Ethiopia – Page 8 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

11.09 – Happy New Year 2009!

14 September, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

For several days in the street everywhere you could see people with chickens! Walking, riding on motorcycles, in bajajs, mini-busses … Everywhere! And also topic about the price of chicken he was one of the most common ones (because the price is not small, 250 birr, which is about 10 euro!). All these things are the sign of the approaching New Year, which we celebrate today! Ethiopia uses the Julian calendar, according to which today began year 2009. For me, it is still quite strange, once the celebration of the New Year in mid-September, secondly that it is year 2009, and thirdly that the year has 13 months … 🙂 However, here it is the most natural thing and great joy! All the people are very grateful to God that he brought them through another year and they ask to bless them for the new one. Celebrating this day is completely different from ours in Europe; there are no big New Year’s Eve parties. However, in the New Year’s Day, in the morning the girls walk on the streets and visit homes singing a special song – blessing for the New Year. Then give flowers – September in Ethiopia is the time when bloom very typical for this time yellow flowers, beautiful! However, nowadays the most commonly they give a flower drawn on paper. They also expect a small gift. It is also a family holiday – all people prepare doro wat (a special dish from the chicken, mentioned above), and together with the loved ones gather for a lunch. This is very joyful time 🙂

So, Happy New Year!

And let’s pray that God will bless the Ethiopians and give them peace.

Magda Plekan, CLM in Awassa (Ethiopia)

Poland – Hawassa World Youth Day

17 August, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

In Krakow, Poland, over a million people celebrated World Youth Day from July 25 to 31. My own little dream had been to attend the event (in Krakow). However, following my greater dream – that of going on mission to Africa, I had to drop it. However, I still wanted to join with Poland and the whole world in celebrating World Youth Day in whatever way I could. Because of that I got the idea of trying to organize a festival for the youth in Awassa, coinciding with the visit of Pope Francis and the program in Poland. As things turned out, it wasn’t easy.

Cooperation was a big challenge: some would come late, others would not keep their promises; things were disorganized and not everybody was very committed. Before the festival, I tried to build a team, but the leaders who were supposed to have helped did not always come to our meetings.

Two people helped with most of the issues: Tesfa, a young man very involved in Church activities and Engida, a parish worker. I was rather disappointed with the first day of the festival. Some people who were supposed to prepare some items were either late or did not turn up at all. Sometimes I had to improvise. Later on, things improved quite a bit.

Despite the difficulties, we managed to keep to our original plan. During the festival, we sang the WYD hymn, said the official WYD prayer, got to know St John Paul II and St Faustina Kowalska and listened to sermons about mercy. We had adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on Thursday. On Friday, we prepared the Stations of the Cross and a Reconciliation Service. Each day, we followed what was happening in Poland and we watched the news or even the live transmissions together.

On Saturday we went to Mother Theresa House – a centre for the sick – and we organized a short walk together. In the afternoon we had an artistic program including a theatre play, we had singing with various hymns, choreographies, poetry, a quiz about Poland and a conference. All parts of the celebration were associated with the Divine Mercy. I have to say that Saturday was wonderful.

We had some technical problems on Sunday, but we finally managed to watch part of the live transmission from Poland. We sang some hymns and evaluated the whole program. The participants seemed to be very happy. Even when some things went totally haywire, even with all the defects, the huge delays and different problems, I can say that, with the help of God, things worked out quite well. It was certainly a big lesson in humility. My lack of deep knowledge of the language created some difficulties and the lack of a well-organized team was also a huge drawback. Some people put great effort into the event, especially Tesfa who worked so hard on the program. I also got great help from people who just volunteered. In addition I have to say that local people were, as always, very kind, understanding and supportive when they saw I needed help. It was a great privilege to help organize the festival. It taught me a great deal about the place and the culture. I thank God for this wonderful experience; I thank everyone who helped make it a success. I have no regrets whatever!

Magda Fiec, CLM Ethiopia

Accompanying the CLM community of Awassa

25 July, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

During these days I have had the opportunity to follow the CLM community of Awassa in the variety of their missionary service. I believe that the simplicity with which they perform it is outstanding and so is the degree of acceptance and the relationship they enjoy with the local people. Everywhere they go everyone greets everyone. They always move on foot or by bicycle and this makes it possible for them to be close to the people.

I will try to tell you something about each one. I will start with the newest arrival and move on to those who have been here longer.

Magda Fiec has been here a little over two months. Her primary mission at this time is to learn Amharic. And, even though I don’t understand anything and I find it difficult to judge, I can at least see that she already communicates with people and, even though at times she has to look for words and expressions, considering the short time she has been here, she is not doing badly at all. (For those who do not know it, Amharic is a Semitic language that has no similarity with our Latin characters and I can assure you that, the first time you see it or hear it, you do not understand anything). On the other hand, she takes some moments to begin to help out in some little things. She helps the Comboni Sisters a little in the technical school and now she is preparing a youth gathering parallel to the one due to take place in Krakow with the Pope, but just for the youth of Awassa. This week she will be with a group of young people at Gethsemane, a retreat center at the lake shore, a very simple and beautiful place affording the possibility, especially to the laity, to find time for praying and being with God.

Madzia Plekan has been in Ethiopia for more than a year and a half. When she arrived, the idea was for her to work as a physiotherapist in the hospital of Bushulo, but for various reasons it was not possible. There was no problem in redirecting this service and make it itinerant. This way, each day she goes from one place to another to take care of her many patients, she cooperates with the home of the Sisters of Charity of Mother Teresa where she has many of them and with various orphanages. She takes care of people with special needs and especially the children. To see the tenderness with which she picks them up from their cribs and works with them is admirable. In an appropriate amount of time she gives them the rehabilitation session that each one needs, almost without their realizing it, and so, a little by little, she helps those who have been abandoned and who in this place would not have access to this specialized care. It is also a fact that at times she also takes care of passing missionaries since more than one come to her with their aches and pains. Beside all this, she cooperates in many other fields, always ready to go from one place to the other. In these days she is traveling with the youth delegation attending the meeting with Pope Francis in Krakow. Who better than a Polish guide to accompany them and teach them everything in Amharic? I think it is a privilege that she can accompany them. This means that for two weeks we will not see her, but we hope to meet her in Addis Ababa when she returns.

Maggie has been in Awassa six years and will return to Canada in a week. She is the community manager, in charge of organizing meals and other necessities. Now, having three children takes a good amount of time. However, she has been able to integrate it in her service. She continues helping in several orphanages taking care of the little children. She takes her own along so they can play with the others while she is there. In a different direction she holds handicraft classes for the neighborhood children and is teaching them lots of things (and she host countless birthday parties in their home because they all want to have it there, perhaps because of the cookies and the balloons they contribute to the feast). She is also part of an ecumenical prayer group. And we cannot forget the community sports activities consisting of the two weekly games of Frisbee to keep in shape and to share with a group of foreigners and of Ethiopians this love for sports. To be noted that, no matter where you go, there is always someone she knows and with whom to converse. After six years, she is the one member of the community who is most known and appreciated.

And finally I will speak of Mark. Just like Maggie, his six years in this place have made him a point of reference. On top of that, Mark has been at the service of the diocese during these six years supporting it in its administration and organization. He has been a pillar of strength in the development and reorganization of the diocese. In particular he has been involved with Ethiopian priests and sisters in developing various projects and supporting the search for financial help. As he says, the spirit of Comboni moves us to help especially the Africans, support various initiatives, mediate with foundations (at times very demanding with their forms) so that projects supporting the schools, the hospitals, the orphanages, the leprosy centers, the churches, the wells and other initiatives will keep moving forward. Without any doubt, the work of these six years has turned him into a point of reference in the diocese, and whenever a missionary, a local priest or religious meets him o comes to say good-bye, they thank him for his work and will miss him. This is also an especially intense period of time with the arrival of a new bishop. He is holding many meetings to bring him up to date on the diocese, on the already approved six year plan and also making sure that the work already done will keep moving forward in the hands of the people who will follow from now on. During his free time, besides spending time with his three children, he also attends an ecumenical bible study group that has helped him deepen the understanding of the various expressions of Christianity in Ethiopia and his own faith, as he himself acknowledges. It is an opportunity to grow as Church in Awassa.

For Mark, Maggie, Emebet, Isayas and Teive their time in Awassa is coming to an end. At the end of the month they will move on to Washington, DC where Mark will pursue a master on family pastoral, in which he wants to specialize in order to continue his missionary service. It is a time of good-byes, of placing themselves in God’s hands in order to face this new challenge.

We wish them the very best in this new venture as a family.

Greetings from Ethiopia.

Fifteen Days in Ethiopia

23 July, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

It has been 15 days since we arrived in Ethiopia: fifteen days filled with intense emotions, feelings and colors.

To travel as a family with two daughters, 14 and 15 years old, is much more complicated than when we traveled to Mozambique several years ago. In fact, for them it is their first contact with Africa (at least that they can remember), with all that it implies of differences in everything, not only in what the cities look like, the fruit stands, crazy traffic, the feeling of drawing attention wherever we go, but above all for not being able to speak their language and consequently not being able to get to know the people’s views of the world, of life and of their reality.

Here in Awassa there are several three and for story buildings, and more are being built in a place where, we are told, much has changed over the last few years, with wide paved roads, and many hotels. In fact it is the second or third city in the country and perhaps the most beautiful, situated as it is near a fairly large lake, with an incredible vegetation and wild life, which makes it one of the favorite tourist attractions for the Ethiopians themselves. Yet, all this notwithstanding, the contrast with our Spanish cities is huge. Our daughters are surprised by the dirt roads, the piles of wood used for cooking, the goats, the sheep and even some cows meandering freely in the streets and that, when it rains, life does not stop and nobody uses and umbrella… But above all, they notice the kindness of the people, the fact that everybody smiles at you and greets you, that people are not scurrying to and fro, that Mass will last one hour and 45 minutes and people are happy about it… I hope they will learn a lot from these people and that the experience will teach them values that are different from those of our first world.

Both the Comboni communities and the CLM communities take good care of us and are ready to accompany us and to try to explain to us the reality of this beautiful country. It has over 80 million people. Of these, 6% live in the capital, only 0.9% are Catholic, the remaining being 45% Orthodox Christians and 45% Muslim. It is a country where in many areas the Catholic missions are places of first evangelization, very much in need of indigenous vocations, and where even from the scarcity of their numbers they are greatly helping the people in their social and human development. We are being given the opportunity to get to know the work done by other religious congregations here in Awassa, running hospitals, primary and secondary schools, nurseries and professional schools… There is a lot to be done in the promotion of women, education, health… In providing the means for real development in this population.

The CLM community has been telling us about the various activities they are involved in, both in the apostolic and in the social field and, inasmuch as possible, we accompany them to get first-hand knowledge of what they accomplish, and above all to see the love with which they do it: the sweetness and affection they show to children in special difficulties; the work they do with the parish youth; their sense of responsibility; the witness of family life; their commitment to the poorest. And all this flows from the charism of St. Daniel Comboni, striving to save Africa by means of Africa, leaving the limelight to others, accompanying rather than commanding, in a spirit of simplicity and humility as befits strangers, sent as a community to proclaim the Love of the Father and to build His Kingdom.

We thank the Father for this vocation and for the opportunity to live this experience as a family.

Maricarmen, CLM-Spain on a visit to Ethiopia

First week in Ethiopia

14 July, 201613 July, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

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.