Africa – Page 102 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Do not get close to your own flesh

24 March, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

DO NOT GET CLOSE TO YOUR OWN FLESH

On February 6, 15 people died in the “El Tarajal” Beach in Ceuta. Some media said they were undocumented, Sub Saharan, immigrants … but basically they were 15 people, with 15 stories, with their 15 families. Each of them with their dignity, their rights and especially with their life. Following what happened that day, there was a great stir, especially at the political level where they blame the political adversary and try to take advantage of the event.

The Archbishop of Tangier, Monsignor Santiago Agrelo published a letter that has no waste and we collect below.

And the Lord said: Share your bread and your light shall rise

No one needs to interpret, because it is said to understand it even for children. “Share your bread with the hungry, houses the poor homeless, dress who goes nude” And after this command accessible to all, if it were necessary, the reason that sustains is added: “Do not close your own flesh”. The starving, the oppressed and the homeless, the naked, are “our own flesh”!

“Do not get close to your own flesh”: This unique knowledge should be enough to have changed the politics about the borders, another the logical of our reasoning, another the purpose of our demonstrations, another the matrix of our concerns, our aspirations, our complaints, our options.

“Do not get close to your own flesh”: If you walk on the path of this wisdom, “your light will break like the dawn,” ahead of you shall go the justice and behind shall go the glory of the Lord, your light will shine in the darkness, your darkness will become noon. ”

“Do not get close to your own flesh” and the bread that you share with the hungry, make you light for the homeless, as it is light to you the One that with his life in the hands like a loaf, said: “This is my body which is given for you“.

“Do not close your own flesh”: Seat the poor to the table of your life, and you shall be to them the light with which God enlightens.

And for the many that again and again remind me that the Church is not an NGO, again and again I will remind them that the poor are “our own fles”, and that our bread is their own bread, and that the Church is their own home.

Happy Sunday

Other Letters published by Bishop Agrelo these days about immigration:

Letter to Immigrants (in Spanish)

Option for God option for the poor (in Spanish)

More information on the website of the Diocese of Tangier:

And you can follow Monsignor Santiago Agrelo through Facebook

Our First Year in Malawi

17 March, 201415 March, 2014 by Jacob Kleven

After spending our first year here in Malawi, we have asked ourselves what have we done? On the surface, no we haven’t built any schools, dug any wells, started huge projects or any of the like. What we have done this past year is demonstrated the life of a loving Christian family that is willing to put all trust in Him and spread His love in a land that very much needs it.

We have developed many strong relationships with our neighbors, teachers that we work with and the parish family in which we now pray with. This has been the main part of our work and we are grateful to God for the success in which we have achieved in these newfound friendships.

Over the past months our family (mainly Tonya) has become the neighborhood doctor. We have treated massive infected burns, transported children and adults to the hospital, sometimes in the middle of the night, mended cuts, scrapes, and even some pretty awesome foot fungus. The reason this all started is not because we have more medicine, money or resources than the people around us. Although all of that is true, it started because we showed compassion and concern when we saw that our friends were suffering.

Suffering to many around us is not something new. Many suffer from malaria multiple times a year. Also many suffer from hunger when their pay runs out and they can’t afford to bath or feed their family after working 6 days a week. Although we can’t fully support all the needs of the people around us, we do what we can do. We give a little work to the neighbors that need a little cash to scrape by. We give a few eggs to the family has nothing but nsima for dinner. However little it may be, we show those around us the love that Christ has put in our hearts.

Jacob just finished his first bible study with a couple of great guys. Starting the study seemed to be great idea with some of the young men here from St. Johns. After a few weeks of some of the guys showing up and some not, it ended up being a group of only three including Jacob. At first this was a bit discouraging, but in Proverbs we read: “He that winneth souls is wise.” If any man, women, or child by a godly life and example can win one soul to God, his life will not have been a failure. He will have outshone all the mighty men of his day, because he will have set a stream in motion that will flow on and on forever and ever. -Dwight L. Moody. The whole experience has been very fuitful and he looks forward to the next opportunity to start a new group.

Jacob, Andrew, and Charles, the first No Regrets mens group in Malawi

We continue to assist the nursery schools, mostly on an administrative level. We plan to take a trip soon to the CTC to purchase wooden chairs and table to replace the plastic chairs that keep breaking and introduce new styles of learning to the existing program. Which right now mostly consists of rote learning, where the student memorizes the words or statements without really knowing what they mean or understanding the context of the information. The tables and chairs will provide a space where the students can learn more with manipulative action and artistic practice. The funding for these tables and chairs is coming from our home parish St. Ann in Stoughton. We cannot thank you enough for this wonderful gift.

Tonya and our friends at Fr. Dario’s Farewell Party

A couple weeks ago we said goodbye to our friend and previous Provincial Superior Fr. Dario. He will be on holiday for the next couple months back in his home province, Portugal. His next assignment after that is not yet known. We wish him all the best during his holiday and pray that we will again meet soon.

Jacob also made a little video of shots from our first year here. Although we have many other pics and God has shown His face in many other ways, it is a good snap shot of the past year.

We thank all of you for your continued support through prayer, emails, Skype, and all the other ways we feel your love and presence in our lives. We ask that you please consider supporting the Comboni Lay Missionary Program directly here. God Bless each and everyone of you. Jacob, Tonya, Lily and Josie

CLM Lilongwe, Malawi Africa

To walk in the footsteps of our Founder

15 March, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

St. Daniel Comboni was born on March 15, 1831, in Limone sul Garda, Italy. At the school of the priest don Nicholas Mazza, in Verona, he discovered his basic qualities: sanctity, search for truth and missionary zeal. He founded the Institutes of the Comboni Missionaries and of the Comboni Missionary Sisters who are now spread around the world announcing the Gospel among the poorest and most abandoned people. Ten years ago, Comboni was proclaimed a saint. We publish a celebration outline for the Comboni Family to help us walk in the footsteps of our Founder.

COMBONI PRAYER

March 15, 2014

We celebrate the birthday anniversary of Comboni during Lent, when everything in the Word of God calls us to conversion, to awaken from sleep, to dedicate ourselves to the works of light. Comboni, a man of faith, certainly knew how to be awaken and enlightened by Christ, and how to arouse the world around him with his tireless and passionate mission promotion.

Today, in the context of the tenth anniversary of his canonization, we join in prayer with the Comboni Family, so we invoke the God of light on each of us and on all the people living in the “shadow of death” on account of war, injustice, poverty and oppression. With Comboni, we ask to awaken from sleep.

Song

From St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (5, 8-14)

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth. Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says: “Awake you who sleep, rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

This is the Word of God.

From Comboni’s Letter

I am with you, I experience the thirst for living water and the desire to regenerate. I pray with you.

“Awake, you who sleep, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Yes, it’s time to wake up, to allow ourselves to be awaken by the Risen Lord, who always walks ahead of us even in our days and shows us the dawn of new horizons. Let us wake up, open the doors of our lives and let in the life of God through the life of humanity.

Awake from your sleep, put our feet into the footprints that our people are leaving in the groove of life to harvest the hope of Eastern season and which, with wisdom and in a thousand ways, continue to show, witness and share with us. Awake to the song of hope that they always have the courage to sing even in the darkest of nights.

Awake from the slumber of mediocrity to let resound in the history of the world the echo the joyous good news of Isaiah, a prelude to the Gospel: “Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43: 18-19).

Awake to the cry of the impoverished, oppressed, excluded, forgotten, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who have not yet met with the Hope announced by Jesus Christ.

Awake to the breeze of the wind to open your ears and understand the echo of the wisdom of your people who sustain you in your daily life, the echo of your local Churches which vibrates with a new life, the echo of the faithful and suffering witness of many sisters and brothers of yesterday and of today. Be alive, like the seed that dies under the ground and which has in itself the power to generate life.

Remain awake and attentive like the women of Easter morning, the only ones who went to the tomb, moved by the courage of a faith that is able to see beyond the stone that blocks life.

St. Daniel Comboni

Writing n. 162 – Comboni to his father: “Now there is not an hour or an instant that are you absent from my mind’s eye, that I do not think of you. … O dearest one, for allowing me to follow my vocation!”.

Song

Question for reflection:

From which lethargies do you feel that Comboni asks you to awake from so that you may carry on his work with passion, joy and enthusiasm?

Brief silence

Sharing time

Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Our Father…

Thank you, Daniel (Prayer said together)

Thank you Daniel, because you believed in your dream.

You teach us that it is possible to see Africa through the eyes of God.

Thank you because you saw and you remained fascinated

by the African people, seeing them through the pure ray of faith,

with the attitude of a brother and not of an imperialist or a slave trader.

You believed in the human capacity of the Africans,

and you already saw Africa as the protagonist of its process of liberation.

Your dream was the dream of God. You believed in it

and thought us to believe as well.

Your life tells us about two important encounters:

The first with God and the second with the Africans.

You were a courageous witness of the exploitation

going on in Africa and you did not remain indifferent,

did not take refuge into a desperate conformism

but felt inside the flame of liberation

and wanted to do history with the Africans,

so much so that their cause became your cause.

The Spirit whispered to you a wise Plan:

The regeneration of Africa by Africa itself,

and it was spring time, it was strength,

it was passion, it was total liberation.

Thank you because your dream enlightens us today

against the neo-imperialist projects

which continue to widen the gap between North and South.

Your dream is guiding us and makes us take up a stand

when confronted by money that is considered to be a god,

when confronted by an idol which dehumanizes people.

Today we are immersed in a lost and weak humanity,

and you invite us to believe again in this humanity,

to proclaim Jesus Christ with passion and credibility.

It is not easy to live in an alienated and often divided world

But you showed us that love conquers all.

We ask that you keep us united to You and united among ourselves,

We, your sons and daughters, to remain faithful to God’s dream.

May our differences become a source of wealth and creativity.

Thanks, Daniel, for having believed in your dream.

International Women’s Day in the ISC

12 March, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

On March 8 it was the International Women’s Day. A time to celebrate, yes, but mostly for reflection and questioning about the situation of women in society.

In this sense, here on the Industrial School of Carapira (ISC), the juniors (10th grade), as an activity of the subjects of Civics and Moral Education and Computing, organized billboards and theaters on the subject of domestic violence, from the reading of the law made to combat domestic violence in Mozambique. During the morning, in the school hall, posters were presented to other students and teachers. Not all were present, although there was significant student participation. In addition to the 3^rd year classes, also collaborated in the presentation the cultural school group called WINA WIPA WOPA that translated from the local language (macua) means SING-DANCE-PLAY. They performed two songs that deal with the issue of violence, one in the opening and again in the conclusion, and even a preview of a small play that are organizing on the issue of human trafficking, which also includes the status of sexual exploitation of women.

At the end of the activities, gave a small gift to the women of the school: the students, secretaries, volunteers for the Peace Corps and the CLM through a card with a message.

It was a rich time of information and reflection, and it was good to see the commitment and animation of the students, especially in the theater. We hope to keep the message and commitment to combat these situations.

For all women, our respect and gratitude! And through the intercession of the Virgin Mother of Africa, God bless you in your mission!

We are together!

CLM Carapira, Mozambique

The palace of learning

11 March, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

The trip to Paris took me to the “palace of learning”, the house of the Comboni Missionary Sister where they gives “shelter” to everyone who wants to know and learn French to better serve the mission.

It was therefore here that I met Palmira. Palmira -Comboni Secular Missionary- has been during two months in Paris studying and preparing herself better to go to the Central African Republic, where she will integrate and collaborate with the CLM community present therein.

Always encouraged, Palmira, looks forward with missionary enthusiasm the time of departure and beyond the current situation of the Central African Republic, far from discourage her, is an incentive to keep going.

“Why do people ask me if I want to depart? Of course I do. I’m here for that and my desire is to be at the service of this mission!” – Said Palmira, full of desire to move forward.

During these days, we managed to contact Elia that rejoices in the strength of Palmira and reaffirmed its willingness to continue to share her life with this people: “There is fatigue, but nothing makes me want to leave. If Palmira comes, then we will be together in this missionary journey. In these difficult times the missionary family is my refuge and help. ”

We also find Veronica who, for professional reasons, is in France since October. Veronica is happy both professionally and at the pastoral level, offering to help Palmira with whatever she needs.

I want to show here my gratitude to Fr Luciano who accompanied me during these days. To the Comboni Sisters who welcomed me so well, thanks to Veronica for a fabulous dinner which gave us a good missionary moment. And especially big thanks to Palmira: for all that we have shared during these days.

God walks with us in this way that we continue towards the mission He entrusts to us.

By Susana Vilas Boas