Comboni Lay Missionaries

We are already in Uganda!

En UgandaThe Community in Gulu is complete, we have finally met with Ewa and Joana waiting for us with open arms in St. Jude Orphanage.
Monika and I now fulfill our second week and we are celebrating with an intensive “Acoli” language course, that will allow us to communicate and try to learn and understand those who are our brothers for these coming years.

The first days in Kampala, we had occasion to meet with the Comboni Lay Missionaries and share an interesting talk about how we are going to organize this time we will be in Uganda with them. They explained how they live the lay status, what are their plans and dreams, their limitations, and personally made us very excited to check that we are much closer than we thought.

We also share dinner and prayer in a very friendly atmosphere and with the feeling of being at home. It is a fortune for us that there are CLM in Uganda and Gulu, because we’ll just join what they are already doing and see what may occurs being together.

The next day paperwork and preparing for the long journey that leads north to Gulu. We said goodbye to the Community of Comboni Fathers in Kampala so well received and welcomed us on our arrival.

These are days of discovery, “landing” in a new land, it is time to observe and enjoy the contrasts.

We have also been fortunate to meet Dana (Polish Comboni Lay Missionary, who is completing her service time in Matany) and Marco and Maria Grazia with their sons Francesco and Samuele (Italians Comboni Lay Missionaries) who also complete their mission time in Aber. We went to visit them accompanied by F.Ramón and F.Luigi.

Just one day to share experiences, but enough to see that it was a nice life time for all of them.

It is very positive for us to meet other lay people nearby Gulu who knows realities, is positive as well listening stories and experiences of those who have preceded us, which help us to place ourselves before starting to take over our reality.

That is our time to learn Acoli, sharing Eucharist, meals and tours with Acoli people and the Comboni family and quietly enjoying what Uganda is giving us these first days.

Carmen, Monika, Asia and Ewa

Meeting of the CLM with stakeholders from Mellatz Christian Community

Grupo MellatzIn the middle of the holidays, from 15 to 17 August, our CLM group gathered. For Saturday Martina and Brigitte had prepared a program on Daniel Comboni and his spirituality. We invite to participated interested persons from the ecclesial community of Mellatz. We deepen our knowledge about the life and work of St. Daniel Comboni and seek the meaning of his spirituality to our reality today. We found it very interesting, the exchange of ideas with the 12 community stakeholders brought so much to us all. This encouraged every one of us to continue or re-start our missionary service: each in their daily personal life but also together as a group. There was also a time to speak personally and to continue the presentation work (website, poster) and plan the next steps for the group. On Sunday we had the opportunity to celebrate Mass with the parish community. After Mass there was time for many conversations with the community about the CLM.

Special thanks to Brigitte and Martina for preparing the meeting so fondly, to brother Friedbert for his support and to all participants.

The next meeting will be from 17 to 19 October in Nuremberg with the theme “The common points between the exhortation of Pope Francis ‘Evangelii Gaudium’ and the Comboni spirituality.”

Grupo MellatzBarbara Ludewig

Wawotowu!*

AsiayEwaGreetings from our very beautiful Gulu. Firstly we’re very sorry that we write so rarely but time goes very quickly. We (me and Ewa) have been for 3 months in Uganda! During this time we’ve got to know the place- children, mothers and also district in which we live. Now it’s really our Home. We still get to know Acoli culture, every day we discover new things, customs and rules… Of course we had an opportunity to see a richness of Acoli culture, I mean dances. Acoli tribe has more than 20 different traditional dances. Each of them very energetic and full of life. When we see dancing people we’re in owe of them, their moves and their condition. We also finished Acoli course. Acoli is not as easy as we heard, but little by little we start talking with children using their local language.

As I wrote at the beginning, time goes very quickly, probably because we’re very busy. In this moment we try do our best and help br. Elio to give a new fresh spirit to St. Jude orphanage. Now we are involved in different department-offices. Ewa works as social worker, I had to change my occupation for a moment and became an accounter. When we came here we didn’t dreamed of working in the office, but we know that sometimes mission demands changing your ideas. That’s why with humility and openness we involve in places which needs our help. We still observe and inspite of a lot of things make us angry and annoyed we humbly waiting for co-operation with local workers. Every day we discover a lot of needs of this place and in our heads there are a lot of different ideas to organize meetings for children. We are full of will and happiness and this is the most important.

We also co-operate with local CLM, on every first Friday of month we have meeting and common prayer. We’re wondering how to organise our co-operation in the future, what we can do for this place. The local community is very opened so I think we can do a lot of very good things together. We also met Marco and Maria Grazia, who’s just finishing their mission in Aber and coming back to Italy.

On Thursday Monika and Carmen have joined us, so we are very happy because finally we are together. Now girls have Acoli course so they stay in Layibi but we live in the same Town. Now we really start organizing our community live and activities. We’ll write about it soon.

Thank you very much for your support, for your prayer, which is very import ant for us. We also pray for you and think of you. We greet you again.

Asia

*in Acoli- We greet you

Celebrating Plurality

Encuentro alemania
Assembly of Comboni Lay Missionaries of the German Speaking Province (DSP), July 2014 in Nuremberg.

It is now thirty years since the first German Comboni Lay Missionary (CLM) went to the missions in Kenya. He was considered as an associate member of the Comboni Missionaries, in German called “MaZ” (missionary ad tempus – Missionar auf Zeit). A number of MaZ who had returned from the missions and some friends had gathered in Nuremberg in order to celebrate this jubilee. Some of the participants stayed throughout the whole weekend; others just joined the meeting for one day. All enjoyed sharing experiences, talking about vocation, about their life and in turns played with the children of the CLM. All in all there were seventeen CLM, seven friends and eight Comboni-Missionaries, including the Provincial Fr. Karl Peinhopf as well as former and present members of Comboni-Missionaries in charge of CLM.

At the beginning of the assembly, four posters were shown concerning the results of a Master thesis on sustainable impacts by international volunteers and Lay Missionaries such as MaZ from Germany. The posters presented key findings of a survey among persons who had come back from their mission commitment. By now, most of them work as teachers, in the parochial field, as social workers or in the sector of health care (e.g. nurses). Even if they currently do not work in the missions abroad or in development work, they enter their experiences into their work, i.e. in additional projects, intercultural commitments or financial donations. Furthermore, the far reaching impact on the life of ‘missionaries ad tempus’ are commitments concerning topics like sustainable way of living, migration and globalization as well as global justice. Being interviewed, some returnees emphasized that their faith was strengthened by the experiences in other parts of the universal church.

Later on, items of the agenda confirmed this positive and sustainable impact: Mathias returned from Uganda last year and reported about his time in Kasaala. Together we discussed the projects and his input at secondary school and farming.

Sigrun who had been in Matany/Uganda some time ago provided insights into her field of profession in tropical agriculture and horticulture. During the past years she returned to West Uganda several times for biological surveys.

Lena let us have a look behind the curtain of political science, bringing closer the dispute between the African Union and the International Criminal Court.

All the contributions showed the plurality of MaZ and the topics they deal with. Father Markus Körber and Father Hubert Grabmann, two Comboni Missionaries participating in the gathering, reported about their present missionary work in South Sudan and in Kenya. Father Hubert Grabmann assisted in the formation of CLM in the DSP some years ago; now he received CLM in his parish in Kenya for the second time.

Apart from the official programme, there was time for sharing information about life and changes, watching football games of World Cup, having barbeque as well as singing and praying together. At the concluding mass we prayed for the CLMs in formation and those in missions. We thanked Br. Friedbert Tremmel for the hospitality. We bid farewell to Father Günther Hofmann before his departure to South Africa in the near future. For the season of Advent and for next year we have already been planning further meetings with contributions from MaZ/CLM.

Encuentro alemaniaChristoph Koch

Conclusions of the 2nd Meeting of the CLM in Africa

CoordinacionThe 2nd Continental Meeting of the Comboni Lay Missionaries took place in Kinshasa, DRC on July 21-25, 2014. The participants included five priests, two sisters and 18 lay people, among them the six coordinators of the French-speaking and English-speaking African provinces. They were joined by representatives of the Central Committee.

The objective of the Assembly of Kinshasa was to establish a concrete plan of action based on the resolutions of previous gatherings – the Continental Assembly of Layibi in 2001 and the International Assembly of Maia in 2012 – having as a theme: “Beginning with what we have starting from our reality.”

Keeping in mind the current challenges of our African reality, where God calls us to live our vocation as witnesses of his love, according to the charism of St. Daniel Comboni, at the service of mission, which is a gift from God, and after having reflected together, we have come to some conclusions that will allow each province to set up a plan of action. These are the conclusions:

1. Vocation

We want to encourage each CLM to live one’s vocation as it was defined at Layibi; to overcome life’s difficulties and to keep the commitments we have as fathers, workers and Christians, thus giving witness to our vocation.

As it was said in Maia, the CLM communities need to formulate processes that will allow the full development of the personal vocation of their members during their entire lifetime. This means setting up a program of prayer, retreats, sacramental life and revision of community life.

In order to facilitate a joint journey in our vocation as an International Family of CLM, we encourage the new groups to keep in touch regularly with the Continental and Central Committees, in order to get help from those responsible for the coordination. We believe that it is necessary to follow the common lines of the international organization.

2. Relations among the CLM

The movement holds one single vision. All must cooperate and work together at living a harmonious community life.

In order to facilitate the integration of new CLM in the local CLM groups, we must strengthen communications and networking between the sending group and the receiving group, the Central and Continental Committees and the MCCJ provincials.

In order to reach full integration, we invite the new CLM to take part in the group’s activities: ongoing formation, assemblies, retreats, administrative practices and financial contributions…

We encourage CLM working in countries where we have no local members to promote our vocation and form a local group.

3. Formation

As a movement of CLM in Africa, we are committed to make our formation journey together, in order to follow Christ according to the charism of Comboni who calls us to make common cause with the people to whom we are sent.

The decisions taken in earlier Assemblies guide us on this journey of formation, where we should keep in mind the following aspects:

  1. The provinces must cooperate in the preparation of the various programs and materials for formation;
  2. We must share programs and topics of formation between the provinces and with the Central Committee;
  3. We must translate in all languages the formation documents.

4. Economy

We want to include the economy in our spiritual life, in order to live a life based on Providence. In this context, we ask the groups to include the topic of our relations with money in their formation programs, placing our stability and confidence in God.

In the process of our financial autonomy, we invite the various groups to form their members in the various aspects of finances, such as: development projects based on the local needs, the search for funds, compatibility…

Knowing that we all belong to this family of CLM, we are called to be responsible for and to support the group. In this sense, all the CLM must contribute to the fund of the local group. From this fund, the group in turn should contribute to the international common fund, managed by the Central Committee. We are also called to inspire the local Church and all people of good will to support our missionary activity.

In order to reach our financial autonomy, we invite the groups to start fund-generating activities such as in the field of agriculture, animal husbandry, pharmacies, movies, internet and photo-copying centers, production of local artifacts, talks, formation, dialogue and promotion of events…

It is not enough to engage in projects, but we are also called to give financial reports with great transparency (ledgers, bank accounts with more than one signature…).

5. Organization

5.1 Each Province must have:

  1. A Coordinating Team made up of : a coordinator, a secretary and a treasurer. This team must send its reports to the African and to the General Committees.
  2. A person in charge of communications (blog, Facebook, Twitter).
  3. A Formation Team which must: plan and prepare the topics of formation; ensure the follow-up and the evaluation of the formation given.
  4. Each group must have someone from those in charge of formation who will be networking with those responsible at the national level.

5.2 African Committee:

  1. The Central Coordinating Team is made up of: a coordinator, a secretary a treasurer.
  2. Its duties are:
  1. Ensure communications with the Central Committee.
  2. Call and organize continental meetings.
  3. Provide for communications between the provinces.
  4. Take care that the decisions taken at the various assemblies be implemented.

Grupo