Since returning from the States I’ve been enjoying an evening walk down to the lake that passes through beautiful rocky hills with great views of the lake around each corner.

Walking, something that connects us to the ancients, just walking. That and Silence joins us to how we can live a simple humble life on this planet.

I hope we can invite the moderns who come to visit us here to engage in the ancient practices of walking and Silence.

Since returning we’ve started up our regular morning Silent Prayer of 30 minutes before mass. One of our neighbors is a poor single woman who always comes with her small child.

During the meditation I was very distracted with many thoughts of what to do for most of the time. Until, I started to hear the gentle sound of the child’s breathing on her mother’s chest. It sounded so gentle and peaceful. A good image of Silent Prayer, to rest from all the clamor, anxiety, fears and frustrations and just rest on God’s ‘chest’.

Perhaps now I need to remind myself before Silent Prayer to ‘breath like a baby’.

It has almost been two months since I wrote here. Where have I been?! In the USA. I have completed my third and final summer for a Spiritual Direction Certificate at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.

Part to the vision for our House of Prayer is to provide Spiritual Direction for our willing guests. It is my hope that the skills and wisdom I received at the Christian Spirituality Program at Creighton will help me to journey with others as they seek to follow Christ more deeply.

I was also gifted to be with family off and on during these two months. I am very thankful for the opportunity to renew my relationships with my family.

In two days I board the plane to return to Tanzania. I look forward to the next chapter in the story of the Lake House of Prayer.

These past 2 months at the Lake House of Prayer have been a blessed beginning for me. One of the greatest blessings has been our “praying community”.

For the past 2 years or so, Jim has been envisioning, adapting, praying and building both the inner and outer structures of the Lake House of Prayer. What I found on my arrival the end of April, was not only a beautiful building in process surrounded by the beauties of nature- the lake, trees, plants, flowers, and an abundance of birds, but also this “praying Community”.

There has been a core group of neighborhood Christians who have been coming here to pray with Jim in these beginning years,first under an ancient tree on the grounds, before any building, and now in the temporary chapel in Jim’s house. Coming 4 days a week, twice a day, to practice silent prayer together, they form a contemplative community.

Sitting with this community for the past 2 months has been a wonderful experience for me. There are 2 things that strike me: first is the depth of silence in the group, and second is that contemplative prayer seems so natural to them, a part of their psychic and spiritual make up. They seem so “at home” in themselves in the silence. They have made me feel “at home” also in this contemplative silence with them. Two months may seem like a small beginning, but small beginnings are truly beautiful, and I am so grateful to be here and be part of this Lake House of Prayer.