After the snowstorm

Trees split in half by the heavy snow
and gale force winds

The past few days have been very busy ... now that the snow has melted and life goes back to normal. The municipality was in action all weekend to remove the snow from the roads. It had only snowed for 24 hours but it was severe and extremely cold, much more than the first snowfall in January which lasted 3 days. Many trees have fallen or branches broken off ... much more than the previous snowfall. It goes to show how strong the winds were this time round, and how much more snow fell (30 cm here).

Well actually life isn't all back to normal ... not for the christians here. This morning's news that ISIS had captured 90 or so christians in Syria has upset everyone here. The ancient Assyrian church of the Virgin Mary was blown up and thousands of ancient rare religious books were burned ... as was also the National Library. We've always known that as a minority in this region, we would face with difficulties. But persecution at this level, and international silence about it ... it leaves us in stumped silence. Well the threat of ISIS is so real, the Swiss Guards at the Vatican are now preparing for the worst case scenario of an attack on the Pope.

Meantime work continues to build up ... the usual fatigue of the week. Mondays are the worse as I start work at 3am and finish at 9.30pm - a full 18 and a half hours of work and classes with no rest in between. I managed to grab 2 pieces of sandwiches for lunch but suffered a dreadful diarrhea ... my IBS is still torturing me. This Lent is going to be very hard on me as I have retreats to preach every weekend as well. A couple of these lasts between 3 to 5 days full.