Africa – Page 79 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Masterpieces

13 September, 2015 by Maggie and Mark Banga

This is an article about my art class, though not exactly. This is the story about friends we have met here in Awassa, a truly special husband and wife team, Argow andRachel, and through them, the wonderful kids we have met with whom I have the joy of doing art projects once per week. The couple is an Ethiopian/American duo who met in Hungary at a bible college and felt God calling them to settle in Ethiopia as missionaries. Argow is from Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS), the most ethnically diverse area of Ethiopia with 35 different tribes. The capital of SNNPRS is Awassa, the town where we live. After learning about some negative customs of one tribe, the Hamar, in the far south west of the region, he felt called to get involved. The Hamar people have many superstitions and because their survival day to day is difficult, anything they think will negatively impact the people as a whole cannot be tolerated. For this reason there are several ways a person may become ‘cursed’ and should they become cursed, they are either killed or expelled from the tribe. Unfortunately most often these people are babies and children. The reasons that one could become cursed are many and include: being born out of wedlock, being a twin, having the top teeth come in before the bottom teeth as a baby, not attending one of many rites of passage no matter the reason. These cultural practices of the Hamar are not openly discussed, even by the government, but some local human rights groups estimate that 20% of their children are killed or abandoned.

Five years ago, Argow learned from his Hamar collaborators that there was a group of nine unmarried woman in a village who were pregnant and because these children would be born out of wedlock, they would have to be killed. Argow wanted to try to save these babies so he packed his car full of bottles, sleepers, diapers and blankets and made the long 15 hour trek to try to get them out of the village immediately after birth. When he arrived, all nine babies had been killed – he arrived too late. He returned to Awassa devastated in a silent, empty car.

After this experience Argow felt even more deeply moved to work with the Hamar people, and therefore he and Rachel founded an orphanage, Ebenezer Grace Children’s Home (EG), 4 years ago. They now have 36 children from newborn to age 12. The children come from all parts of SNNPRS, not only from Hamar, but they feel a particular call to help these little ones. Half of the kids in my art class are Hamar children, cursed for one of those reasons I listed above. Some of the children were ‘rescued’ prior to their murder by the intervention of some sympathetic Hamar who disagree with the traditions. Some of their parents tried to hide their cursed child to save and keep them, but eventually the only way to save them was to have them moved to EG. Over these past four years, Argow and Rachel have been trying to build good relationships with the Hamar tribe leaders. In a bold move several months ago, they took a group of 6 beautiful “cursed” children back to their villages to visit with their families and the community. They thought to stay only for a short visit but several of the parents begged them to stay for days. Maybe these types of encounters will help engage the process for the Hamar to confront their traditions and gradually in time to change them.

The other children in my class have arrived at EG due to a variety of circumstances that lead to children being orphaned: parents dying of HIV/AIDS, a widowed mother too poor to raise them, abandoned at birth, and health conditions that make life in the rural countryside difficult. One of my students has a heart condition and is nearly blind. For another there is no information on her scattered past – she was found last year wandering the streets alone of a nearby town, her clothes and hair infested with lice. When asked her story, there was no response – she is both deaf and mute. They guessed her to be about 12 years of age. She was given a name, a date of birth, new clothes and hopefully now a brighter future. These are my students, each one with their own story, each one special and wonderful.

Fast forward to today and each child is flourishing despite the limitations of institutional care. They have found love and friendship with their “siblings” at Ebenezer Grace and the staff who care for them. Argow and Rachel consider them all to be part of their family (they have 5 biological children of their own) and are very devoted to caring for them and providing them with every opportunity they can. I have observed that the line between Argow and Rachel’s own children and their EG children is somehow blurred, in a beautiful way. Argow and Rachel are making the longterm commitment to raise the children until adulthood, a commitment one can only make with deep faith in God’s fidelity and providence. The children are being raised to know Jesus and to know God’s love for them and for every person. It is the hope that some of the Hamar children one day will return as adult Christians to serve their own people, being themselves living examples of the dignity of each human life.

The first time I met Argow, he asked me “what can you do with these kids?” and the next Tuesday I was teaching art. They all attend school, even a school for the hearing impaired. They play sports, help with the younger children, braid each other’s hair, have birthday parties and just goof around. They have their own interests and gifts and are growing into fine young people. To my delight they all like art. I have an enthusiastic group of 12 (8 girls and 4 boys), all age 5 to 12. When you start with eager children, yellow construction paper, a dab of glue, a button, a piece of felt, a splash of bright paint, and a few sparkles ….voila you get a masterpiece!

As I look upon my students when they are quietly doing their work, I am grateful that their lives were saved. These kids are as unique as the materials we use to create our masterpieces. Each one is a masterpiece of God’s creation.

http://www.ebenezergrace.org/

A dream come true!

9 September, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

Mission in Africa, a dream. Something that I have wanted to live and finally got. I was 17 when I started to dream about Africa when I started to want to learn more about the “world” of the mission. In August, I went as part of Faith and Mission group with another four young and two missionaries of the Comboni Family, we went to Mozambique, to the mission of Carapira. I always thought that the mission was to bring Jesus to others, but when I got to Carapira He was there with open arms to welcome me and tell me that He had chosen me and that was His people.

It was an indescribable experience, but I will try to share: I found a warm, generous, cheerful, full of smiles people. A people without hurry, where time is a detail.

People always have time to talk; they stop to greet each other. You do not feel the stress, if my neighbor is sick, I am not indifferent.

I found a great team of missionaries who does an excellent job, every day gives his body and soul to the people of Carapira.

Brothers, sisters, priests and Comboni lay missionaries, give their best as educators, trainers. They accompanied dozens of young, regardless of their beliefs. Accompanying communities, trying to be the presence of Christ among the people. I knew about the work of lay missionaries, who work to support the various activities in the Industrial School, where they have a very active role. They lay people involved as someone who educates, cares, as someone who loves, as the young people attending the Industrial School left their homes to study. The laity are a friend and even maternal presence. Lay also help in pastoral, help children and young people to discover Jesus.

With all the missionary community that I met and beside whom I worked and learned a lot, I met that a missionary gives a true love, is capable of love, is capable of unconditional love. I keep me every time I lived, I appreciate the confidence they have placed in my colleagues and me.

The biggest challenge we faced throughout this month was certainly living in community.

The whole experience was extraordinary, impossible to remain indifferent, I really liked all the work we did with young people of the Industrial School. On the Laudato Si, I loved being with the girls in the boarding school, I liked working with the youth of the community, “Save the Youth by the Youth”..

It really touch me a conversation I had in the early days, when I arrived at boarding school to work to support the girls in the study and clarification of Portuguese and math. Nelson, a girl aged 13-14, who attends seventh grade, she didn´t get much closer, always watching me, but always a little distant, when I went to try to stop her reserves, she said “I don´t wanna be your friend, because you will be gone in a few days and I will never see you again”. This cut my heart, let me stop, I wanted to say something, but could not find words, I wanted to tell the girl that it would not be like that, but I would be lying because it was true, I had a scheduled trip. I accepted her choice and I decided not to insist. And during the 15 days worked in the boarding school, we talked little, we study together, we discover new and difficult words, we do our homework.

But I know that I interacted with Nelson, I’m sure, she smiled and even joked when I spoke something wrong in Macua, or when I said I was afraid of getting sick from malaria. And the day came when I had to say goodbye to her and all the other girls. And Nelson asked: “Teacher will you forget me now?”

She is an expert in letting me “locked”, is beautiful, has big, beautiful, bright eyes, and they were full of water and I thought how could I forget this, Lord? I will not do it. I hugged her and told her that “I will not forget you”.

What also impressed me a lot was the Eucharist, celebrated with much joy, sing, clap, they are strong, very beautiful. Mozambican women, I cannot stop talking about it, she is struggling, hardworking, always in charge of the most complicated tasks. It plays a fundamental role.

This is what I experienced; it was a good experience that I really want to repeat.

It was very important to me, every day had significant facts that I cannot forget.

And do not forget that dreams come true. We just have to make 5%, God does the rest.

Sofia Coelho

XVIII General Chapter of the Comboni Missionaries

7 September, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

This last Sunday has officially started the XVIII General Chapter of the Comboni Missionaries with the Holy Opening Mass.
The chapter members had a previous week of preparation.
The chapter will end next October 4th. During this time, we will remain in prayer for the good progress of it, for the good of the Comboni Family and the mission to which we are called.
For a constant information you can visit the official website of male religious institute www.comboni.org where besides daily news, you may find a series of videos called “Voci the capitolo” where the chapter members provide some important aspects they are treating and the progress of the sessions and meetings.
United in prayer.

Free to listen and to speak

5 September, 2015 by Antonio Villarino

A commentary on Mk 7, 31-37 (XXIII Sunday O.T., September 6^th 2015)

Mark, in today’s reading, portrays Jesus in “pagan” country, where people were not following Jew religion. But, beyond the religious differences between those people and the people of Nazareth or Jerusalem, there it was a concrete, real man with a concrete, human problem, that is the same for believers and unbelievers, rich and poor, educated and illiterates. That man was deaf and could not speak properly, something that affected his human condition at a very fundamental level.

Moreover, it seems clear that what Mark intends with the narration of this experience is to explain to us what the real mission of Jesus is:

Jesus’ mission consists in using the power-love of God (symbolized by the continuous touching with fingers and hands) to liberate humanity, not so much from our physical deafness, but, more important, from our deep inability to understand God and our neigbours, closed up in our own sterile pride. From that deafness comes up also our inability to say meaningful words to others.

When I was a young priest, I have known a ten years old boy, whom everybody thougth he was both deaf and mute, till young nun started to give attention to him, accompanying him with a great, continuous and constant love. After some time, she discovered that the child had a physical problem with his ear and took him to the doctors. Solved that problem, the child began to hear the words spoken to him and to repeat them, learning how to listen and how to speak. I was then very much impressed by the power of love, able to start off processes of liberation and healing.

Certainly, not always happens that way, rather in most cases deaf people have to learn how to do without spoken words. But, again, as in the Gospel, the reference is not so much the physical deafness, but that close heart that leads us to close the channels of communication and loving relationship with the members of our family or our community, with people of other cultures, political ideas or religious practices…

Quite often we become “deaf” and “mute” in the deepest side of our personality: we refuse to listen to what other people have to tell us… and for that same reason we are not able to say any “relevant” word to tem or to others: we do not have a sincere, meaningful, liberating word to say, because we do not listen.

We remember the story of Emmaus: Jesus approaches the disciples, walks with them and listen to them. Afterwards he would say clarifying and meaningful words.

Sometimes, it seems that our Christian communities have become deaf and mute: They do not listen to the cries of our humanity (Migrants, refugees, young people, women…, nor to the prophets or our time, those people who can help us to understand God’s ways for today. And because of this deafness they become also “mute”, unable to announce any meaningful message to today’s humanity.

A missionary Church is a church that listens, free from the deafness of his pride and arrogance. Only after that liberation, can it become truly missionary, messenger of the good news of God’s love for people.

In the Eucharistic celebration, Jesus “touches” our body. Let us pray that He heals our deafness and liberates our tongues so that we can become true missionaries, healed and instruments of healing, while we continue walking in life towards a fuller communion with God and our fellow men and women.

Fr. Antonio Villarino

Roma

The big crisis: The scandal of human fragility

22 August, 2015 by Antonio Villarino

A commentary on John 6, 60-69; XXI Sunday of O.T., August 23th, 2015

We read today the last part of John’s chapter sixth, the same we have reading for five Sundays. The chapter somehow has a dramatic ending, with a big crisis, that leads the disciples to abandon Jesus. That is why I think it very important for us to meditate on this reading, since most of us pass, in a way or another, through similar crisis. On my side I offer two reflections:

1.- Where does the scandal stay?
The disciples accuse Jesus of say “hard words”. For long time, this “hardness” was explained as the difficulty to accept Jesus’ words understood in a literal sense of “eating his flesh and drinking his blood”. But we know, by now, that Jesus speaks in the context of Hebrew culture and biblical language. In this context, it’s clear that to “eat his flesh” means to believe in the divine presence in his humanity and to “drink his blood” means to accept his life given up on the Cross, out of obedience and love.
But it’s precisely here where we find the scandal that became the big crisis. Many could not accept the image of God as it was revealed in Jesus. For them God is powerful, owner of everything, always triumphant, somebody to be afraid of… And that should be the same with His Messiah. But Jesus presented Himself as the human incarnation of a different image of God: Someone that welcomes sinners gives priority to the healing of a sick man rather than to the sacredness of the Sabbath, someone that appears as fragile and looser on the Cross, someone that shares the experience of death…

Many good people found this totally unacceptable. They were happy with Jesus as a marvellous teacher, they agreed with his plan to renew religion, they were moved by his power over sickness and bad spirts… But now Jesus was going too far. He was proposing a deep change in their image of God. Now He was proposing to leave aside all hypocrisy and falsehood, to accept that they themselves were sinners and fragile, and to allow God to become their companion, someone that wanted to share their fragility and from that deep solidarity to heal the root of their stupid pride. That was the real scandal.

2.- What about us? Where does our scandal stay?
We all pass for experiences that scandalize us. I think that what really scandalizes us it’s not something theoretical or an intellectual “mystery” that we do not understand in our mind. Certainly, there are aspects of the revealed truth that sometimes we do not understand and that we should try to understand better through studying and spiritual deepening. But, on my opinion, the real scandal that prevents us from believing and accepting Jesus totally is our own fragility (personal and social); what scandalizes us it’s the reality of sin (in the Church and outside it); we are scandalized by our own sins and failures, by the failures of the Church, by the failures of society. We are scandalized by a God that does not act as magician to resolve our many problems; we are scandalized by this Jesus, poor and humble, who fails on the cross and at the same time trust in the Father, in solidarity with so many poor, sick and sinners.

But, against our scandal, this is the biggest gift that, according to John, makes the disciples who believe become children of God. This faith liberates me, so that I do not have to “demonstrate” nothing to anybody, I do not have to lie to myself and to others as if I never made a mistake. People obsessed to be always wright end up by being hypocrites and to live in falsehood. On the contrary, Jesus accepts the human fragility, the failure and even the death. And, in doing so, He acts as what He really is: the SON, unconditionally loved and able to love unconditionally.

To believe this is to enter into communion with Jesus, to “eat his flesh” and with him find the way to the fullness of the Father’s love and live. Do not believe it’ s not to “eat”, not to enter in communion with him and to remain in the lie and falsehood of the one that tried to deceive Adam as if He were a God by himself and not in obedience to the Father.
All of us, in a moment of our life, have to go through this crisis: Do I pretend to be like Adam, a false “god”? Do I pretend to be like the prodigal son thinking that I am going to be more autonomous and happier away from the Father? Or do I accept myself, in my fragility, and accept the solidarity of Jesus, who descends with me into the river Jordan of this my fragility and with me rises to the communion with the Father?
To go to take communion regularly means to say yes to the last question and to renew our trust in Jesus and his Father, in spite and through the continuous experience of the many sins and fragilities in ourselves and in others.
P. Antonio Villarino
Rome