New Postulant: Jairo Congote

        Jairo Congote was born in Bogota, the capital city of Colombia. He is the seventh of eight children (Mauricio, Claudia, Orlando, Carlos, Edgar, Hugo and Oscar) resulted from the catholic marriage contracted by Myriam Quintero and Ivan Congote. Jairo says he has had a religious vocation since he was a child. He thinks that all what he has done throughout his life has been a long preparation to finally give religious life a try. When Jairo finished high school, he studied Philosophy at Seminario Mayor de Bogota and at Universidad Santo Tomás in Bogota. Then, he studied Modern Languages at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and he was granted the university degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Teaching of Modern languages. After that, he took a specialization course in translation at Universidad de los Andes and then he became Official Translator in his country. Jairo worked as a teacher of English, German and translation at different schools and universities in Colombia such as Universidad Javeriana, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Escuela de Administración de Negocios, Gimnasio Campestre and Gimnasio Femenino. He also worked as a translator for Politecnico Grancolombiano and Universidad Javeriana. During the last three years, he was adjudicator in charge of preparing, administering and correcting the government exams for candidates for Official Translators and Interpreters. He was a member of the Board of Directors of CCT, Colombian Association of Translators.

        He became acquainted with Mount Michael last year in May when he sent a message to the Mount Michael Abbey website asking for information and advise regarding monastic life. He also received information from three of the four Benedictine Monasteries in Colombia. However, when Jairo was ready to finally give religious life a try, he was strongly attracted to Monastic Life at Mount Michael because he felt he owed to Mount Michael to come. The Director of Vocations at Mount Michael, Father John, helped him with his discernment process for more than a year. "He wrote to me everyday from Monday to Friday" says Jairo "he took my vocation seriously". Jairo was instructed about Mount Michael for more than a year. He received books, brochures and a video which provided him with a lot of information that enabled him to make this decision.