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As every morning we started our day with an encounter with God. Today in our Eucharist we remembered St. Peter Clavel, the man who became a slave of the slaves to help teach and win souls for God from people who were denied.

Peru continues being a great host. Today as part of the program we went to the historic center of Lima; visiting the cathedral, the house of St. Rose of Lima and St. Martin of Porres (the saint of the broom), the catechumens of the Franciscans, and the great beach pier in the area of Chorrillos along the coast of the capital. It was a nice space to walk together getting to know the place but also getting to know each other a little better.

Today our day ended early to recharge our energies for the last days of assembly.

We invite all of the Comboni family of the world to continue praying for our meeting so that with a committed spirit we return to our communities, ready to move forward improving our weaknesses and strengthening our commitments.

We are still in Peru, and today the Central America Province was responsible for the animation of Morning Prayer and Liturgy of the Eucharist.

The hosts have been incredibly welcoming and the cultural differences are helping us to realize how beautiful our continent is.

We start our day with a very sad new as Comboni Family with the murder of Sister Maria de Coppi in Chipene – Mozambique. We join the CMS and the people of the region with our eyes fixed on Christ, we beg him to give us strength in this moment of profound violence and pain.

During the day, we analyzed aspects such as the Mission Ad Gentes and Inter Gentes, the need to spread our LMC vocation in a systematic and innovative way and also the themes related to Justice and Peace and Integrity of Creation linked to the dimension of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

The work has been hard and tiring, but all this fatigue is being transformed into joy with the deepening of our understanding of the path we have taken and the perception of the advances and commitments we need to assume.

The evening came and we were graced with a cultural presentation organized by the LMC the Peru. Our hearts were filled with many colors, movements and hope in the diversity of dances that were presented to us by the young people.

José David Rojas Quesada

CLM – Costa Rica

Motivated by knowing the different experiences of each country and looking for a common response in our lights and shadows, we reflected that the path is the same, but with different nuances.

Walking, listening and being ourselves, allows the CLM to deepen the sense of openness with the farthest, the forgotten, the needy, questioning the reality of being CLM.

Juan Goicochea MCCJ; he places us in the time that our church is in, of listening, where social and ecclesial challenges for Latin America and the Caribbean are presented to us; it is also the time to open our arms and embrace the world. It is necessary to wake up to this global reality, in order to have concrete reasons at the local level.

If we continue with individual thinking, concrete actions cannot be taken.

The evening complemented the themes of the day with the missionary experience of Rossie (American CLM) and Ewelina (Polish CLM), two young people with permanent missionary presence in Arequipa, who every morning support a cradle with 5 year old children and in the afternoons they support the parish together with the community, they have been a true testimony of missionary service by the style of community life they lead, supported by daily prayer and excellent communication that allows them to be a true missionary witness in the community.

What are we going to do from the American continent, so that the Comboni Lay Missionary Family can visualize their mission fields ad-gente and inter-people.

Miriam Herrador

LMC Guatemala

During the week of September 5-11, Lima welcomed more than 30 Comboni Lay Missionaries and MCCJ from 8 countries of the American continent; United States, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Brazil and Peru.

The Assembly began with the report of the American committee, then the report of the work done by the central committee and the international reality, at the end each country presented the report of the CLM in the American context.

The closing of the day was in charge of the culture in the best Latin style, the different nuances of the gastronomy, the typical costumes, the history of the communities were not made to wait, filling the room with an atmosphere of emotion charged with wisdom, admiration, laughter and a history made tradition with the people where the CLMs are permanently present.