A Wonderful Opportunity

I forgot to mention in my last post, a very exciting opportunity for my spiritual life found me out here. As you may know, I've pursued RCIA before, with little success. I just can't find a group or a time that... fits. However, I mentioned the fact that I'd like to go through the process to my unit chaplain, and he was able to dig up a group here on base! I didn't expect RCIA to be offered out here, but lo and behold, it is. An Air Force Catholic chaplain, let's call him Father Hotel, is a strong believer in evangelization, I think. He's going to make the process very simple compared to the other programs I've looked at. Instead of 6 to 8 months of preparation and initiation at Easter, he's expedited the course to just 16 weeks, and we'll be initiated at Christmas! He's also doing this because the Air Force has such short deployments, and he's only here from September to January.

Fr. Hotel is a very interesting priest. He's relatively young compared to most priests you encounter today, and his attitudes, while still strictly Catholic, are somewhat more open and forgiving than usual. Somehow, his mannerisms seem to blend easily with the edicts of the church, rather than forcing them. It's difficult to explain, but refreshing nonetheless. He seems much more oriented to our community than the average priest; he wants to know the entire congregation on a first name basis as much as he can, which is a daunting task considering the fluid nature of the parish. He seems very proud of having the RCIA class around, and makes it a point to mention us at mass. He delights in leading small worship and study groups, that much I can tell. He seems like the perfect fit for the RCIA process, and I'm excited to be involved with it. This seems to be the right place and the right time.

In other news, Mr. Wizard, the other guys and myself have been working on internet for the chu's (Containerized Housing Units). The satellite system is on order, but there's another problem to overcome. In order to afford the service, we must have at least 15 people subscribing. And to get those 15 people their service, we have to run a network between all of the rooms they live in. We're spread out across several hundred yards of trailer park. Walking around, you can see that other groups have solved the problem by running cable all over the place. Most groups have just run it on top of the rock bed, maybe thrown the cables under the stepping stones. It's a royal mess, and it would be a lot of work. It would be even more work to do the right thing and bury the cable. Instead, we've tried something novel. We're using some of our unused military equipment to try and set up a wireless network. Civilian solutions won't work because the distances are just too great, but this military wireless might just do the trick. We'll have to see how it goes. With luck, by the end of the month, I'll be able to write you from the comfort of my room!