Comboni Lay Missionaries

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Missionary Experiences

A Missionary Holy Week in El Salvador

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LMC Guatemala…”Holy and capable, making common cause with the poorest and most abandoned” (St. Daniel Comboni)

We, the CLM of the PCA in Guatemala, want to share with joy the mission experience Mercedes Suy and Carolina Lorenzana had during Holy Week, on April 8-16 of this year.

They went to the parish of St. Anthony in Santa Tecla, El Salvador and this is their story:

On Saturday, April 8, at 6:00 a.m. we left Guatemala City for El Salvador. The bus trip lasted six and a half hours. We arrived at 12:30 p. m. and we were met at the bus station to be taken to the parish of St. Anthony where Fr. Juan José Hernández, mccj welcomed us and gave us lodging. In the afternoon we went to meet the community of San Rafael. That was our mission field.

On that same day we started the home visits that lasted through the week until Thursday. We visited many families where we told them about the CLM, and that we were from Guatemala. They listened to us with interest, but above all we listened about their needs, problems and illnesses. After a few days, another community called San José del Pino requested our presence,

We took part in the activities of the small community sharing the Word at the House of Prayer “Oratorio,” and we attended the Way of the Cross in both communities.

These are people who have been directly affected by the gangs and by juvenile delinquency. Many have relatives or friends who disappeared or were killed. These communities need a person to person mission, where they can be helped to rise beyond their many problems by giving them skills to work with, social assistance and a deep evangelization with continuing support.

Perhaps the mission was not great, but it was rich in missionary activity. We, the CLM of the PCA in Guatemala will continue to hold these missionary experiences ad gentes in order to nurture our CLM charism.

LMC GuatemalaCLM Guatemala

Mission News from the Central African Republic (CAR)

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LMC RCAI hope you will all be happy with the bishop’s pastoral visit and that it will bear fruit.

Here Fr. Jesús is sick, but gratefully he is getting better… The other members of the apostolic community are in good shape and we thank God for his great love for us. Fr. Samuel will leave for Ethiopia to undergo medical tests and to rest. I pray the Lord that he may return well, full of good health and strength, to face anew the challenges of mission. Today his malaria came back. I hope he will be better tomorrow, because he is due to travel home.

This time I came to Bangui to open an account for the school. There is an organization that helps us and wants us to have an account to which to send the money.

We brought along a Pygmy couple and their baby, who was born with a nose deformation, to have surgery in the same pediatric hospital where they attended little Merveille. He was already operated on and it seems it was successful. May God allow it to be so! He will be discharged on Friday and will return to Mongoumba with us so that we can follow him as long as he needs care, because in the camp there are no hygienic conditions nor anyone who can do it. I hope Honoré (that’s his name) will do well…! The parents are very happy!

Next to Honoré there is a baby who was born without an anus and the waste spreads through the abdomen. He will undergo surgery tomorrow… May the Lord allow him to get well, so that in the future he will have a normal life.

By the grace of God Marveille is now growing normally.

Maria has already recovered a bit from malaria. Keep on praying for her.

Always united in prayer.

A great missionary hug to the all world.

María Augusta, CLM from Portugal in the CAR

New comers course in Ethiopia

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CLM EtiopiaIn the first week of May all our community participated in the new comers’ course. It was organized by Comboni Family but participants were from different congregations. All together we were over 30 people.

First day we had lecture about Christianity in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is one of the first Christian countries in the world, starting from IV century. Also in the Acts of Apostles we can read about converting the Ethiopian.

Second day we focused on the Catholic Church history, which was also very interesting, as e.g. how it happened that Ethiopia has two different rites – Ethiopian Ge’ez one (based very much on the orthodox tradition) and Latin.

Then the next day was about the liturgy, mostly about the one of the orthodox church, which also has a lot in common with the catholic one.

And then following day was about culture and some every-day life issues. These four days were common for all of us. But the last day was only for the Comboni family, we got a lot of information about history of the MCCJ’s missions in Ethiopia (starting from the time of Comboni himself) and CMS, and also some present issues of the Comboni Family’s presence.

It was very enriching time. We got many information, but also many new questions appeared, so we are motivate to continue discovering Ethiopia with its history & culture, to serve better here. Also it was beautiful time to be together and getting to know each other.

CLM Ethiopia

With Mary, Pilgrims of Love

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LMC comunidadJust like those who start a journey and leave the comforts of home, we, too, our bags on our shoulders and with hearts full of certainties and doubts, started on our journey… Pilgrims, on a road without beginning or end, through ways and byways and more that had never been tried. We advanced on open grounds, through places full of history, on roads paved with love, we walked with Him, full of Mary.

Within the soul the certainty that we are eternal pilgrims, we are in the fashion of Jesus, simple refugees in search of God, in search of fullness and freedom…

We started off and were born as community in the month of Mary, the month of the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Fatima. We feel sent by Mary. We are inspired by her, missionaries of yes. We try to follow her steps. To be missionaries means to feel like Mary, pregnant with Jesus, to be the living tabernacles of Jesus, to carry Jesus.

We are far, but we feel like pilgrims of Love and we feel on a journey with all those who gather in Fatima to celebrate the grace and the compassion of the apparitions of Our Lady together with the Pope. We feel that today, and many other days, Mary appears in our hearts and fills them with Grace, Love and Mercy. We are all called to follow her. We are all called to be missionaries, just like her.

Do not be afraid. For you have found grace before God – so said the angel to Mary. By creating us in his image, God looks at us constantly with boundless tenderness, and finds in each one of us a place where to stay. He calls us. Constantly, he sends angels to us to tell us not to be afraid, that God has found grace in us and calls us to be missionaries of love. And often we answer with, “me? But… Me, Lord?” We look left and right thinking he made a mistake. We, often entrapped by our internal wounds, by our anxieties and in our old ways, prisoners of our wounds and imperfections. We who often doubt about God’s call. Thus we make it impossible to receive the call. Let us have trust! Let us be like Mary, answering Yes, carrying it within us, wherever he wants us to go.

The mission needs us. The mission calls us. The mission is difficult, but if we walk together, hand in hand, we are with God, converted in instruments of God, allowing Him to love us and work through us.

Let us say with Mary: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

Familia CombonianaCommunity of “Lisanga”

Aitana, David, Neuza and Paula

New formation community in Granada, Spain (CLM of Portugal and Spain)

Mission News from the Republic of Central Africa

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LMC CentroafricaThe Comboni Lay Missionary María Augusta Pires, who is stationed in Mongoumba, CAR sends us news whenever she goes through Bangui, the capital, which is the only place where she can find internet access. Here you find the latest news she sent last April.

This time I returned to Bangui early after one month. Since I was feeling tired, I took a test for malaria and it turned out positive. I have started the treatment while the symptoms are still few, so that the reaction to the medication will be less strong and there is less pain. Ana had malaria two weeks ago and feels tired, because we had with us a dentist from Poland and she accompanied her all the time for almost three weeks. In each village there were lots of teeth to be pulled. There was no possibility to treat cavities because we could not move the equipment. Thanks be to God, it helped lots of people who were in pain. Ordinarily this can be done only in Bangui and it is very expensive, with one extraction costing about F10,000 ($18). Some people needed two or three extractions and we charge a symbolic F500, which is less than $1.00.

Fr. Fernando and Fr. Jesús are fine, thanks be to God. Fr. Samuel had malaria early in March and again last week. Now he has typhoid fever (Salmonella). He will have to take one or two antibiotics. May the Lord help him to get well soon… he is a little discouraged… Please, pray for him.

María, a Pygmy woman who has cancer, was feeling a little better. But last week she started having serious diarrhea. We gave her medication to stop it, but it did not. So we started the malaria treatment with injections and immediately she improved. She has slimmed down a lot and now she needs better food. We shared our food with her to give her a more varied diet and we hope she will improve faster. Let us continue to pray to Mary and to her son Jesus.

Last week, twins were born to a mother without milk and she needed help. At this time we are taking care of nine babies. With God’s help and the generosity of those who share to help the poorest, we can work with joy and so share things with those around us.

Two weeks ago, while I was visiting the sick in the hospital, I met a woman who had had a cesarean but who, after three days, still had no milk. They asked me for milk, but I insisted that she needed to do all in her power first to make it come. So I gave her a menthol infusion and on the second day, it started coming a little. We repeated it for two more days and, thanks be to God, Patrice began to suckle well. Mother’s milk is always the best and even more here where milk is very expensive and the hygienic conditions are very poor (the hygienic care of the baby bottles and of the water used to mix the milk).  A year supply of baby milk costs about $450. Very few families can afford to buy it.

During Lent, the Wednesday Mass is said in a neighborhood and on Friday the way of the Cross takes place in the same neighborhood. On Friday it will the youth of the whole parish who will take part in the JMJ. On Saturday we will have formation and on Palm Sunday it will be a great celebration. Last week, the catechumens [people preparing to be baptized] of the third year had a three day retreat and on Sunday they received the Oil of Catechumens. Since they are many, it is easier to celebrate baptism in stages.

A new CLM, Simone, who is from Italy, has arrived. He is here learning French in Bangui and we still do not know where he will go to study Sango [the local language].

I have read with joy the entire Astrolabios messages [she gets them by e-mail] and pray that the visit of D. Virgilio will yield much fruit in the future. May the pastoral visit be a success.

That the hearts of his faithful may receive with joy the bishop’s words. I pray that they may improve their lives as Christians and be true witnesses of Christ.

LMC CentroafricaBest wishes of a Happy Easter to all.

United in Christ through prayer.

A missionary hug as big as the world.

María Augusta Pires

Published in the Astrolabio Diary