Exams

I have been busy over the last few days with students, both seminarians and in the Lay Institute, doing exams. I am really pleased that all students in the Lay Institute passed the exam without difficulty. This is particularly important since many of these people have had little contact with formal education and for some of them, this was the first time they had ever sat an exam - it is a big achievement that shouldn't be underestimated. The majority of these 60 students will now continue with the rest of the year's course and I hope to meet some of them again at other courses as they progress towards an eventual degree.

The seminarians, on the other hand, have not fared so well. Most of those who have done the oral exam so far have done well, but not all - we will be organising some sort of essay so that they can have another go via email after I have left Panama.

Exams will continue right up until Friday, and then I will leave on Sunday after celebrating Palm Sunday Mass in the Hogar San José - the centre run by Mother Teresa's nuns that cares for the handicapped and the abandoned (and, especially, the abandoned handicapped).