family was blessed enough to have taken part in BOTH!!!

The rites of consecration which our family attended in person here in Doha was a surprisingly four hour celebration, but one that none of us will soon forget. It began at 10 am, and had more than a couple of thousand faithfuls in attendance. With a one lane road as the only way in AND out of the area, the children and I headed out "early" that morning, hoping for some great seats. By the time we reached the church's new location, right in the middle of the desert, we quickly realized that we were not going to fair so lucky since it seemed that majority of the faithfuls had arrived around 8 AM and were already occupying all of the seats available on BOTH floors. Luckily our friend, Gina, whom we were meeting up there, arrived a bit earlier than us and secured one of the last spots against the wall. We were all very happy to at least be inside of the church, anywhere we could be, which was much better than the other few hundred people that did not make it inside the doors and had to listen to the celebration from outside via loud speaker. I remember that as I walked in through the front door of the church, I couldn't help but feel excitement and humility at the same time; knowing that we were all about to witness something very SPIRITUAL. Our curiosity had overcome us as we wondered what the church would look like. Because of the country we live in (and out of respect to the generosity of the Emir and the people of Doha), I knew not to expect to see the CROSS in the skies of Doha, nor hear the bells toll in the air. Inside, though, the huge building had all of its concrete walls painted in a light blue color with puffy clouds of white as if the entire church was in the heavens. Then, we noticed that ever so discretely, there were holy images painted on these blue walls. What a wonderful and unique idea! The one that Nicholas spotted almost right away, was the one of Jesus on the cross located at the very center of the the churches roof top. I could only hope that these images burned into their minds and hearts for ever!

Unfortunately, due to the shutdown, Rolando was unable to attend. Hence, I became even more determined to ensure that my children experienced as much of the celebration as they could. So I started taking turns putting each of the children up on my shoulder so that they might see better. One of the volunteers that saw what I was doing, took sympathy on me. He helped me out with holding Nick up for a few minutes, and I was ever so grateful. So, Gabrielle was able to view the parade of flags that was being celebrated in a dance. Nicholas saw some other cultural dances that were performed, and the smoke from the burning of the incense. At one point, we were up close and personal, when the Bishop came to the station of the cross which we just happened to be standing next to, blessed underneath the portrait and continued on his way. As the mass continued, and the hours went by, the children's curiosity did not waver. They so patiently sat through the entire celebration, and upon the end of this consecration, we all simply hiked back through broke concrete and dirt back to our vehicle in silence. We reached our vehicle @ 2pm, but didn't make it out to the main road until 3:15PM!! Yes, we were stuck in traffic getting out of the "parking lot" for over ONE HOUR~and the kids still didn't complain once! I was ever so proud of them. I knew the Holy Spirit was in them on that Holy Day!

Then, a couple of weeks ago, as Rolando and I sat in our living room and were sorting through our sling-box channels, we came across the consecration of Houston's Co-Cathedral! We proceeded to sit through that celebration as well, realizing that it was truly amazing for us to be able to watch this. I excitedly told him that these were the exact same rituals that the kids and I had personally experienced at the church in Doha...but that it did not make this one any less special. Rolando called my mother in Texas who informed us she was already watching this, so the short conversation brought some comfort to us knowing that we were sitting through the same humbling event as our family and several thousands of others in Texas!! The interview that Ilona had with the Cardinal stated that the statues and the beautiful stained glass for the church were made in Florence, Italy; and were made from the same material that the infamous Statue of the David was created from. This of course caught more of our interests as our family had visited and stood directly in front of the David back in Mach of 2007. I have no more words to share about all of these experiences, but I hope you can see from the fact that we even took pictures of this televised event; feeling lucky and ever so blessed to have witnessed all of this; and we feel that they have brought us some PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!! (At least to the hearts of our family!)

Robot Zoo w/Lil' Future Olympian Nick - March 13th

The giraffe winked at Nick, so Nick winked back!! Clearly the biggest attraction at the Robot Zoo was the giant electronic giraffe that greeted us as we walked into the facility. Nick was the one that noticed that the huge animal was bowing his head and winking at people as they walked by; and he was more than eager to show me how. He was also happy to (as seen in pictures): assemble a platypus, hang like a bat - just not upside down like one, walk like a fly on the wall, and race a chicken or cheetah. The best part for him had to have been when he kept beating everyone at the racing game. "I won! I won!" he repeated. The best part for me was when a perfect stranger approached me and asked me what my son's full name was and what country he was from. I answered her and asked why she wanted to know. She replied that she just wanted to know who she would be cheering for at the Olympic games in about 15 years, because from she had observed, Nicholas was for sure going to be in them!! What a nice lady! God bless her....

Some of the other neat things to see were: a giant octopus, a huge grasshopper, the not-so-average housefly, a rhino still under construction, and a few other neat animals. The Emir and the people of Doha once again deserve an applause. This was truly a unique thing to have here in the Middle East. Many of the schools, if not all of them located here, had this as a required field trip for its kids. Gabrielle had been with her school about 2 weeks prior to our own visit; and I remember that it had made a huge impression on her. Not only was it neat to see all of the robotics of each of the animals, but the location left nothing to be desired. It was located on the city's Al Corniche, comparable to Galveston's The Strand, only with rows of palm trees and about 90% less litter. And that makes all the difference in the world, no matter what side of it you live on!!!

Mosque Tour - March 10th

It's been over 100 degrees F. for the past three days straight here, so I am forced to finally stay indoors and keep up with my posts which are way over due!!! So, here we go.... By the way, we have added another feature to our posts: the beauty of music. We hope you enjoy the attached Muslim call of prayer that WE are exposed to every day, five times a day.

One of the "Chevron wives" organized a very interesting tour of two of Doha's mosques...yes, the locals' place of worship. I know, even I was of the idea that expats or foreigners were not allow to enter such places, but we were wrong. They were more than happy to have us learn about their culture and customs. They day started off at 8:30 am at the Qatar Guest Center. The Qatari women that volunteer there were very friendly and super attentive. We were served tea (with or without "milk"), and a variety of small treats. The most surprising thing to me is that they, also, had a great sense of humor, cracking jokes and even posing for pictures.

Afterwards, we proceeded to hop on a bus to tour the first of the mosques, but not before being "cleansed" with perfumes and oils that the women were more than happy to shower us with. The smell wasn't so bad, at first, but after a few minutes inside of a bus with 17 other women wearing the same thing, it got to be a bit too much. I felt even worse for the two young men that had joined us on this exciting tour. They were college students here on Spring break visiting each of their families. All I can say is that they were real TROOPERS throughout the entire thing! This mosque was one of the oldest ones in Doha, still being used. The pictures show the times of the day when prayer is recited. The tour guide mentioned that each mosque has a live prayer leader for each of the scheduled prayers. Very interesting....as there are several hundred mosques throughout the town.

Then, we were off to a second, more modern mosque. Here we even had live demo of prayer rituals. The building was very pretty, not at all what I expected. Before we entered, though, we had another live demo from a man showing us the cleansing routine. Yes, here is a picture of my bear feet on the carpet of a mosque. Clearly, I did not have the op to take part in the traditional cleansing ritual. He stated what parts were included in the routine and why; and clarified that the cleansing may also be done by what is called a 'dry' cleansing if a worshiper found themselves, at prayer time, in the middle of somewhere with no water available. Imagine that happening here in the desert!!

We later moved on to the cultural center where we were exposed to more of the culture and had our names written in Arabic. We viewed some artifacts and a Quran or two. The tour by this time was talking longer than expected, mostly because it was interrupted by prayer time and we had to wait for our tour guides to finish with their prayers. It was passed lunch time, so as soon as that was over, the bus took us to one of those meeting centers that they talked to us about before we came to Doha. It was a "sitting/meeting" room for men or women only. Since we were in a group that included men, we were allowed to go into the room that was for men only; and we were once again served tea and dessert - yes, before lunch.

Once back at the guest center, large platters of several food combinations were brought out for us to enjoy. The women were very gracious and served us platefuls of lots of local dishes. The dishes were mostly a combo of rice with a meat. At this time, many of them were still asking us if we had any other questions/comments about their culture, but I for one was very satisfied with the wealth of information I had received. Then, we were ushered into another room, where the infamous SCIENTIFIC slide show began. Remember, we had started the day at 8:30 am, and had just had a huge lunch. The slide show was a way of demonstrating their Quran, proven by science, as the one and only answer to it ALL. Not really what I was interested in hearing, so it became a bit of information overload, by this time of the day - it was after 2 pm!

At the end of it all, we said a very gracious thank you and were each off to our home, where I for one, hugged my kids and embraced my life as a very happy Catholic living in this very different Muslim world.