What a week.  Of terror.  Of incredible pain.  Of simple pleasures never again to be taken for granted.  This time a shorter newsletter.  With a bit of a view from another land on the tragedies of September 11th.

 

As it was for most everyone, Sept 11th started as a pretty normal day.  But as the news broke it quickly became anything but a normal day. 

 

News was hard to come by here.  You couldn’t learn enough about what was happening.  And yet with each new wave of information, you felt like you knew more than you would ever want to know!  You felt so far away from everything that mattered that day.

 

Rumors and misinformation were flying around here.  And some of it centered on our school.  If this attack on the US was the beginning of a worldwide coordinated effort, our school, the American School of Asuncion, would certainly be a prime target in this country!  Police and news reporters swarmed the school.  Local news programs were announcing that our school was being closed and everyone evacuated.  But we were trying to go on as normal!  Nonetheless, parents started coming to take their kids home.  By day’s end only about 15% of the students were still here. 

 

And even in this confusion, the outpouring of caring by the Paraguayans was already beginning.  I received phone calls from local friends, expressing their concern, their caring, their outrage.  The Paraguayan teachers quickly put together a beautiful note and delivered it to us, the US teachers.  People on the street would ask how you were.  And REALLY mean it!  It was heart warming.

 

But I wanted to do something.  Not just watch CNN International and feel so far from home.  I needed to do something.  But from this distance, what could I do?  Well, I was on line checking e-mail and the answer popped up on the screen.  I read the words ‘Red Cross’.  And clicked right through to give a donation on my credit card. 

 

And I sat there and cried and felt really good.   Because I had found my way to start helping!

 

Our school put together its own memorial service last Friday.  I helped in coordinating the music and technical side of it.  And as we planned the music, so many incredible songs of my homeland came to mind.  I started singing.  Everywhere I went.  ‘America the Beautiful’.  Or ‘This Land is Your Land’.  What a beautiful musical tradition our country has.  And what a wonderful solace that music can be!  

 

Sunday morning a good sized group of teachers here went to one of the only English language churches around, the little Anglican chapel.  And I mean little.  And Anglican.  You know, the Church of England!  It was a very moving ceremony.  But it wasn’t just about the tragedies of September 11.  It also celebrated the recent adoption by one couple in the church of two homeless Paraguayan boys.  Life goes on.  Filled with incredible beauty and hope!

 

After church, we went to the American Embassy to lay flowers outside the gate and write in the memorial book there.  It was incredibly moving.  To read what others had written and to increasingly realize how this tragedy impacted everyone, throughout the world, not just us as Americans.  One Paraguayan lady had written these simple words that summed it all up for me.  ‘God save America.  For the sake of the rest of the world, God save America.’

 

After laying the flowers, we turned, held hands, and looked upon the American flag flying at half mast behind the fence on the Embassy grounds.  It was so painful to think of the pain and anguish that was represented in that flag being at half mast.  Seeing my flag flying at half mast was more than I could accept.  I will return there this Saturday at dusk for the ceremony in which the flag will be raised again to its full height!

 

Then today, the Embassy held its memorial service.  One speaker particularly touched me.  He spoke of our role as US citizens living overseas.  He spoke of how we are the only face many foreigners can truly put on the ideals and dreams that the US represents.  To many in a country such as Paraguay, we are the US.  What a marvelous responsibility that is to carry.  To walk and talk the American ideal as best I can.  To be a small part of the beacon that the US is to the world!  I pray that I can do my best to live that responsibility to the very vest of my ability!

 

But in the long run, I know that some of my strongest memories of this tragedy will not be merely of my experiences.  Or the incredible pain that we as American citizens now feel.  I think that many of my most indelible memories will be of how very terrifying the impact of this attack is for all of the world.  Including the US, but not just the US. 

 

Tonight the city cathedral was filled to overflowing with people, Paraguayans, brought together by their common need and desire to express their loss and their love.  I’m including a few pictures from that ceremony.

 

Yesterday, the director of a local youth orchestra came to me to tell me that his students wanted to organize a benefit concert to express their love and concern.  And to raise money to help in the relief effort!  How beautiful.  Tiny impoverished Paraguay raising money to help the US.  Giving, when so many here have so very little to give.

 

And today I became aware that there are two Paraguayans who worked in the World Trade Center who are on the list of the missing.  I have a Paraguayan friend who knows one of them.  She also knows several of the Americans who are on the list as well.  On this frighteningly personal level, this Paraguayan friend has been touched.  Touched more profoundly than any of the American teachers, for not one of the American teachers here at my school has lost family or friends in the tragedy. 

 

Yes, this truly is a tragedy of global proportions.  One that touches all of the family of man.  The rest of  world grieves with us.  And the rest of the world grieves.  Independently.  For the rest of the world also has experienced unfathomable losses also!

 

And even as they come to our aid, pouring out their love.  Even as they grieve.  They also look to us for our continuing leadership.  As the Paraguayan women said so well, ‘God save America.  For the sake of the rest of the world, God save America.’