Comboni Lay Missionaries

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Brazil

Who sows in tears with joy harvest

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Piquia

It was a year of tears and seeds for the community of Piquiá de Baixo.

Many already know the proud, strong and firm struggle of this community in the municipality of Açailândia, Maranhão, Brazil. Almost thirty years suffering the devastating effects of pollution cycle in its mining and steel region, the inhabitants began more organized to denounce government neglect and responsibilities of industry, claiming – to begin with – the collective resettlement in an area free of pollution.

The new neighborhood, designed in a participatory manner by the community with competent technical advice, should be partly financed by a government program, as a project that was approved by the Federal Savings Bank still at the end of 2014.

Since early 2015, Piquiá de Baixo is awaiting the selection of the resettlement project. Approval promises were repeated throughout the months of the year, but the seed planted by the community much sweat seemed unwilling to sprout.

Meanwhile, other tears were shed for the environmental crime of the companies Vale and BHP-Billiton in the states of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo.

The people of Piquiá de Baixo were in Mariana few weeks before the disaster, participating in the meeting of the International Joint Affected by Vale. It is sad that communities have to be known and recognized by the tragedies and suffering they have in common. It is not what they would have pride in sharing; They do not want to be remembered by tears, but because of their resistance and victories.

Piquiá de Baixo planted many seeds of resistance throughout 2015. To keep the neighbors united, lively and well informed, many “circles of talks” were held in small groups around the houses. All the documentation of each resettlement beneficiary was organized. The community was articulated in several instances, to keep strong and not let the pressure to claim their rights from Municipal House of Councillors to the Maranhão State Government, from the Ministry of Cities to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH). In October, the president of the Community Association of Residents of Piquiá, supported by legal advice from the community, participated in a thematic hearing at the IACHR, in Washington, calling for urgent repair and mitigation of damages compared to the delegation of the Brazilian Government.

The harvest time delay, but it came!

On December 29, Neighborhood Association received the official title to the land where the community will be resettled.

On December 31, the Ministry of Cities published in the Official Journal of project the selection of the Community Association of Residents of Piquiá for resettlement. After a year and 14 days of waiting, the community finally has guaranteed financing for its new neighborhood!

Who sows in tears with joy harvest, says Psalm 126. Next week will proclaim the whole community in a community celebration in thanksgiving and to renew his strength.

Piquiá neighbors said that in other words to remember: “Our agony is our victory”. In persistent struggle, in the firm of who is not head down and do not give up, it’s already written a piece of victory as well as in the seed is hidden the outbreak.

It may take, but life will win!

Fr Dário MCCJ, Xoan Carlos CLM

Youth Gymkhana

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Last Sunday the gymkhana was performed with the theme: “we are called to live young.” It was organized by the coordinators of youth of the parish of Santo Domingo and aimed to promote integration, encouraging youth engagement in the way of faith and building the Kingdom of God through the civilization of Love.
During the meeting and as a proposal for the month of vocations, some stalls were organized by the Comboni Missionaries, Salesian Sisters, Brothers of Saint Gabriel and Lay Comboni Missionaries.
The organization of the gymkhana began with the Mass in the community of San Judas, the offertory of the Mass has been donated to the settlement Rosa Leon as a concrete gesture of action: “I come to do, with pleasure, your will Lord.”

Iron ore, journey with no return

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Brasil“Iron ore, journey with no return: from the Brazilian Amazon to the German automakers” is the title of a film production sponsored by “Justice on Rails Network” and financed by Misereor, a German Catholic Bishops organization, which for over 50 years has been committed to eradicate poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The production describes in 28 minutes the daily life of the communities affected by the Programa Grande Carajás (Great Carajás Programme), the world’s largest iron ore mining project in the Brazilian states of Maranhão and Pará.

Misereor supports projects developed by the Justice on Rails Network [Rede Justiça nos Trilhos], a coalition of communities affected by mining projects in northern Brazil, organizations, pastoral groups, social movements and academic research groups seeking environmental justice in the region.

The documentary reflects on the process of extraction and exportation of iron ore from the Serra de Carajas (Sierra de Carajás), State of Pará, to the harbour of Saint Luís, State of Maranhão. A hundred communities, approximately, suffer various impacts caused by this process, such as evictions of families from their land, pollution, accidents, etc.

Over 50% of Germany’s iron ore imports come from Brazil, but the auto companies are not seeking to verify if raw materials for their production carry with them a trail of human rights abuses, and environmental injustice.

This documentary raises questions and provokes joint action strategies in the steel product

 

“Take off your sandals, for the place where you stand is holy ground”

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Brasil

This land is called Pau-Brasil, Irajá, Comboios, Caeiras, Olho d’Água, indigenous villages in the state of Espíritu Santo.

I spent nine days with great intensity, important days, beautiful, full of friendship and sharing, we as Comboni Family (priests, religious, laity, scholastics) and the Tupinikim indigenous people, people of this holy land.

The simplicity, humility, sharing, hospitality, are words that I remember celebrating those days.

The availability, tenderness of the families we met, visited, lived, brought forth the beauty of true and sincere principles ​​that value the encounter with the Other and the sacredness of knowing how to welcome.

The Tupinikim people, as all indigenous peoples, fought for the recognition of the land that was always theirs and they lost with colonization, besides losing the right to be resident.

Indigenous land, holy land.

A fight that began in 1979 until 1981 for a territory increasingly exploited by another colonization, a foreign multinational, supported by the lobbies of political and economic power.

Many attempts were made by the police with guns and threats to the Tupinikim in order to leave their land. Many were the processes, finding letters and documents to prove it was an indigenous land and finally in 1993 came the land demarcation and recognition that protects the indigenous territory, their communities and villages.

The struggle for life, fight for rights, respect for a culture that is being lost and resist the increasingly dominant homogenization that wants to treat everyone as objects and consumers.

Threats ended and the law has confirmed a truth that has always existed, now is the time to recover a territory exploited by a (foreign) industry that planted eucalyptus trees at each site by market interests, for the manufacture of cellulose.

The problem is that these trees grow faster and take water from the land, impoverishing the soil and occupying the space of the native forest.

When the weather due to drought does not help, everything becomes difficult and complicated for those who live from agriculture.

Restart, caring for the earth and its fruits, through an indigenous tradition that always respect the Pachamama, living with essentials, is a beautiful lesson of life that indigenous taught us.

In this land we were welcomed, we felt at home and there is no more beautiful thing for a foreign pilgrim that being accepted and taken in hand.

Comboni Family: Father Elias, Father Savio, Sister Josephine, Emma, ​​Wedipo, Cosmas, Fidel, Grimert.

Emma Chiolini (Italian CLM in Brazil)

Visit the House of Mission Santa Terezinha, Comboni Lay Missionaries

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RayleneMy trip to the house of Mission of the Comboni Lay Missionaries (CLM) take placed between 4th and 10th of March of this year. I was fortunate to meet the Comboni Missionaries in August 2014 in Piquiá, Açailândia (MA) and this visit to Ipê Amarelo, was certainly inspiring to my vocation, find more lay and watch their actions and activities is indeed the way to clarify the dedication of some years of my life to the mission.

“Here I come, with pleasure, to do your will Lord” (Ps. 39)

I attended the meeting of the Pastoral Care of Children, the paint workshop for women, youth group, disciples of Emmaus, catechesis and the Way of the Cross in the Community. Activities that I experience in my community San José de Egypt, Parish of Our Lady of Fatima in Imperatriz / Maranhão.

In the days when I was in Nova Contagem, Minas Gerais, I could see projects, as the Combonis House Justice and Peace, the space called “Hope” in the community of Our Lady Auxiliadora – ACCSA and even from a little further the project of the Industrial School of Carapira in Mozambique, through our conversations with Lourdes.

Undoubtedly, every detail has marked this experience, especially the affection of all, the sharing and the prayer requests by Lourdes to each member of the communities we passed, it is important for this phase of decision.

Raylene  “I slept and dreamed that life was joy. I awoke and found that life was service. I served and I found happiness”.

Raylene Bananeira

Emperatriz-Maranhão