Over the last few years, we as CLM Kenya have been undergoing formation to become full members of the Comboni Lay Missionaries movement. We are happy to say that very soon, four of us will become full-fledged CLM members. We are delighted to have this progress in our group.
This being the case, we understood the need to establish a mission for CLM in Kenya in which we and other international CLM members could use for missionary work. We are therefore excited to showcase our progress in the construction of a CLM residential house in Kitelakapel, in West Pokot County, here in Kenya. The mission will be within the Catholic Parish of Kacheliba. The construction is being overseen by the MCCJ since we, as CLM Kenya are still in our early stages of growth.
Major strides have been made with regards to the construction. Not only have the floor plans been developed and building bricks made, but also actual construction of the house has already began. Moreover, a borehole has been drilled to ensure continuous availability of water for the residence. We already have two members from Kenya who will be heading to Kitelakapel for missionary work once all works are completed. In addition to this, we have our first international CLM member, Linda, joining us from Italy. We are excited to welcome her and officially start missionary work as an international community. We hope to see this project come to completion and have our very first CLM Mission!
It is with great joy that we write again, with a heavy heart for leaving Brazil, a beautiful community and generous people, but with enthusiasm and hope for returning to Guatemala.
Through reunions with family, friends and friends of our communities and parish we feel welcomed and loved, through long distance calls and messages with our dear friends “mineiros”, we began our process of reinsertion; despite being our country of origin we have been resettling, recognizing places and people, being amazed by the changes in the children and young people and they also by ours.
Today we return with a heart full of many learnings, of moments lived full of love and mercy of God, but especially with a personal purification that we know still continues. We come with much strength and energy to work for the Kingdom of God, to tell everyone what we have seen and heard, all that God has taught us.
In that joy our CLM community of Guatemala organized a mass and a welcome meeting for us, they “threw the house out the window” as the good Guatemalan would say. It was a very comforting welcome and the most important thing to recognize is that we have a community that has been supporting us at all times, with its difficulties and challenges, but it is a certainty that this work of God is nothing more than a work done in community with the hands and knees of many.
Today, as we begin our life again as a family, with a different way of seeing things and realities, with a heart that asks for justice and peace. We entrust ourselves to your prayers, we also unite ourselves in prayer to all those who are about to leave or who are on mission, so that all together in this unity, we may meet the true face of Christ and have the same feelings.
May St. Daniel Comboni continue to intercede for the needs of all missionaries and continue to be so active at the Lord’s side that more religious and lay vocations may be rediscovered and directed.
Long live the mission, long live the family, long live St. Daniel Comboni!
During the weekend of the World Mission Sunday we were fortunate to have the opportunity to meet with some people who have approached the CLM group in Spain to get to know each other and to make a vocational discernment.
It is always a good opportunity to share our vocation and, to the extent of our possibilities, to serve as a help in the vocational journey of new missionaries.
We believe that in this time of Pandemic many things stopped, but not so the Spirit that is always present and does not rest. If the Lord continues calling new workers to his harvest, we want to be open to accompany this journey in the measure of our possibilities.
Last year we had several online meetings with the group but finally this year, and given that the levels of contagion of the pandemic have decreased, we were encouraged to hold a face-to-face meeting where we could all meet. Always maintaining the necessary prevention measures in these times.
It was a nice weekend where we moved from all parts of the country to share our time, to share what has brought us and to start walking together.
At the beginning of the year it seems important to us to establish the proposed path, the calendar of meetings and the themes we offer. We know that it is an effort for everyone to travel, to prepare the topics, to free the different weekends of the meetings to be able to participate, but we believe that it must be a serious path. It requires an effort on the part of all, but if the Lord calls us, our response must also be serious and committed.
The weekend is dedicated to getting to know ourselves better, to begin to work on our life line, our life history with the Lord and the events that have brought us to this particular moment in our lives. Also to understand our relationship with God, for that is what discerning a vocation is all about.
We hope to have established the basis of the path to follow. This path will be made with face-to-face and online meetings, but also with the personalized accompaniment of each candidate and the possibility of participating in local meetings as well as in national meetings with the rest of the CLM in Spain.
As it was on the day of the World Mission Sunday, we could not but share our joy with the parish of St. Angela de la Cruz in Madrid that hosted us for this event. We were able to help animate the celebration, bringing something of our life in Africa and Latin America, bringing closer the reality of some of these countries and our life experiences.
We prepared the celebration between candidates and CLM together with the choir (who gave us a nice surprise gift) and the catechists of the parish. I think it was a nice and participative moment where the children as well as the rest of the community could approach in a different way to this World Mission Sunday.
We continue to pray that the Lord will continue to call new missionaries and that we will know how to accompany them in their vocational journey.
There is still a great need for missionaries, so we encourage anyone who feels this call to approach one of our groups and make a vocational journey. Let us know how to say Yes like Mary.
In this missionary month the Church encourages us again to be witnesses.
We, as missionaries present in various continents, are witnesses of a humanity that wants to live fully and be happy.
We are witnesses of the inequalities that are spread over all continents, of the accumulation by some who do not want to look towards their brothers and sisters, as well as the difficulties of many to have the most basic things.
But above all we are witnesses to the generosity and solidarity that exists among people. When we share the difficulties we also open ourselves to share the way out of it, to share the possibilities of improvement, to share what we have and above all what we are.
As humanity we need human warmth, one from another. This pandemic has forced us to physically separate ourselves at many times to protect ourselves, but we know that nothing is as comforting as an embrace. In an embrace we express closeness and complicity with each other’s lives, with each other’s suffering, with each other’s joys.
We witness how generosity emerges in the midst of difficulties. Of course, we are overwhelmed by the miseries to which so many people are subjected, but we cannot be paralyzed by this vision. We must not close our eyes but act.
But we cannot reduce the person to his or her difficulties and forget how much we have experienced in so many countries and with so many cultures. The generosity of those who offer everything they have, the openness of their homes to those who come from abroad, the joyful welcome of those who feel they are foreigners, the capacity for recovery and resilience that makes people go out every day to look for a better future for their families, the effort to study and learn every day….
That is why in this month when we turn our eyes to the mission we want to be witnesses of the God of Life, of how his Spirit becomes present and fills with Life the communities of the peripheries of the world. We want to be witnesses of Jesus of Nazareth who walks every day with those who need him most, even when sometimes we are not even able to perceive His presence.
We encourage all of you to take a step forward and commit ourselves to life. Life in abundance that Jesus brings to all humanity.
Let us each do our bit.
We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard. Acts 4,20. Alberto de la Portilla, CLM
We leave you a video of gratitude for the missionary presence in Brazil of this CLM family from Guatemala.
During these three years they have shared their life, together with their four children, with all the families of the neighborhood in Nova Contagem and the region of Minas Gerais.
CLM Brazil
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