Missionary Experiences – Page 77 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Contrasts

9 July, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

Since I came to Ethiopia still surprises me how full of contrasts is this place … In the past few days I had two such experiences about it. On Sunday, I was invited by my friend to the graduation of kinder garden of her son. They make a great party and it looks almost like a graduation of the university! The kids presenting what they had learned (mostly in English – whether it be a song, or counting, or alphabet …), then dressed in special clothes, received a certificate of completion of kindergarten. Overall for me it was so funny, especially seeing how seriously people treat it 😉

And yesterday evening I went with the Salesians for the night outing. These are meetings on the street with the boys living there and thinking about going to join the project and try to change their lives, go back to their family, to school, to the society. In Addis Abeba there is enormous number of children living on the street, every day they are encountered at every step. But this meeting in the evening, when the streets were far more empty than usual, with children (some of them even 7-8 years old!), The majority of which was carrying and inhaling glue (because it allows them not feel hunger, cold, pain, etc.), it was incredibly striking. While having before my eyes image of their peers who two days ago graduated kindergarten, who are studying, who have family, who have a house…

Magda Plekan

And Jesus challenged me to do something new…

8 June, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

There are incredible things that become a blessing if you know how to say yes … that happened to me as Comboni Lay Missionary in the amazing world of interacting with children. In my daily life, I teach at a university and one day the good Lord asked me if I wanted to be a catechist for first Communion, the answer was without thinking, it was only for love, I said yes. Yes ?? !!! Yes. However, I was not a specialist in children and had only led teenagers Confirmation. Evidently, God wanted to give me an unforgettable experience … a true mission (which at one point I thought to be “impossible”).

“La Cumbre” (The Summit) (Pamplona Alta, San Juan de Miraflores) is part of our area of Mission in Lima. We as CLM reach this urban-human periphery with enthusiasm, there is no need to know trekking or mountaineering, although you just have to keep smiling as you climb the hills of our sector of Mission. A small guitar, some banners of our Jesus and Mary and the precarious lounge, every Sunday I WAS EVANGELIZED by the purity, humility and hope of every child who prepared very excited to get the sacrament. We shared the Word of God and the beautiful good news that Jesus had his own house on that hill so far from the city full of malls, highways and modernity. Jesus also expected the tanker that supplied the water because in those hills there is no running water, but there is a lot of love.

After several months, when sand of the hills stopped of been mud and the sun started to shine timidly in December on this side of Lima, Jesus dwelt at the heart of my “catechists”. I shared the Kerygma between dances, songs and conversations and they, my little ones, evangelized me with the conviction to arrive happy to their First Communion day. This January, the Lord gave me the honor to work with children in another city in my country, and in them I returned to relive my first experience as CLM “catechist”. That grace blessed me and think it all started with a yes.

Elizabeth Huaita

CLM-Peru

What are the Comboni Lay Missionaries engaged in?

6 June, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

The answer is a bit complex, for now I will just tell you what Caro and Mine (two CLM) do in the mountains of Guerrero, in Na’Savi culture, officially known as Mixteca.

They are located in the village of Huexoapa, in the municipality of Metlatónoc, and the parish of San Miguel Archangel, Diocese of Tlapa. In Huexoapa live about 200 families, their language is tu’un savi or Mixteca, although some also speak Spanish.

The CLM have a missionary presence in this town for six years, eight have been the missionaries who have served in this mission, in different periods. Each has shared part of their being, their knowledge, their faith with the people and in turn, the people with them.

Caro came to this mission in September 2014 and Minerva in February 2015 to take over the companions who were there. God willing, they will be for three years in this town. Although the time they have there is not enough to know and understand all the wealth and weaknesses of the culture they have tried to assimilate what it has been possible for them, feeling part of the people, enjoying and appreciating the good in it, and contributing to build a better place, each from their skills and knowledge.

Caro offers evening classes remedial education, for the moment 19 children of various grade levels are involved, and she take care of them at different times. The support is reduced only to read (12 children) and mathematics (7 children) primary level. It is very probable that the number of children increases, as more and more people are interested and come to her asking her to “help them to study.” Minerva teaches knitting and sewing, but now informally, since she just came to the place, the ladies are just beginning to learn about their work, but those who have already approached have shown great interest, and not only ladies but also some of the young, who learn very easily.

Other activities they perform, is the accompaniment of children, youth and adults participating in some pastoral activities, such as support for the three catechists of the community in the preparation of the catechism for confirmation, first communion and presented sacramental talks; weekly meeting with young people in which human and Christian formation occurs; formation in values and catechesis to children; Holy Hour on Thursdays; support in the preparation of the Liturgy of the Word to the young person who is going to chair, or in the organization of the liturgy when they have Eucharist, which is most of the times. They are also having guitar lessons, and have a quasi choir, two mandolins, a tambourine, three guitarists (two women and a man), and two more persons interested, but they have failed to learn because of lack of instrument, although all are just learning, they are encourage to play some songs at Mass or at the Liturgy of the Word.

Also they spend one day a week to visit families so we can know them more closely, some of the time accompanied by a young or a child from the community that helps as a translator, since they do not speak the local language, and not all families speaks Spanish. They are striving to learn, both in daily life, trying to memorize the words that people taught, and in the hours they devote to study, with the help of a young lady from the village.

They are also trying to cultivate a small orchard, on the back yard that is part of the house that the community gives them to live. For this, as for other activities that they perform as well as the needs that are presented to them, they have the support of the people involved in the above activities and who do willingly.

Caro and Mine know that work is hard and sometimes things do not go as they wanted. Although there are many the signs of life found in this culture, there are also present signs of death, coupled with this their personal limitations and defects, however they know that “the works of God are born and grow at the foot of the Cross” (St. Daniel Comboni).

Being with this people they realize that they receive more than they give, but I will speak on that subject later.

I conclude making you an invitation to join in the building of the Kingdom of God, from what you feel called to provide: counseling, financial support, prayer, giving part of your time or giving your life to the service of the mission.

“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” We have lack of you!

CLM Mexico

Mission-field Metlatónoc, Mexico 2015

17 May, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

This year 2015, the mission team have consisted of ten people, we went on Friday March 27 to Sunday April 5 to six communities in the mountains of Guerrero, all of them belongs to the parish of Metlatónoc: Llano del Nopal, Cocuilotlatzala, Buenavista, and San Pedro and San Pablo Atzompa. Carolina, who is on a mission permanently, participated accompanying the community of San Juan Huexoapa and Minerva (who is on community experience with Caro) went to El Paraiso.

Besides this week celebrations, we visit the families and share their joys and sorrows, leaned with alternative medicine in the community of Llano del Nopal. There was no lack of gathering with football matches or trips to the river, enthusiasm and youth participation, tolerance and support of the elderly, and the joy of children painting and sharing the material we prepared for them.

It was a great experience of openness, respect, teamwork, dialogue. A great moment to be available to the meeting and knowledge of other ways to celebrate Easter.

And the opportunity to be attentive and listen to what God wants to say to each one of us in a particular way, but also to his “Church” through this simple Church that allowed us to accompany and enrich each other.

We thank God for this beautiful experience and also for all the people who went to mission in different parts of Mexico, all the families of the communities that welcomed us, especially those who treated us with love, for all the Comboni family.

We share with you the celebrations and gatherings of this week in images.

CLM Mexico

“Take off your sandals, for the place where you stand is holy ground”

3 May, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

This land is called Pau-Brasil, Irajá, Comboios, Caeiras, Olho d’Água, indigenous villages in the state of Espíritu Santo.

I spent nine days with great intensity, important days, beautiful, full of friendship and sharing, we as Comboni Family (priests, religious, laity, scholastics) and the Tupinikim indigenous people, people of this holy land.

The simplicity, humility, sharing, hospitality, are words that I remember celebrating those days.

The availability, tenderness of the families we met, visited, lived, brought forth the beauty of true and sincere principles that value the encounter with the Other and the sacredness of knowing how to welcome.

The Tupinikim people, as all indigenous peoples, fought for the recognition of the land that was always theirs and they lost with colonization, besides losing the right to be resident.

Indigenous land, holy land.

A fight that began in 1979 until 1981 for a territory increasingly exploited by another colonization, a foreign multinational, supported by the lobbies of political and economic power.

Many attempts were made by the police with guns and threats to the Tupinikim in order to leave their land. Many were the processes, finding letters and documents to prove it was an indigenous land and finally in 1993 came the land demarcation and recognition that protects the indigenous territory, their communities and villages.

The struggle for life, fight for rights, respect for a culture that is being lost and resist the increasingly dominant homogenization that wants to treat everyone as objects and consumers.

Threats ended and the law has confirmed a truth that has always existed, now is the time to recover a territory exploited by a (foreign) industry that planted eucalyptus trees at each site by market interests, for the manufacture of cellulose.

The problem is that these trees grow faster and take water from the land, impoverishing the soil and occupying the space of the native forest.

When the weather due to drought does not help, everything becomes difficult and complicated for those who live from agriculture.

Restart, caring for the earth and its fruits, through an indigenous tradition that always respect the Pachamama, living with essentials, is a beautiful lesson of life that indigenous taught us.

In this land we were welcomed, we felt at home and there is no more beautiful thing for a foreign pilgrim that being accepted and taken in hand.