Comboni Lay Missionaries

Logo LMC
LMCCentroafrica2
MisionenGuerrero2
Natal20162

English

Arrival of Emma (Italian CLM in Brazil)

by

Emma arrived in Brazil on December 1st, 2013.

She has come for a period of 3 years.

The community of Our Lady of Aparecida, Ipê Amarelo, has welcomed her. On this day 8/12, day of the Immaculate Conception, Emma was presented and received by the people. Taking advantage of the pastoral visit of Don Luis, Bishop of our region, Emma spoke of the joy of participating in community life and walk with Jesus in this Brazilian land.

Now she is studying the language and seizes the moment with the children here at the home of Mission Santa Terezinha of Ipê Amarelo to improve her Portuguese.

Welcome Emma!

By María de Lourdes,

CLM Brazil

Our wealth are the poor

by

Mongoumba

Yesterday at the opening Mass of the Pastoral Year I was saying to Christians that the poor are our wealth in the parish and announced that Catherine, Odile and Monique would leave on Monday morning to M’baiki where they shall reside with the Sisters of Teresa of Calcutta.

Catherine, Odile and Monique take over ten years with us. Casually all three are Christian; live in houses of clay in the soil of the parish. None has a family and at the time they were accused of witchcraft, which means death threat, so they found refuge in the parish. They are the “poor of the parish.”

Monique has 95 years according to his letter of baptism, Catherine and Odile exceed eighty. They are very old and deteriorated; we have no strength to continue responding to them with dignity at this moment of insecurity where many, who threw a hand to clean them or prepare something to eat, have fled. They are living in almost inhuman conditions because Monique is paralyzed and blind for years, Odile cannot move and Catherine who was the nurse of the group is with heart problems and cannot fend. Without water, without any hygiene, with nobody to prepare them meal or give them a hand … We decided to move to the sisters of Calcuta where we seek for asylum and they have been accepted Initially faced with uncertainty, they refused saying that they wanted to die in Mongoumba and didn´t want to leave … Then I managed together with Kaos to convince them that it was the best for them … I told them that we will take them, and if they are not happy in one month we will bring them back.

The journey to M’baiki, 90 miles in four hours, has been quite an odyssey. Monique does not stand sitting in the back seat and was lying on top of Catherine, she spend all the journey vomiting. Catherine was scowling and Odile smile every time I asked her if they were going well … it’s probably one of the first times that they have been on the car on a long journey.

Sister Alexandra welcomed us very well when we have reached M’baiki, fully nap time. We have installed our three relics in a room with three beds and foam mattresses, it is the first time they have a mattress. They even have a bathroom with shower and running water in the room… Their somber faces were lit … Monique have been placed on a mattress on the floor to keep her from falling.

We have filled all the forms: name, age, origin, family, diseases, drugs … In the status box sister wrote: “proscribed accused of witchcraft …”. “What if they die? What we do?” I told the sister, knowing how complicated the issue of burying the dead is in this culture, “They have no one I said, they can be bury with no problem, no one will complain …”. Sister asked me to sign as guardian of the three elderly.

Really, we’re going to miss them, but we will remain in touch, they are our treasures, the poor.

Jesus Ruiz (MCCJ in Mongoumba). Pictured accompany the four women, Tere and Elia (CLM).

Contrasts

by

Liliana FerreiraI am where my heart is and my heart is in this wonderful land full of majestic and magnificent trees, which unfortunately have been taken (stolen) from other countries. In this land, where the sun rises in the sea and goes down over the mountains, where the moon is not a liar and smiles at you when you contemplate it. In this land, where you can breathe clean air, which unfortunately is already also a source of income for many. In this land of wonderful beaches of white sand and clear water that with great sadness cease to be deserted to make way for mega tourism enterprises. In this land of red color, red ground color of blood, shed for many in the fight for independence, blood spilled in the struggle for peace and the blood of those who today are fighting for a better life and demand their rights. Here the land is also a means of survival, the people takes the necessary food to keep them during the year, but it has being usurped by multinationals that come from nowhere and demand their rights on the land without thinking of the consequences on those who have lived there all their life.

Mozambique is beautiful and attractive, full of natural beauty and resources, with friendly and welcoming people. To the outside comes out the idea that it is also a center of employment, but this is only for those coming from outside. Unemployment here is high, young people who strive to finish the 12th grade find closed the doors of the world of work and other times it is offered them the opportunity to work in exchange for a minimum value…

MozambiqueThis reality outlined the discussions of lessons in Civic and Moral Education in the first semester where we discussed the current situation of Mozambique tapping points such as: unequal social distribution, poverty, education and health, corruption, globalization, multinational action, contrasts… important subjects to uninstall the youth, stating the present reality and seeking to strengthen their critical minds so that they can demand justice and a more promising future.

Liliana Ferreira, LMC 

 

The one thing necessary

by

Open HandsOne of the most difficult parts of this “missionary” life for me has been accepting all that I am missing out on. In my lowest moments, I think about missing my family, my close guy friends (it is so hard to make authentic peer-to-peer friendships here), my god-children, career development, saving for retirement, my familiar culture, and things like this.  It’s taken a few years to come to terms with all that I need to give up in order to be authentic to God’s invitation for me to become more loving, which at this present moment keeps me in Ethiopia.  Now, most days I feel at peace, which is a logical effect of voluntary sacrifice.  But I have learned that the most important effect is an opening of me to others, a widening of my horizons away from myself to the needs of others.  Thomas Merton’s writings, particularly from “No Man is an Island” have been a great inspiration:

“One who is content with what he has, and who accepts the fact that he inevitably misses very much in life, is far better off and more at peace than one who has or experiences much more but who worries about all he may be missing. For we cannot make the best of what we are, if our hearts are always divided between what we are and what we are not.

The relative perfection which we must attain in this life if we are to live as children of God is not the twenty-four-hours-a-day production of perfects acts of virtue, but a life from which practically all the obstacles to God’s love have been removed or overcome.

One of the chief obstacles to this perfection of selfless love is the selfish anxiety to get the most out of everything, to be a brilliant success in our own eyes and in the eyes of other people. We can only rid ourselves of this anxiety by being content to miss something in almost everything we do. We cannot master everything, taste everything, understand everything, visit everywhere, drain every experience to its last dregs. But if we have the courage to let almost everything go, we will probably be able to retain the one thing necessary for us – whatever it may be. If we are too eager for everything, we will almost certainly miss even the one thing we need.

This type of authentic happiness consists in finding out precisely what the “one thing necessary” may be in our lives and in gladly relinquishing all the rest. For then, by a divine paradox, we find that everything else is given us together with the one thing we needed.”

– Mark

Maggie, Mark and Emebet Banga, Comboni Lay Missionaries, Awassa, Ethiopia

Annual CLM Meeting in Brazil (conclusion)

by

LMC Brasil 2013It has just finished the second day of our annual CLM meeting.

The morning began with a delicious mining breakfast, fried cake with traditional mining cheese, and of course a good cup of black coffee.

In the morning we talked about the economic reality and the challenges posed by the CLM Central Committee.

We also reviewed the action lines defined for the biennium 2013-2014 in the last assembly, highlighting proposals for the coming year. We hear work prospects of each one and ended with the impressions and conclusions of the meeting.

It was given great importance to the wealth that the presence of the lay missionary couple that is present with the Comboni Missionary in Açailândia, Maranhão, for the opportunity to share and exchange experiences, which has united us even more.

We conclude the morning with the celebration of the Eucharist, reminding all CLM in the world and the challenges that lie ahead.

We remain united in prayer and mission!

We are together!

CLM Brazil