Why they chose me to be the 28th co-director of the Potter’s Clay Project in Mexico, is beyond me. I was most definitely the least qualified. Before I moved to California from Hartford, Connecticut I thought that I was very culturally aware. Many of my good friends were African American or Jamaican. I was in the Black History Club and had sung the Black National Anthem in my high school. I felt like Westmont College in Santa Barbara was a step down in a way. I hoped I might be the savior of the diversity issue bringing meat patties and ox-tail from the east to teach these Californians a thing or two.
However, I had met one Mexican in my whole life.
One.
I didn’t even know he was Mexican until he told me. I mean I loved to go to Taco Bell with my dad after church and get a Meximelt but to lead a trip with 300 students to Ensenada, Mexico, for a whole week? Probably someone who spoke Spanish would have been a better choice. Probably someone who wasn’t me. My partner was Daniel Michael Quon, a senior art major who spoke no Spanish and would be labeled by the locals as “el chine” translated (in the most politically correct way) as “the Chinese one.” He was the fourth Chinese person I had ever met.
At the time however, I was 21 and woefully unaware of my inadequacies. Sitting cross-legged on the floor of our small office Dan and I were determined to write our vision for the year. I looked at the key to the city hanging on the wall, and noticed it needed dusting. I began picking the crumbs of old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from the ground.
“Where do we begin?” Dan wondered out loud.
We decided that the first thing was getting a service project ready for 300 students who would be spending their spring break in Ensenada. The second was strengthening the ongoing friendship with the church in Ensenada, specifically the three Mexican members of the Potter’s Clay core team; Dr. Ramon Viduadi, Pastor Juan Monge and Pastor Rueben Castenada. It was a plan but to me it did not feel like a “vision.” Nothing sacred or holy about it. Nothing the Saint Theresa would have written about.
Our plan also required us to go to Mexico every other weekend to lay the groundwork for the project. Not included in our initial “vision” write up was that inevitably Dan would be 15 minutes late, and it would take another 15 minutes for everyone else on our team to get there. Once they arrived we would squeeze our weekend bags in between the bench seats of my van. If the van didn’t reek of anything suspicious, like rubber or brake fluid, we would drive all the way to Ensenada that night. This was back in the day when you didn’t have to do anything to cross the border into Mexico and to cross back in you might need a driver’s license but nothing more.
However, I had met one Mexican in my whole life.
One.
I didn’t even know he was Mexican until he told me. I mean I loved to go to Taco Bell with my dad after church and get a Meximelt but to lead a trip with 300 students to Ensenada, Mexico, for a whole week? Probably someone who spoke Spanish would have been a better choice. Probably someone who wasn’t me. My partner was Daniel Michael Quon, a senior art major who spoke no Spanish and would be labeled by the locals as “el chine” translated (in the most politically correct way) as “the Chinese one.” He was the fourth Chinese person I had ever met.
At the time however, I was 21 and woefully unaware of my inadequacies. Sitting cross-legged on the floor of our small office Dan and I were determined to write our vision for the year. I looked at the key to the city hanging on the wall, and noticed it needed dusting. I began picking the crumbs of old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from the ground.
“Where do we begin?” Dan wondered out loud.
We decided that the first thing was getting a service project ready for 300 students who would be spending their spring break in Ensenada. The second was strengthening the ongoing friendship with the church in Ensenada, specifically the three Mexican members of the Potter’s Clay core team; Dr. Ramon Viduadi, Pastor Juan Monge and Pastor Rueben Castenada. It was a plan but to me it did not feel like a “vision.” Nothing sacred or holy about it. Nothing the Saint Theresa would have written about.
Our plan also required us to go to Mexico every other weekend to lay the groundwork for the project. Not included in our initial “vision” write up was that inevitably Dan would be 15 minutes late, and it would take another 15 minutes for everyone else on our team to get there. Once they arrived we would squeeze our weekend bags in between the bench seats of my van. If the van didn’t reek of anything suspicious, like rubber or brake fluid, we would drive all the way to Ensenada that night. This was back in the day when you didn’t have to do anything to cross the border into Mexico and to cross back in you might need a driver’s license but nothing more.
Photo: Baja.com
The next day we would navigate our way to a small restaurant called Las Parillas. After pushing all the tables the owner possessed into a long conference table we would sit and compulsively eat the chips and salsa before us. Through the large glass windows of the restaurant, which were patched together by marking tape, I saw the ocean. In between the vast ocean and the window was a narrow street lined with taquerias and small store fronts. Pastor Rueben stood outside talking with Felipe, the man who owned the auto parts store kitty corner to Las Parillas. Rueben’s stance was relaxed and he left Felipe with a slight nod and a long handshake. Upon entering the room, his weak eye struggled to focus as the other conveyed with deep clarity the importance of this meeting, of our new friendship. “Mi Jefa Bonita” he called me. When Pastor Rueben hugged me, he was hugging twenty-eight years of friends with twenty-eight years of love.
Pastor Rueben’s life was dictated by three great loves, Christ, his family and friends, and fútball. The dirt field below his house became the arena of the great championship game between Westmont’s soccer team and the team his brother, Mario coached from the church, La Grand Commission. Their team was always excellent; Mario’s sons Ismael, and Luis Angel were the star players. Luis Angel, who played in goal always wore a Westmont Jersey – for good luck and as a sign of good will.
As the weeks before spring break flew by, I learned the way to Ensenada by heart. Then, finally, the big trip was just a week away. As our team drove up to Rueben’s house, where we would take care of any last minute details, I was humming the song he had written for the very first Potter’s Clay Project. He wrote it decades ago, the day after that first week was done. All the neighborhood kids showed up to play, but the “Americans” were already gone. The kids sat down on his porch and began to cry. So, he wrote them this song as a promise that with the spring flowers, the Americans would return.
Next week would be the 28th time the “Americans” returned, and as we stepped out of my maroon van, which was slightly smoking from the strain of the dirt hills, I felt loved in an ancient and eternal way. I jumped past the rock, which read, “Christo es mi roca,” and noticed anew how the yellow paint on the face of Rueben’s house looked faded and burnt. The door was flung open like a scream, but instead of being met by Pastor Rueben’s “embrazo,” his beautiful wife, Graciella, ran out weeping. Her rapid Spanish was blowing past me and ripping up my mind. I wanted to shut down the strain of translation skills and let her voice become meaningless sounds like the mangy dog barking at our approach. But my friend Amy translated for me: “Rueben’s at the hospital, with Mario,” she stammered, “there was an accident… an explosion.”
That morning the family had been late for church, something was wrong with the car, and they were checking it out. Luis Angel found a gas canister and began to pour. No one remembers who was at the wheel but the engine turned over, igniting the gas. The force of the flames knocked Luis Angel to the ground, lit and burning. In my mind, his screams came in disconnected gasps, like Morse code. I imagined Mario racing in to pull off the Westmont jersey, which was seared to Luis Angel’s flesh. Graciella struggled to tell how his facial features were gone, his hands melted down to lumps. The men raced down the dirt road towards the hospital with Luis Angel laid out in the back of a truck. I winced thinking of the ditches and bumps.
This, too, was not part of our plan, our vision. We had to go home, to get in our cars and drive sluggishly away, heavy with silent prayers. It took a couple of days when we got back to find a good enough translator, to co-ordinate a time when we could call and see how Luis Angel was doing, and to see if the project would move forward. We called the house, then the church, then Pastor Rueben’s cell phone, with no luck. A second try to the cell phone finally worked, and Rueben’s voice came through faint but weighted over our landline, “Bueno.”
“Bueno Pastor, Como estan?”
“Everything is ready for next week.” The crackle in the connection aged his voice greatly.
“And Luis Angel?” I ventured.
There was an audible nod and a sigh.
“Is there anything we can do?”
“Maybe you could bring a Westmont jersey. His was burnt the day of the explosion.”
“Of course. Of course.”
My van was packed to the hilt, the day we left for Mexico – with nails for the construction site stashed beneath a ratty pillow and some old tennis shoes someone decided were too old for them but just fine for the Mexican people. Amidst all the chaos I was worried the jersey would get lost or forgotten but the soccer team followed through. It was there, among the other precious cargo. As we left, it didn’t occur to me that I would be the one to give Luis Angel the Jersey. This was another thing I hadn’t planned for, but as co-director, it fell to me.
A few days later, I held the jersey in front of me like a shield as I walked down the alley-like corridor leading to Luis Angel’s ward. I pushed up my shoulders, trying to get them to cover my ears against the noises of respirators and moans. There was no protecting my nose. The rotting air began to eat away at the tender flesh inside my nostrils as soon as I pushed open the weathered door handle. Each step along the dusty concrete sparked an invasion of dirt into my sneakers as I looked for his room. I stopped at the nurse’s desk only to realize that I didn’t have the vocabulary to ask the way. Seeing my pale skin the nurse nodded to me and pointed to the names beside the room numbers: Cano, Carlos.
Castaneda.
Opening the door timidly, I realized that I still had to pull aside the dividing curtain to see Luis Angel’s face. He could see the shadow of my hand on the curtain before I determined to grab the umber colored cloth and move it out of the way. “Don’t gasp… Don’t gasp,” played in my head, a powerless mantra in the face of the fresh scars I was about to see.
I wondered what my wide eyes conveyed. I talked slowly, hoping he understood since his windpipe had been seared by the accident. I prayed in English punctuated by Spanish phrases I’d learned from his Uncle. All his skin hung dead on his limbs like shriveled plastic wrap. His eyes were the sole feature untouched by the fire. They were no longer framed by eyebrows or lashes; they stood naked on his face. I wanted to look away but I felt that their vivacity demanded my attention. I took his bandaged hand in mine, aware that his nerves had no recognition of the action. His eyes however, acknowledged the motion. There was no room for time within these four walls, which were laden with devices, informative posters and cobwebs. Luis Angel’s eyes began to close and I couldn’t bear to watch their beauty disappear. I cleaned off the sole chair in the room and proceeded to place the Jersey on it with great ceremony. I walked to the door silently.
Pastor Rueben caught me as I fell out of the room. His embrace steadied my feet and I nodded to thank him. “He needs surgery,” Rueben commented to the others standing in the hallway. Actually he needed a very specialized surgery available only America, but the family didn’t have the money. It would cost $3,000. I felt like I was the one who needed a sharp knife to slice off my pain. They needed $3,000 and I had just given them a $15 shirt. I felt dead skin around my heart tear with each beat.
“We will pay for it,” I choked, without knowing how I could make the words true. “We will pay for it all.”
The next day was the night of the big bonfire. I grew up in the country, and watching the flames of a bonfire was a mystical tradition. The fire seems to warm some soft spot in everyone until the love inside liquefies and pours out loud. The person next to you might very well become your confidant and your priest. As the sticky steam rising off the s’mores mingled with the stories that were shared from the week, I took the first step in following through on my promise. I stood up before the 300 volunteers as they warmed themselves with stories that would soon become fond memories, perhaps even milestones in their lives, and I asked for help. I’m sure it was more than a little tangential and certainly longer than necessary but without a doubt it remains one of the most genuine speeches I ever made.
“You all probably know Pastor Rueben, one of the founders of this mission. And if you know Pastor Rueben I trust you have come to love him and his family. Maybe you have seen his brother, Mario yelling, clapping and doing whatever it takes to ensure the local team a victory in our yearly soccer match. Some of you might know his nephew Luis Angel, the star of the local team. Luis Angel did not play in the annual soccer match today. There was an accident last week and he suffered traumatic burns to his face, head, neck, arms and chest.”
I imagined the flames before me turning vicious and eating off my arm like they’d dome to Luis Angel. I shuttered and continued my plea.
“The Castenas have inspired and changed my life, they have always given what they have and more to anyone and everyone who crosses their path. Each one of them has played a part in making this trip possible for over 20 years. Now is our chance to make a really important trip possible for them. Luis Angel needs surgery and treatment in San Diego. The surgery itself is $3,000. There will doubtless be traveling expenses, passport and visa application fees. They need a miracle. We need a miracle. We want to raise at least $3,500 tonight. I know we told you not to carry much cash on you, but whatever you do have, please consider giving.”
There was a milk jug that we designated to collect people’s ones, fives and even some tens. After it had circulated among the whole group Dan Quon took the cash and spread it out on the dirt darkened by the ash of fire. His face in the fading firelight reflected disappointment, but he wouldn’t admit how little we had, how much we were short. “Let’s just wait until tomorrow. You never know what could happen.” Remembering stories of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, I felt again the cynicism of discovering they were not “real.” Still, the prayer sewn onto my heart felt as course and sturdy as corduroy. That night I dreamt of the soccer game. In my dream, I approached one player until I realized his arms were stumps and his facial structure was skeletal.
Our last day. All the groups had folded themselves and their tents into their cars and were off on the race to the border where they would finally have cell phone service and possibly buy some churros for $1.50 US if you were a gringo and10 pesos if you are a good bargainer. I counted the hours before we had to tell Pastor Rueben about the money, I had given my last $20 and I wondered if maybe we should panhandle for the rest. Every phone call made my heart jump a bit thinking maybe it was Dan Quon reporting a miracle. But first it was the construction team reporting some missing lumber. Then, the kitchen team called to ask where the dumpsters were. The last call was Troy Harris, the risk manager reminding me to lock the gate on the way out. I wanted to yell over the phone that the gate could lock itself and the dumpsters were right in front of their faces and they better find that wood or else. My voice was constrained however, by the silent prayer and the memory of charred fingertips above bandages.
It wasn’t until we were climbing the hill to Pastor Rueben’s house at 5:45 pm that I saw Dan Quon. His face was calm and open like the cloudless sky. I could read nothing of the weather as I looked up.
“How much do we have, Dan?” I asked.
“We have it all.” He sang. “We didn’t last night, we didn’t an hour ago, but we do now! Ten people found me today and gave – enough so that the money tripled since I counted it last night.”
It was a Friday and Rueben’s whole family was out on the porch and in the front yard. They were waiting for something, not necessarily us, but something. As we walked up the path I noticed how the smiles decorating the faces of the people looking at us through the banister were like a welcome banner or perhaps like a farewell. Rueben and Mario met us at the stairs.
After each person had prepared to leave, making sure to pee, and hug everyone and murmur “Dios le bendiga” in sincere and holy tones, after all that had been taken care of, we formed a circle holding hands in order to pray, to complete the prayer I’d held all week deep inside. Giving the Castanedas the money was part of this prayer, so were the tears we all cried. I’d forgotten until that day that tears are contagious; when one grateful heart sees another so full it overflows. I wondered if the surgery would make it possible for Luis Angel to cry again. I wondered if he would be healed. I could see across the road the place where the explosion had happened, and I imagined the moment in my head. It was just enough force to tear open my heart and make room for someone other than just me. It was then, once it was all over that I finally got the vision. The vision was and always had been love.
Pastor Rueben’s life was dictated by three great loves, Christ, his family and friends, and fútball. The dirt field below his house became the arena of the great championship game between Westmont’s soccer team and the team his brother, Mario coached from the church, La Grand Commission. Their team was always excellent; Mario’s sons Ismael, and Luis Angel were the star players. Luis Angel, who played in goal always wore a Westmont Jersey – for good luck and as a sign of good will.
As the weeks before spring break flew by, I learned the way to Ensenada by heart. Then, finally, the big trip was just a week away. As our team drove up to Rueben’s house, where we would take care of any last minute details, I was humming the song he had written for the very first Potter’s Clay Project. He wrote it decades ago, the day after that first week was done. All the neighborhood kids showed up to play, but the “Americans” were already gone. The kids sat down on his porch and began to cry. So, he wrote them this song as a promise that with the spring flowers, the Americans would return.
Next week would be the 28th time the “Americans” returned, and as we stepped out of my maroon van, which was slightly smoking from the strain of the dirt hills, I felt loved in an ancient and eternal way. I jumped past the rock, which read, “Christo es mi roca,” and noticed anew how the yellow paint on the face of Rueben’s house looked faded and burnt. The door was flung open like a scream, but instead of being met by Pastor Rueben’s “embrazo,” his beautiful wife, Graciella, ran out weeping. Her rapid Spanish was blowing past me and ripping up my mind. I wanted to shut down the strain of translation skills and let her voice become meaningless sounds like the mangy dog barking at our approach. But my friend Amy translated for me: “Rueben’s at the hospital, with Mario,” she stammered, “there was an accident… an explosion.”
That morning the family had been late for church, something was wrong with the car, and they were checking it out. Luis Angel found a gas canister and began to pour. No one remembers who was at the wheel but the engine turned over, igniting the gas. The force of the flames knocked Luis Angel to the ground, lit and burning. In my mind, his screams came in disconnected gasps, like Morse code. I imagined Mario racing in to pull off the Westmont jersey, which was seared to Luis Angel’s flesh. Graciella struggled to tell how his facial features were gone, his hands melted down to lumps. The men raced down the dirt road towards the hospital with Luis Angel laid out in the back of a truck. I winced thinking of the ditches and bumps.
This, too, was not part of our plan, our vision. We had to go home, to get in our cars and drive sluggishly away, heavy with silent prayers. It took a couple of days when we got back to find a good enough translator, to co-ordinate a time when we could call and see how Luis Angel was doing, and to see if the project would move forward. We called the house, then the church, then Pastor Rueben’s cell phone, with no luck. A second try to the cell phone finally worked, and Rueben’s voice came through faint but weighted over our landline, “Bueno.”
“Bueno Pastor, Como estan?”
“Everything is ready for next week.” The crackle in the connection aged his voice greatly.
“And Luis Angel?” I ventured.
There was an audible nod and a sigh.
“Is there anything we can do?”
“Maybe you could bring a Westmont jersey. His was burnt the day of the explosion.”
“Of course. Of course.”
My van was packed to the hilt, the day we left for Mexico – with nails for the construction site stashed beneath a ratty pillow and some old tennis shoes someone decided were too old for them but just fine for the Mexican people. Amidst all the chaos I was worried the jersey would get lost or forgotten but the soccer team followed through. It was there, among the other precious cargo. As we left, it didn’t occur to me that I would be the one to give Luis Angel the Jersey. This was another thing I hadn’t planned for, but as co-director, it fell to me.
A few days later, I held the jersey in front of me like a shield as I walked down the alley-like corridor leading to Luis Angel’s ward. I pushed up my shoulders, trying to get them to cover my ears against the noises of respirators and moans. There was no protecting my nose. The rotting air began to eat away at the tender flesh inside my nostrils as soon as I pushed open the weathered door handle. Each step along the dusty concrete sparked an invasion of dirt into my sneakers as I looked for his room. I stopped at the nurse’s desk only to realize that I didn’t have the vocabulary to ask the way. Seeing my pale skin the nurse nodded to me and pointed to the names beside the room numbers: Cano, Carlos.
Castaneda.
Opening the door timidly, I realized that I still had to pull aside the dividing curtain to see Luis Angel’s face. He could see the shadow of my hand on the curtain before I determined to grab the umber colored cloth and move it out of the way. “Don’t gasp… Don’t gasp,” played in my head, a powerless mantra in the face of the fresh scars I was about to see.
I wondered what my wide eyes conveyed. I talked slowly, hoping he understood since his windpipe had been seared by the accident. I prayed in English punctuated by Spanish phrases I’d learned from his Uncle. All his skin hung dead on his limbs like shriveled plastic wrap. His eyes were the sole feature untouched by the fire. They were no longer framed by eyebrows or lashes; they stood naked on his face. I wanted to look away but I felt that their vivacity demanded my attention. I took his bandaged hand in mine, aware that his nerves had no recognition of the action. His eyes however, acknowledged the motion. There was no room for time within these four walls, which were laden with devices, informative posters and cobwebs. Luis Angel’s eyes began to close and I couldn’t bear to watch their beauty disappear. I cleaned off the sole chair in the room and proceeded to place the Jersey on it with great ceremony. I walked to the door silently.
Pastor Rueben caught me as I fell out of the room. His embrace steadied my feet and I nodded to thank him. “He needs surgery,” Rueben commented to the others standing in the hallway. Actually he needed a very specialized surgery available only America, but the family didn’t have the money. It would cost $3,000. I felt like I was the one who needed a sharp knife to slice off my pain. They needed $3,000 and I had just given them a $15 shirt. I felt dead skin around my heart tear with each beat.
“We will pay for it,” I choked, without knowing how I could make the words true. “We will pay for it all.”
The next day was the night of the big bonfire. I grew up in the country, and watching the flames of a bonfire was a mystical tradition. The fire seems to warm some soft spot in everyone until the love inside liquefies and pours out loud. The person next to you might very well become your confidant and your priest. As the sticky steam rising off the s’mores mingled with the stories that were shared from the week, I took the first step in following through on my promise. I stood up before the 300 volunteers as they warmed themselves with stories that would soon become fond memories, perhaps even milestones in their lives, and I asked for help. I’m sure it was more than a little tangential and certainly longer than necessary but without a doubt it remains one of the most genuine speeches I ever made.
“You all probably know Pastor Rueben, one of the founders of this mission. And if you know Pastor Rueben I trust you have come to love him and his family. Maybe you have seen his brother, Mario yelling, clapping and doing whatever it takes to ensure the local team a victory in our yearly soccer match. Some of you might know his nephew Luis Angel, the star of the local team. Luis Angel did not play in the annual soccer match today. There was an accident last week and he suffered traumatic burns to his face, head, neck, arms and chest.”
I imagined the flames before me turning vicious and eating off my arm like they’d dome to Luis Angel. I shuttered and continued my plea.
“The Castenas have inspired and changed my life, they have always given what they have and more to anyone and everyone who crosses their path. Each one of them has played a part in making this trip possible for over 20 years. Now is our chance to make a really important trip possible for them. Luis Angel needs surgery and treatment in San Diego. The surgery itself is $3,000. There will doubtless be traveling expenses, passport and visa application fees. They need a miracle. We need a miracle. We want to raise at least $3,500 tonight. I know we told you not to carry much cash on you, but whatever you do have, please consider giving.”
There was a milk jug that we designated to collect people’s ones, fives and even some tens. After it had circulated among the whole group Dan Quon took the cash and spread it out on the dirt darkened by the ash of fire. His face in the fading firelight reflected disappointment, but he wouldn’t admit how little we had, how much we were short. “Let’s just wait until tomorrow. You never know what could happen.” Remembering stories of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, I felt again the cynicism of discovering they were not “real.” Still, the prayer sewn onto my heart felt as course and sturdy as corduroy. That night I dreamt of the soccer game. In my dream, I approached one player until I realized his arms were stumps and his facial structure was skeletal.
Our last day. All the groups had folded themselves and their tents into their cars and were off on the race to the border where they would finally have cell phone service and possibly buy some churros for $1.50 US if you were a gringo and10 pesos if you are a good bargainer. I counted the hours before we had to tell Pastor Rueben about the money, I had given my last $20 and I wondered if maybe we should panhandle for the rest. Every phone call made my heart jump a bit thinking maybe it was Dan Quon reporting a miracle. But first it was the construction team reporting some missing lumber. Then, the kitchen team called to ask where the dumpsters were. The last call was Troy Harris, the risk manager reminding me to lock the gate on the way out. I wanted to yell over the phone that the gate could lock itself and the dumpsters were right in front of their faces and they better find that wood or else. My voice was constrained however, by the silent prayer and the memory of charred fingertips above bandages.
It wasn’t until we were climbing the hill to Pastor Rueben’s house at 5:45 pm that I saw Dan Quon. His face was calm and open like the cloudless sky. I could read nothing of the weather as I looked up.
“How much do we have, Dan?” I asked.
“We have it all.” He sang. “We didn’t last night, we didn’t an hour ago, but we do now! Ten people found me today and gave – enough so that the money tripled since I counted it last night.”
It was a Friday and Rueben’s whole family was out on the porch and in the front yard. They were waiting for something, not necessarily us, but something. As we walked up the path I noticed how the smiles decorating the faces of the people looking at us through the banister were like a welcome banner or perhaps like a farewell. Rueben and Mario met us at the stairs.
After each person had prepared to leave, making sure to pee, and hug everyone and murmur “Dios le bendiga” in sincere and holy tones, after all that had been taken care of, we formed a circle holding hands in order to pray, to complete the prayer I’d held all week deep inside. Giving the Castanedas the money was part of this prayer, so were the tears we all cried. I’d forgotten until that day that tears are contagious; when one grateful heart sees another so full it overflows. I wondered if the surgery would make it possible for Luis Angel to cry again. I wondered if he would be healed. I could see across the road the place where the explosion had happened, and I imagined the moment in my head. It was just enough force to tear open my heart and make room for someone other than just me. It was then, once it was all over that I finally got the vision. The vision was and always had been love.
Header art by T. Guzzio. Original photo via Wikimedia Commons.
CONNECT WITH KATIE:
Katie Simington is a born and bred New Englander who set out west looking for adventure. She graduated from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA, with a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies. It was there that she met and married her husband, David. They moved back to Boston in 2006. Katie attended Boston College to earn her M.Ed. She is currently on leave from formal teaching to raise her two (soon to be three) little ones. She is a compulsive reader, writer and debater. You can find her on Twitter @katiesimington, on Facebook, or her personal blog: www.pennedbutnotpublished.blogspot.com.
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