Africa – Page 95 – 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.

Second African Assembly of the CLM

1 August, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

The coordinators of the Comboni Lay Missionaries (CLM) of the African Comboni Provinces, together with the Comboni Missionaries in charge of this sector, held their second African Assembly on July 21-26 at the Comboni residence of Kinshasa-Kimwenza, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The gathering was called to reflect on the past and to plan future activities for the CLM in Africa.

This second African Assembly of the CLM was attended by 25 people: 18 lay people, 5 Comboni Missionaries and two Comboni Sisters, including those in charge of the central commission of the CLM, Alberto de la Portilla and Fr. Arlindo Ferreira Pinto.

The morning of the first day was given to two informational sessions in order to introduce the participants to the program of the assembly. One session was on the current Congolese situation and the other dealt with the missionary vision of Evangelii Gaudium.

The assembly opened with the presentation of the participants, moderated by the lay members of the African Commission of the CLM:Dieudonné Likambo (Dido), Congolese, Innocent Mweteise Karabareme, Ugandan, and Márcia Costa, Portuguese working in Mozambique. Also part of this commission are the provincials Fr. José Luis Rodríguez López, of Mozambique,and Fr. Joseph Mumbere Musanga, of Congo. Fr. José Luis is in Mexico and Fr. Joseph only attended the last few days of the assembly, due to personal commitments.

Following the introduction, tasks for the week were distributed.

Márcia Costa then recalled the principal objectives of the assembly: to deepen the topics of identity, formation and financial self-sufficiency; to review and plan the activities of the CLM at the continental level and in the individual provinces, keeping in mind the conclusions of the intercontinental assemblies of the CLM, especially the last one, held in Maia, Portugal, in December 2012 and the first African Assembly, held in Layibi, Uganda in 2011.

Words of welcome were given through a message of Fr. Joseph Mumbere Musanga (read by Fr. Enrique Bayo Mata) and by Sr. Espérance Mamiriyo Togyayo, provincial superiors of the Comboni family in Congo. Both of them stressed the value of cooperation between the two Institutes born of the same Comboni charism and the importance of prayer joined to missionary witness as a Comboni family.

Fr. Arlindo Pinto, coordinator of the CLM at the general level, brought the greetings of Fr. Enrique Sánchez, superior general, and of Fr. Antonio Villarino, assistant general, who follow closely the varieties of expressions of the CLM on the African continent. From his part, Alberto de la Portilla, member and coordinator of the central commission of the CLM, said that this assembly is an event of interest not only for the African CLM, but also to those of the European and American continents, who share a strong feeling of belonging with the CLM.

Fr. Jean Claude Kobo Badianga, a Congolese Comboni Missionary, presented a brief history of the DRC in order to help us better understand the socio-political and economic situation, drawing comparisons with the history and past and recent conflicts of neighboring countries (Angola, Congo Brazzaville, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, South Sudan and the Central African Republic). He spoke of the main obstacles to a stable and truly democratic governability of the DRC, such as tribalism, regionalism and corruption. He referred to the various armed rebel groups active especially in the North and North-East of the country and the national political complicity with international interests tied to the very rich natural resources of the Congolese underground. Oil, gold, coltan and many other precious mineral resources are at the basis of all the social contradictions, economic inequality and armed conflicts in the DRC.

The Catholic Church and hundreds of other churches and sects take different positions on the situation faced by the country, mostly in order to favor the status quo and only rarely in order to denounce the injustices that victimize the Congolese population from North to South of the country.

F. Jean Claude pointed out that, in this social reality in the DRC and other African countries, the CLM have a moral and Christian responsibility that must be present in their pastoral and professional activities.

Fr. Enrique Bayo Mata, a Spanish Comboni Missionary working in the DRC, presented the topic of mission based on the apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” of Pope Francis. Following a general introduction to the document, Fr. Enrique stressed the vision of a new evangelization marked by the joy of the announcing and of witnessing to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the many human peripheries of today’s world. He spoke of the urgency of a pastoral conversion in order to move the Church to come out of itself in order to become missionary, which means to place itself at the service of persons and peoples, especially the marginalized, those who have a greater need of this joy, of faith and of Christian life and those who re farther away from the values of the Gospel.

He added that lay people, intellectually and professionally formed, have a particular role in the pastoral process of evangelization, which aims at the transformation of society and at the inclusion of the poor in the active life of their country.

In the afternoon of the first day, Innocent gave a panoramic view of the CLM, mentioning that one always begins with small things in a restricted situation, by then growing and maturing if there is a clear vision of identity, of who we are, and if there is a concrete plan of action, of what we need to do, in a permanent context of listening to the Word of God, of prayer and vocational discernment, in the spirit of St. Daniel Comboni. Innocent’s presentation was followed by a long sharing section of ideas and experiences from various CLM situations in Africa.

In turn, Márcia Costa presented a summary of the first African Assembly held at Layibi, especially concerning the identity and the mission of the CLM. She pointed out that it is part of their vocation to get out of one’s own reality or country for a determined amount of time in order to get involved in missionary activity, and this is a life-long commitment.

The second day was given to the presentation of reports on the activities of the African commission, the central commission and the individual African provinces present at the meeting: Egypt-Sudan, South Sudan, Togo-Ghana-Benin, CAR, Congo, Mozambique and Uganda. Dido Licambo gave the presentation on the work done by the African commission since the gathering at Layibi up to the preparation of the present one in Kinshasa. Lberto instead presented the reports of the central commission and of the provinces that were not present, but that have CLM in their midst (Chad, Malawi-Zambia, Ethiopia).

One of the major problems that were discussed was the lack of communication between the African commission and the African provinces. This is due, in part, to difficulties arising from the different languages spoken in the provinces and the difficulty in accessing new technologies of communication, especially the Internet, in the vast majority of African countries.

On July 23 and 24 the conclusions of the assembly were reach through group discussions followed by plenary meetings, in order to be ready to answer the following questions: What is the relationship between the local CLM and the CLM from abroad working in your country? What challenges and strategies must we keep in mind in order to walk together? How can we share the contents of formation in different countries in order to have a similar basic formation across the continent? What is still lacking for us to be living our CLM vocation according to the conclusions reached at Layibi? What strategies must we adopt in order to live fully our CLM vocation? What strategies must we adopt in order to achieve self-sufficiency? How can we organize the CLM movement at all levels: formation, relations between CLM of different African provinces, vocation, organization and economy?

In the afternoon of July 24 and the morning of July 25, the lay people met on their own to prepare the conclusions, while the Comboni personnel met to examine their cooperation with the CLM and to share some ideas and experiences on how to help them and strengthen them in all the provinces.

Mention was made that this commitment was taken up by the Comboni Missionaries at the General Chapter of 2009.

On the last working afternoon, the conclusions were read, discussed and voted upon. The elections of the African commission followed: Dieudonné (Congo), Innocent (Uganda) and Márcia (Mozambique) were re-elected for another three years.

Finally, it was suggested that the next meeting take place at Lomé, Togo in July 2017. Place and date will need to be confirmed by provincial superiors of this sector.

Kinshasa

On Saturday, the group visited the botanical garden of Kisantu-bas Congo and the cathedral of Kisantu, about 75 miles from Kinshasa.

The assembly closed on Sunday with a meeting with the Congolese CLM of Kinshasa which took place in the provincial house of Kinshasa-Kingabwa. A Mass was celebrated with Fr. Joseph Mumbere presiding, and it was followed by lunch.

Arlindo Ferreira Pinto.