Dear Enrico,

I am writing to you after the meeting with the friends in Venezuela today about sending hygiene packages. I want to really say a big “thank you” for your “yes” to this opportunity several years ago. I have re-learned the value of the witness by listening today to our friends in Venezuela who teach me that showing up with an open heart waiting for Him to happen helps me to catch Him happening, as He did today!

I got involved with sending packages when a friend pointed out this opportunity which I had given just a customary glance. Again, another witness who comes to save me from my lazy, bourgeois attitude!

Today Father José summarized by saying, "The heart becomes bigger, when you realize that you belong to a history that goes much further than your neighborhood, city, town. To realize that we have brothers and sisters in other countries, people with whom I walk, and the incredible gifts to see your faces, this makes the heart bigger! Therefore it gives us the possibility to see meaning in the small things that the Lord asks of us!!"

I can say that the friends in Venezuela are also these witnesses who point me in His direction, and then I find myself walking next to Christ--even if sometimes I am like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus who don't recognize Him at first, but then, surprise, He is here!

I am attaching a photo of all the boxes of personal hygiene items that were accumulated in a warehouse in Miami that I have saved since you sent this out in 2019 with the message, "I am very thankful that, even without knowing you, we feel preferred by you and that we can count on you."

What an amazing way to live this Saturday! Thank you, dear fratello.

Nancy, Los Angeles, California