I sail, you the wind

The start of the new school year is already filling us with amazement. We have restarted all face-to-face activities, while maintaining the attention necessary to protect our children and young people. And certainly the first amazement is seeing their joy in coming to the Arsenale every day, as before the pandemic.
Their looks, smiles, gestures of affection are a source of continuous amazement. But we also had other surprises. We said to ourselves that we would also like to resume activities with the schools, associations and parishes that have always frequented the Arsenale. Not even the time to say it and a school we've been working with for years called us to invite our children to do activities with them. A couple of days later a youth center in a village near Madaba called us asking us to come with their youngest boys who have not yet visited the Arsenale. After the first somewhat "strange" impact in finding a "foreigner" welcoming them, they listened carefully to our story of peace and our commitment to the little ones and left only after saying goodbye to all the children and young people present .

In the meantime, three groups of Italians on pilgrimage to Jordan have passed by with whom we had the pleasure of sharing the sign of good that we try to be in this land, every day. As we write, we are called by young people from a parish in Amman who would like to organize activities with us. More than this! The same happened to us also for maintenance. For some time we wanted to fix the bathrooms on the ground floor, which are the oldest in the Arsenale, and complete the replacement of the doors that lead outwards, so that we could put panic bars everywhere. Always in the first days of work, a company called us who wanted to give us some maintenance work that could be useful to us, we could choose what. They fixed both the bathrooms and the doors for us! A great Providence!

Looking at what is happening to us these days we said to ourselves that it really seems that the Arsenale is "making itself", with a surprising naturalness.
It is as if having remained steadfast even in these pandemic years had given us a credibility that is ready to reopen many doors for us and give us new opportunities for good. We are asked to continue to be available and not to hinder the Spirit who from time to time opens the way and shows us the direction.
Live more and more: we sail, you the wind and the amazement will have no end.


Arsenale dell'Incontro
NP October 2022