The Buerglers

Before I start cutting down Eric's beautiful thank you letter about our week long trip to Mustard Seed Communities, I wanted to share the long version with you.... Family and Friends,             Elizabeth and I are back from Nicaragua .  We thank you for making our trip possible through your donations, thoughts and prayers.  There is no way we can properly thank you for what you have done for us and for the children at Mustard Seed Communities (MSC), but we wanted to try by giving you a glimpse of the journey.             The first day was just a flight and arriving at the mission house.  Our first real day we loaded onto the old school bus and made the hour and a half drive from Diriamba to Managua to meet and pick up some of the MSC children for Sunday Mass.  After Mass our group headed back to Hogar Belen, the MSC orphanage.  Time at the orphana...

Every year the parish takes a group of teens on a domestic mission trip to a nearby city.  We've been to places like New Orleans, St. Louis, and Mobile.  This year 47 of us went to Chattanooga, TN for a week long service project and conference.  My small group of teens were responsible for helping convert an old middle school into a community center.  We had to do things like prime the bright red doors, paint (with oil base paint) all the handrails, help keep the hallways cleaned, empty and clean the old lockers, and other easy construction tasks while the construction workers built out new walls and knocked down some others.  It was a fun project to be a part of, and while we left feeling like we only accomplished one or two pieces of the puzzle, we knew that we still contributed to the big picture of this famous new community center.  I see a red door and I want to prime it white.... Safety Red! Almost completed space In process of being r...

One on the neat things about going to the University of Dayton is that every year on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (our schools patroness), campus would be closed for class but one of the greatest celebrations of the year took place:  Christmas on Campus. Christmas On Campus consisted of hundreds of thousands of Christmas lights all over campus, ice sculptures, rappelling santa, game booths put on by all the clubs, hot chocolate, and everyone’s favorite, “adopt a kid”.  Kids from poor neighborhoods would be bussed in and students could “adopt” them for the night.  The students would take their kid around campus to play games, see the lights, get their picture with Santa, and drink hot chocolate.  The night would end with just the students celebrating Immaculate Conception Mass together, our last big event together before exams and Christmas break. This event has put our campus on the map, and students from all over attend UD just because of Christmas on ...