Comboni Lay Missionaries

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Africa

First week in Ethiopia

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CLM-Community-in-Awassa

We have been in Ethiopia a week already but it feels like we flew in yesterday. For the time being, it has been a week of welcomes and of beginning to learn.

We spent the first day in Addis Ababa to visit the provincial house where we met Fr. Julio Ocaña with whom we had shared our time of training as a community when we were leaving for Mozambique. We remembered those very special times when we were preparing to leave for Africa for the first time and he himself was getting ready for his mission. Now, almost 18 years later, we meet again in Ethiopia, each one of us with a larger baggage of history.

We also had a special moment as we met Fr. Juan Nuñez after so many years. We first met when he was provincial in Spain and we were just beginning as CLM. After these old acquaintances, we also met several other Comboni missionaries of the province who selcomed us with great kindness.

Our trip to Awassa was very nice, with a stop in a gorgeous place near one of the large lakes of this area. It is good to travel by car, because it gives you an overview of the situation of the country, its roads, people, crops. It was inevitable to compare it with our experience in Mozambique or in other countries. We observed so many fields ploughed with oxen and an infinite number of donkeys pulling carts loaded with water, potatoes and such.

Finally, we reached Awassa, the capital of the southern region. We met Fr. Mansueto, the superior of the house, who gave us a good reception very attentive to our individual needs, and also met the rest of the community. This is a house of transit for the various communities of the South, where missionaries stay when they come to shop, have the car fixed or pick up the mail.

And, of course, finally we met with our beloved CLM community. Mark was the first to get to the Comboni house when he heard that we had arrived and, without even unpacking we went to greet the rest of the community (it’s a little over a five minute walk from the house) There we met Maggie and the children, Emebet, Isayas and Teibe, together with Magda and Madzia. [We were welcomed] with a colorful poster made by the little ones and a good supper enlivened by conversation.

This is the beauty of internationality where Canadians, Poles and Spaniards meet as members of one family.

Each day we engage in different activities. Members of the community accompany us as show us the places and activities where they are engaged and also take time to show us the city and its various areas (we will keep this for our next post). They take good care of us and have a plan for each day, something new at every moment.

It is an experience that as family we greatly appreciate and from which we hope to profit to the fullest.

Greetings to all.

Welcome Élia!

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Elia

On July 3 arrived at Lisbon airport the CLM Élia- She returns from the Central African Republic after five years of missionary service in the  mission of Mongoumba.

After the reception at the airport from the CLM Pedro, Liliana and Flávio and sister Carmen, we went with great joy by to eat at the house of the Comboni Sisters in Olivais. In addition to the community of the Comboni sisters, where there were the Family of Pedro. During lunch, we talk and share mission´s adventures. It was a beautiful moment of conviviality. After lunch, there was still room for some delicious Welcoming´s cakes!

In the afternoon, Élia continued her way home in the Algarve, where she is now with her family.

We appreciate the availability of the Comboni Sisters and wish Élia a good return and readjustment to the reality of our country.

Welcome Élia!

Portuguese CLM

Surgery in Mongoumba. 25 years of dedication and availability

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Mongoumba

“For more than 25 years, Dr. Michel Onimus, French orthopaedist, devotes his free time to operate in the Central African Republic, particularly in Mongoumba. The patients who are treated are especially children, people with congenital malformations (congenital dislocation in the foot, cleft lip), polio sequelae, burns and fractures. Due to the country’s instability, medical activity has declined during the last three years since Dr. Onimus comes to help, that is, almost exclusively in Bangui”, writes Élia Gomes, a Portuguese lay Comboni missionary, working in Mongoumba.

 

Before the “crisis”, he used to work with a team of young volunteers (anaesthetists, nurses …). Now he travels just with his wife, Michelle, who deals with logistics. Therefore, he is supported by Barthelemy, a Central African anaesthesiologist from the paediatric Centre of Bangui who always finds a “little time” to spare and work with the professor.

In their luggage, the couple brings everything they need for the medical operations, from surgical material to tapes … and when they go back, they donate to us whatever has not being used.

Since I’ve been here in Mongoumba, we have received the visit of Dr. Onimus four times, the last in February in which 31 patients were treated, 15 operated and 4 scheduled to be operated in Bangui in March.

They arrived early, on February 17. Since I was unable to go to fetch them, Brother Alberto, a Comboni missionary, brought them here and spend a few days in Mongoumba. Then the team started the marathon for the consultations, preparations and surgeries of the patients: a process completed in just three days.

Mongoumba

The routine was every day the same: into the operating theatre (so to speak) at 8 am and out at around 15 pm, for a bit of lunch. After a short break, at 16 pm we continued the medical consultations and visits of the patients who had been operated on.

Surgeries are performed in the Health Centre, in an empty room with just the operating table, but with no light sources, without suction of secretions, no air conditioning, no recovery room … A room that has three windows facing the street, with a net to prevent flies from entering inside but not to protect the place from the dust, and curtains to provide privacy but also precluding some light. The only “luxury” is an oxygen bottle that is used only when the professor arrives.

Despite all the shortcomings, we have to thank the availability of the head of the Centre of Health, who not only allows us the use of the room as a place of surgery but makes available the autoclave to sterilize the material.

Mongoumba

The patients, before and after the operations, are housed in our Rehabilitation Centre, called “Da Ti Ndoye”, under the responsibility of Bob, the physiotherapist who works at the Centre since its foundation.

Dr. Onimus accomplishes a difficult job in difficult conditions, a labour of love, which has provided a better quality of life for many children and adults. “In so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).

A missionary hug

Elia Gomes. CLM CAR

Do you still not understand?

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loaves-of-bread

Abundance – this is what God always offers us.   Scarcity – this is how we usually view the world.

On Tuesday, the Gospel reading in Mark 8:14-21 told of a boat trip of Jesus and his disciples across the lake.  Here’s the context: Jesus had just performed one of his most awe-inspiring miracles of feeding four thousand with a few loaves of bread.  The Pharisees then ask him for a “sign from heaven to test him” (Mk 8:11) as if all his previous healings and feeding the four thousand a few hours earlier was not sign enough.  Jumping into the boat, Jesus makes a comment to his disciples to beware of the philosophies and mentalities of the Pharisees, their “leaven” as he describes it.  The disciples, having forgotten to bring bread for the journey (they only had one loaf among them), assumed that Jesus made this comment because they had no bread. How superficial the disciples’ and our thoughts can sometimes be.  Jesus knows exactly what they are thinking and essentially cries out: This has nothing to do with bread! Jesus goes on to say it is like you have eyes but do not see, have ears but do not hear.  He then reminds them of his miraculous multiplication of loaves to feed the five thousand some time before and the four thousand just hours before.  He asks them how many baskets of fragments were left over, the pieces of bread these very same disciples had gathered up. Probably with the disciples’ eyes sheepishly staring at the bottom of the boat, they answer “twelve” and “seven”.  Jesus then brings to a climax the whole moment with the simplest of questions: “Do you still not understand?”

It is like Jesus is saying: I give you everything, I offer you the most plentiful of lives basking in my love.  I will fill all your worries, depressions, limitations and failures. All you need to do is believe in me and trust in my proposal of abundance.  All you need to do is have faith in my faithfulness.  We can become so closed in on ourselves, foolishly relying on our own tiny resources – counting the inventory of our few loaves of bread – when God is willing to dump a mountain of bread onto our laps. Do you still not understand? I will not only give you what you need according to your limited horizons (feeding the four thousand men), but I will give you even more than you can possibly dream of (seven baskets left over).

During these last months I have been struggling with sickness and how easily I have found myself dejected.  I have caught myself feeling as if I am battling this all alone. But hearing and wrestling over that potent question at the end of Tuesday’s reading knocked me forcefully out of my doubt.

Sometimes we can be like the disciples, where we have a sincere intention to love God, but out of fear, we are not willing to make the leap of faith to truly abandon ourselves into God’s hands trusting that he will bring all things to good for those who love him.  Sometimes we can also be like the Pharisees, where we observe the workings of God’s love first hand, yet still remain unmoved, continuing down our own self-centered paths, isolated and lost.  In both cases, we remain in a mindset of scarcity, with the anxiety that goes with it.   Jesus’ message is clear: My kingdom is one of abundance, where your life is full to the degree that you have faith in my Love.  If you ask for one loaf with child-like faith, I will give it to you…and thousands more.

– Mark & Maggie Banga

Comboni Lay Missionaries serving in Awassa, Ethiopia