Love has a meaning only when it is shared. During this past year we have learned, lived and experienced this love with the smallest. The Project “My School, My Family and me” is not a project for children, but families.
Enabled families – happy children.
Community of Ayllu. Paula and Neuza, CLM in Peru
For the Glory of God we have been here a month and a half. We thank ALL the people we know, who consequently are a part of our lives and of this project of life, whom we constantly place in the Lord’s hands.
By the grace of God we have been adapting within the Brazilian community, especially in Ipê Amarelo. Above all, it never ceases to surprise us how God already was here, namely, God always takes the initiative and no one is ever excluded from him, as we realize it over and over just by our being here, so far from the earthly place where we were born and lived, but where others live: my brother, my brothers.
During this time we joyfully celebrated the 60th birthday of Lourdes Viera. She has been a tireless CLM and charter founder of the CLM in Brazil for about 20 years ago.
For us as a family having her is a great blessing, she is our Vovó, especially to the children. She has been introducing us with great energy and with great charity to this community and to mission life in general.
We also celebrated Christmas (Natal in Portuguese) with great joy and enthusiasm because it was our first Christmas away from our home and our family. By God’s grace our children spent it in a normal and happy way. God’s gift is the fact that our being together is our greatest strength.
Gratefully, the CLM family of Alejo and Tere de Ramirez, who have provided a lot of inspiration for us over the years, decided to spend Christmas here at home. In fact, we had not known them up to now, because we had only seen a picture of them four years ago. They, too, have been part of the CLM for about 20 years, and even though they could never leave their country, they did it in the way God asks us to do it on a daily basis: moving from within themselves towards the others and for the others as a family, like many others who have not been able or have chosen not to leave. They are a beautiful couple with three daughters, and they have worked in the spiritual formation of many CLM and are an example of Christian life to be followed.
We are grateful to God for the coming of the New Year when we had the opportunity to spend it at home as a family, which is what we personally like to do. It gave us time to talk about all the blessings we have received from God our Father during the year that just ended. The best moment was to be able to exchange blessings, each one of us personally to recognize ourselves as a united family blessed by God now and forever. You may ask? Are the children aware of what is happening and of what they are doing? As it is for many things in life, this is not an exact science, but we are together and, from Lucia, the smallest, to Esteban, who is the most aware, each one is valuable, important, worthy, loved, and they know it and this is how we feel towards them: Our most cherished treasure!
Our local pastor here in Brazil, Fr. Agustinho, already said it during the last Sunday of the year, dedicated to the Holy Family: “the family is the best hospital, the best doctor, the best school, the place where we live in love, a place we have in common.”
We wish you all a Blessed Beginning of this Year of Humankind and a blessed life, as we entrust ourselves to the hand of God and to your prayers. We say good-bye to you with the blessing that our Father gives us through the Church every year to enable us to start anew:
“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up his face upon you and give you peace.” (Num 6:24-26)
The Camey Family, CLM in Brazil
Hi everyone!
I am André, a pygmy youngster, and I don’t know my age, perhaps between 7 and 9 years old, and I live in Ndobo, a camp in the forest of the Republic of Central Africa, near Mongoumba. My house, if you want to call it that, is like an igloo made of branches and dry leaves, with some boards as a bed. It has no bathroom, no kitchen, no TV or electricity, but fortunately it is close to a well a missionary dug some time ago, so I can drink and wash without having to walk for an hour through the forest.
Monday through Friday, together with my friends in the camp, I get up and go to school, walking about 4 km without shoes. Some days we get there a little late but, not having a watch, we do not know when it’s time to get up. Everything becomes more difficult during the rainy season, because the road turns into a swamp.
When we reach the parish of Mongoumba, we enter a room Cristina has prepared for us, where we all have a place with our name on it to wash up, put on our school uniform and, after having greeted Anna, Maria Augusta, Cristina and Simone, off we run to school. Often Maria Augusta comes to our class to help the teacher to “keep us under control,” since there are more than 50 of us, and to teach us French, even though we like to speak Sango, our language.
School ends around 12:30 noon, and we return to the St. Daniel Comboni room to change back into our tattered clothes and go to eat at the “DA TI NDOYE” (House of Charity/Love), where on any given day they give us rice and beans, manioc mush and fish, or Makongo (worms) and ngungia! We eat fast, then we go wait for Simone and Cristina at the payotte near the church to return together to the camp where we play ball, we color or watch movies until almost dark. Then Simone and Cristina say good-bye and remind us that tomorrow we need to be on time!
My day ends in the darkness of the camp, without lights and perhaps with some strange little creature trying to get inside, lulled to sleep by the Central African sky, with its tapestry of stars looking like precious jewels. Oh, I almost forgot… I do not exist! I am in the world… made of flesh and blood, I can run, jump, play… but I am not of the world!
In the CAR there are many other children like me! We are not only exploited, because the resources found in our land are exported to places we do not even know to produce, TV sets, phones, computers, weapons, bombs… but we are out of the world… I am excluded, without documents, without a birth certificate, without a public record… that is…
…IN THE WORLD but NOT OF THE WORLD! (John 17:15)
A warm good-bye
Kisses all around
A large hug
A small prayer
André with
Paul, Pierre, Marie, Albert Dimanche, Pierre, François Albert, Philippe, Guy, Marie, Terese, Marcel, Gabriel…
(with Anna, Maria Augusta, Cristina e Simone)
From Bangui, the capital of uneasiness, where interests and their cohorts mix with the daily life of men and women, boys and girls, who constantly brighten with a smile and their sweet disposition the unpaved, potholed streets shaped by the disorganized traffic of cars, trucks, tanks, jeeps, motorbikes, etc.
I know that this is a time for speaking of love, even if there is no time to love, or to lose, or to count, or to register.
The truth is that – and I am not the only one – I am beginning to feel saturated with words! There is an urgency to live by this Love we so much talk about, to allow us to be transformed by Him, to breathe him in! We cannot continue to filter what our hearts do not want to see! I am currently experiencing a Love which is upside down, because it turns my innards upside down!
I am in mission, or better, we are all in mission, living is mission, called to be responsible for ourselves, for others, for all that surrounds us. We are the chosen people to carry the Breath of God. We cannot snuff the Breath that makes us live, because without it we die, or better yet, we are not even born!
This is a country shining like a gem because of its greed, and where children are the most precious wealth. They scream at us with their precious breath: “Allow us to live.”
With much love
Merry Christmas
CAR
Cristina Sousa, CLM
I still remember the moist smell of Christmas, the heavy dress, the bright lights, a reflection of the inner state of those who live for a spirit of greater love.
Here it’s summer and the sun brightens the magic of the smiles and of the tears shared during visits and the invitations to stay a little longer. The sun burns the landscape and highlights the humanity of a people not forgotten but rather a fighter, it shines on the heart and soul of all those who welcome me, of all those who visit.
Here I do not smell the evergreens or the smoke from lighted chimneys. Here we have the scent of humble human beings who share with you all that they have. I am surrounded by people who, by the witness of their lives, help mine grow and grow closer as we are nearer to God. It is the smell of expectation and hope that tomorrow, even with its difficulties, will be much better than today, coupled with a strong will to move forward, with a smile. It smells like a kitchen where folks are not preparing a great dinner, but rather their hearts to receive Jesus.
I have so much to learn from them.
Every day I allow myself to be moved by the witness of their lives. They are the lives of flesh and blood people, people who have nothing and share everything, who give me tears and smiles from dawn to dusk. People who touch my heart and transform me. I would not want a Christmas different from this one, because here I have met the family God dreamed for me. This Christmas I only want to be a refuge for hearts seeking peace, and God.
The fact is that at times we forget that the true essence of Christmas and of life itself consists in recognizing daily that life is a gift and, what we do with it, should be a daily option of love.
This Christmas, forget neatly wrapped gifts and give of yourself, such as a time to live and share with those you love and to seek forgiveness with those who, during the year, have challenged you. From here I will walk from home to home to visit those who are alive and life giving in my days.
This Christmas may your table be plentiful, not with an infinite quantity of sweets, but with love, hope, affection and unity. This Christmas allow yourself to be the light in other people’s life and be an agent of reconciliation and peace. Allow yourself to belong to and mingle with all those you love, that together you may appreciate the gift of life. This Christmas, allow your humble heart to be the manger where Jesus will be born.
Christmas is wherever there is the courage to dream, the daring to keep alive those dreams with eyes closed. May the security of interior silence inspire you to live a discovery of God in you, in others and in the world.
This Christmas I will do what I do every day and will offer the best of me to Milagros and his children, to Marcellina, Celia, María, Valentina, Ariana and their brothers, Martin, Luís and many more to whom my heart leads me.
Best Wishes of a Holy and Happy Christmas
With love and gratitude,
CLM, Neuza Francisco
