Missionary Experiences – Page 81 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Yes means No

15 September, 2014 by Maggie and Mark Banga

Borana Culture Ethiopia — Borana Culture, Southern Ethiopia

“What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ The boy answered, ‘I will not.’ But later he had a change of heart and went. The father went to the other son and said the same thing. This boy answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did his father’s will?…” Matthew 21:28-31

After the reading of this parable at mass one Sunday in the rural mission of Dadim, the parish priest Fr. Anthony, a Nigerian missionary, dove into his homily with confidence. A vineyard here is unimaginable amidst the arid red earth of southern Ethiopia, so he changed the details of the parable to something the people could relate to in their daily life. Dadim is a pastoralist region near the border of Kenya, where cattle and camels roam free and the life of the semi-nomadic Borana people surrounds tending their livestock. So Fr. Anthony equated the story to a son being requested to take the herd to water. The story however was the same: first son said “No” and then went; second son said “Yes” but did not go. He asked the congregation “Which of the two did the will of the parent?” The parishioners were unanimous in agreement: the second son. The parish priest, a little confused, painstakingly explained the story again. However, the congregation had not misunderstood. They were clear in their answer – definitely the second son was right.

In their culture, ‘No’ is never voiced, never uttered or even whispered. To insult someone by refusing a request in word, especially the father, is the ultimate in disrespect. The only reply ever is “Yes”. But must your “Yes” mean “Yes” among the Borana? The answer seems to be no. One can agree to a meeting time and place and never show up, one can agree to certain work and never do it, one can agree to stay but instead leave, or leave but instead stay. It could be that they really do mean “Yes” with good intention, but then there are so many factors in their challenging lifestyle that could abort their plan that most “Yes’” are in fact never fulfilled. To say “No” is so grave that even doing the appropriate action afterwards cannot right the original wrong.

A consensus between the priest (who had only recently arrived) and the parishioners was not reached. For the Borana it was the initial attitude of the first son that made him wrong. What audacity for him to say “No” to his father. Missionary work is plump full of these types of perplexities. This moment reminded me about the differences in culture and the challenges of communicating the Gospel message within the context of culture. Perhaps Fr. Anthony also learned an important lesson for his future work with the community in this area, though surely he still hopes that a “Yes” really will transmit into an action and commitment.

– Maggie

Maggie, Mark and Emebet Banga, Comboni Lay Missionaries, Awassa, Ethiopia

We are already in Uganda!

9 September, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

The Community in Gulu is complete, we have finally met with Ewa and Joana waiting for us with open arms in St. Jude Orphanage.
Monika and I now fulfill our second week and we are celebrating with an intensive “Acoli” language course, that will allow us to communicate and try to learn and understand those who are our brothers for these coming years.

The first days in Kampala, we had occasion to meet with the Comboni Lay Missionaries and share an interesting talk about how we are going to organize this time we will be in Uganda with them. They explained how they live the lay status, what are their plans and dreams, their limitations, and personally made us very excited to check that we are much closer than we thought.

We also share dinner and prayer in a very friendly atmosphere and with the feeling of being at home. It is a fortune for us that there are CLM in Uganda and Gulu, because we’ll just join what they are already doing and see what may occurs being together.

The next day paperwork and preparing for the long journey that leads north to Gulu. We said goodbye to the Community of Comboni Fathers in Kampala so well received and welcomed us on our arrival.

These are days of discovery, “landing” in a new land, it is time to observe and enjoy the contrasts.

We have also been fortunate to meet Dana (Polish Comboni Lay Missionary, who is completing her service time in Matany) and Marco and Maria Grazia with their sons Francesco and Samuele (Italians Comboni Lay Missionaries) who also complete their mission time in Aber. We went to visit them accompanied by F.Ramón and F.Luigi.

Just one day to share experiences, but enough to see that it was a nice life time for all of them.

It is very positive for us to meet other lay people nearby Gulu who knows realities, is positive as well listening stories and experiences of those who have preceded us, which help us to place ourselves before starting to take over our reality.

That is our time to learn Acoli, sharing Eucharist, meals and tours with Acoli people and the Comboni family and quietly enjoying what Uganda is giving us these first days.

Carmen, Monika, Asia and Ewa

Wawotowu!*

5 September, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

Greetings from our very beautiful Gulu. Firstly we’re very sorry that we write so rarely but time goes very quickly. We (me and Ewa) have been for 3 months in Uganda! During this time we’ve got to know the place- children, mothers and also district in which we live. Now it’s really our Home. We still get to know Acoli culture, every day we discover new things, customs and rules… Of course we had an opportunity to see a richness of Acoli culture, I mean dances. Acoli tribe has more than 20 different traditional dances. Each of them very energetic and full of life. When we see dancing people we’re in owe of them, their moves and their condition. We also finished Acoli course. Acoli is not as easy as we heard, but little by little we start talking with children using their local language.

As I wrote at the beginning, time goes very quickly, probably because we’re very busy. In this moment we try do our best and help br. Elio to give a new fresh spirit to St. Jude orphanage. Now we are involved in different department-offices. Ewa works as social worker, I had to change my occupation for a moment and became an accounter. When we came here we didn’t dreamed of working in the office, but we know that sometimes mission demands changing your ideas. That’s why with humility and openness we involve in places which needs our help. We still observe and inspite of a lot of things make us angry and annoyed we humbly waiting for co-operation with local workers. Every day we discover a lot of needs of this place and in our heads there are a lot of different ideas to organize meetings for children. We are full of will and happiness and this is the most important.

We also co-operate with local CLM, on every first Friday of month we have meeting and common prayer. We’re wondering how to organise our co-operation in the future, what we can do for this place. The local community is very opened so I think we can do a lot of very good things together. We also met Marco and Maria Grazia, who’s just finishing their mission in Aber and coming back to Italy.

On Thursday Monika and Carmen have joined us, so we are very happy because finally we are together. Now girls have Acoli course so they stay in Layibi but we live in the same Town. Now we really start organizing our community live and activities. We’ll write about it soon.

Thank you very much for your support, for your prayer, which is very import ant for us. We also pray for you and think of you. We greet you again.

Asia

*in Acoli- We greet you

Conclusions of the 2nd Meeting of the CLM in Africa

2 September, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

The 2^nd Continental Meeting of the Comboni Lay Missionaries took place in Kinshasa, DRC on July 21-25, 2014. The participants included five priests, two sisters and 18 lay people, among them the six coordinators of the French-speaking and English-speaking African provinces. They were joined by representatives of the Central Committee.

The objective of the Assembly of Kinshasa was to establish a concrete plan of action based on the resolutions of previous gatherings – the Continental Assembly of Layibi in 2001 and the International Assembly of Maia in 2012 – having as a theme: “Beginning with what we have starting from our reality.”

Keeping in mind the current challenges of our African reality, where God calls us to live our vocation as witnesses of his love, according to the charism of St. Daniel Comboni, at the service of mission, which is a gift from God, and after having reflected together, we have come to some conclusions that will allow each province to set up a plan of action. These are the conclusions:

1. Vocation

We want to encourage each CLM to live one’s vocation as it was defined at Layibi; to overcome life’s difficulties and to keep the commitments we have as fathers, workers and Christians, thus giving witness to our vocation.

As it was said in Maia, the CLM communities need to formulate processes that will allow the full development of the personal vocation of their members during their entire lifetime. This means setting up a program of prayer, retreats, sacramental life and revision of community life.

In order to facilitate a joint journey in our vocation as an International Family of CLM, we encourage the new groups to keep in touch regularly with the Continental and Central Committees, in order to get help from those responsible for the coordination. We believe that it is necessary to follow the common lines of the international organization.

2. Relations among the CLM

The movement holds one single vision. All must cooperate and work together at living a harmonious community life.

In order to facilitate the integration of new CLM in the local CLM groups, we must strengthen communications and networking between the sending group and the receiving group, the Central and Continental Committees and the MCCJ provincials.

In order to reach full integration, we invite the new CLM to take part in the group’s activities: ongoing formation, assemblies, retreats, administrative practices and financial contributions…

We encourage CLM working in countries where we have no local members to promote our vocation and form a local group.

3. Formation

As a movement of CLM in Africa, we are committed to make our formation journey together, in order to follow Christ according to the charism of Comboni who calls us to make common cause with the people to whom we are sent.

The decisions taken in earlier Assemblies guide us on this journey of formation, where we should keep in mind the following aspects:

The provinces must cooperate in the preparation of the various programs and materials for formation;
We must share programs and topics of formation between the provinces and with the Central Committee;
We must translate in all languages the formation documents.

4. Economy

We want to include the economy in our spiritual life, in order to live a life based on Providence. In this context, we ask the groups to include the topic of our relations with money in their formation programs, placing our stability and confidence in God.

In the process of our financial autonomy, we invite the various groups to form their members in the various aspects of finances, such as: development projects based on the local needs, the search for funds, compatibility…

Knowing that we all belong to this family of CLM, we are called to be responsible for and to support the group. In this sense, all the CLM must contribute to the fund of the local group. From this fund, the group in turn should contribute to the international common fund, managed by the Central Committee. We are also called to inspire the local Church and all people of good will to support our missionary activity.

In order to reach our financial autonomy, we invite the groups to start fund-generating activities such as in the field of agriculture, animal husbandry, pharmacies, movies, internet and photo-copying centers, production of local artifacts, talks, formation, dialogue and promotion of events…

It is not enough to engage in projects, but we are also called to give financial reports with great transparency (ledgers, bank accounts with more than one signature…).

5. Organization

5.1 Each Province must have:

A Coordinating Team made up of : a coordinator, a secretary and a treasurer. This team must send its reports to the African and to the General Committees.
A person in charge of communications (blog, Facebook, Twitter).
A Formation Team which must: plan and prepare the topics of formation; ensure the follow-up and the evaluation of the formation given.
Each group must have someone from those in charge of formation who will be networking with those responsible at the national level.

5.2 African Committee:

The Central Coordinating Team is made up of: a coordinator, a secretary a treasurer.
Its duties are:

Ensure communications with the Central Committee.
Call and organize continental meetings.
Provide for communications between the provinces.
Take care that the decisions taken at the various assemblies be implemented.

Just two tiny hands

13 July, 2014 by Maggie and Mark Banga

In today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 18:1-5,10,12-14), in response to the question “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”, Jesus calls a little child over to him. He presents the child as a model of how we should approach and trust God.

A story from Rafael Gonzalez, a Comboni Missionary who worked in Kenya, came quickly to my mind after listening to the scripture reading:

“There were 120 starving, poor children in the mission nursery school in the semi-desert of Northern Kenya where I used to live. They received their only food each day from the school. At noon daily, the youngsters lined up to receive their dinner. Old tin cans, wooden bowls, or just two tiny hands, received a modest amount of porridge made from roughly ground maize flour boiled in water.

One girl, named Namoe, who walked very, very far each day to attend school, filled her little baked bean tin daily. Then, unlike the rest of the children (who consumed their food on the spot), Namoe left the mission property with her full container.

One day I followed her at a distance. On and on she walked, porridge in hand. A few kilometers away from the school, she met her mother and her younger sister, sitting alongside the road in the shade.

Namoe sat down. She placed the little tin of porridge on the ground in the middle of the group. And she shared her only food for the day with her mother and sister.”

What a rare moment of beautiful love Rafael witnessed that day. It speaks to me, in a special way, of Jesus’ words today: “Unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

– Maggie, Mark, Emebet, Isayas and Therese Banga, Comboni Lay Missionaries, Awassa, Ethiopia