Europe – Page 111 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

MCCJ Workshop on the “Plan of Comboni”

16 September, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

The world of today, its missionary urgency and the challenges of the Comboni mission.

Started today, the work of reflection on the 150th anniversary of the Comboni Plan for the regeneration of Africa. From all over the world came representatives of the various provinces of the Comboni Missionaries (MCCJ) and are present representatives of the Comboni Missionary Sisters (CMS), Secular Comboni Missionaries (SCM) and Comboni Lay Missionaries (CLM).

The day began with the Eucharist at the tomb of St. Peter, where Comboni received the inspiration of the Plan. However, this symposium / workshop, as remember Fr Enrique Sánchez (Superior General of MCCJ) in his homily, is not intended to “contemplate” the Plan of Comboni, however, starting from him, aims to reflect and give thanks to God for the fact that this plan has been since the days of Comboni. Today, we must search for the actuality of the Comboni´s Plan, understanding how it applies and leads us in our missionary vocation. To do this, warned Father Mariano Tibaldo (MCCJ) we must find the priorities nowadays and how – in our days – we may live the challenges of this Plan.

The reflection began with brother Enzo Biemmi presented the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium as a provocation of the present Pope Francisco, which especially fits the Comboni Plan in relation to the way in which Comboni conceived the missionary vocation.

In fact, today, we must abandon preconceptions about the missionary who has to evangelize the “others”. We need awareness and missionary conscience that is based on the conversion of the missionary himself (herself). Only the missionary encounter with Christ makes him (her) explicitly and implicitly proclaim the Gospel in all circumstances. It is not therefore an announcement out, but the manifestation of the joy of the encounter with Christ which is manifested in the life of the missionary. We must therefore be aware that without a conversion of the missionary there is no announcement, because without this experience of grace, you cannot get to the heart of man (woman), and in which the Spirit dwells.

Indeed, the first point and the origin of the missionary life and the evangelization is to recognize the presence of God in the other person, thus giving a new style to the mission. This was the modus operandi of Christ, that everything that made makes reference to the will of the Father and / or the faith that saves the one who seeks to save himself (herself).

In this context, Father Mariano Tibaldo (MCCJ) spoke of the urgent problems of the missionary life. Emergencies, these, which are not tied to a geographical location, but must respond, in fact, the demands of evangelization today. It was precisely this question that the participants, in working groups, reflected and were able to share the conclusions with others in the plenary.

Susana Vilas Boas

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

Meeting of the CLM with stakeholders from Mellatz Christian Community

7 September, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

In the middle of the holidays, from 15 to 17 August, our CLM group gathered. For Saturday Martina and Brigitte had prepared a program on Daniel Comboni and his spirituality. We invite to participated interested persons from the ecclesial community of Mellatz. We deepen our knowledge about the life and work of St. Daniel Comboni and seek the meaning of his spirituality to our reality today. We found it very interesting, the exchange of ideas with the 12 community stakeholders brought so much to us all. This encouraged every one of us to continue or re-start our missionary service: each in their daily personal life but also together as a group. There was also a time to speak personally and to continue the presentation work (website, poster) and plan the next steps for the group. On Sunday we had the opportunity to celebrate Mass with the parish community. After Mass there was time for many conversations with the community about the CLM.

Special thanks to Brigitte and Martina for preparing the meeting so fondly, to brother Friedbert for his support and to all participants.

The next meeting will be from 17 to 19 October in Nuremberg with the theme “The common points between the exhortation of Pope Francis ‘Evangelii Gaudium’ and the Comboni spirituality.”

Barbara Ludewig

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

Celebrating Plurality

4 September, 2014 by Alberto de la Portilla

Assembly of Comboni Lay Missionaries of the German Speaking Province (DSP), July 2014 in Nuremberg.

It is now thirty years since the first German Comboni Lay Missionary (CLM) went to the missions in Kenya. He was considered as an associate member of the Comboni Missionaries, in German called “MaZ” (missionary ad tempus – Missionar auf Zeit). A number of MaZ who had returned from the missions and some friends had gathered in Nuremberg in order to celebrate this jubilee. Some of the participants stayed throughout the whole weekend; others just joined the meeting for one day. All enjoyed sharing experiences, talking about vocation, about their life and in turns played with the children of the CLM. All in all there were seventeen CLM, seven friends and eight Comboni-Missionaries, including the Provincial Fr. Karl Peinhopf as well as former and present members of Comboni-Missionaries in charge of CLM.

At the beginning of the assembly, four posters were shown concerning the results of a Master thesis on sustainable impacts by international volunteers and Lay Missionaries such as MaZ from Germany. The posters presented key findings of a survey among persons who had come back from their mission commitment. By now, most of them work as teachers, in the parochial field, as social workers or in the sector of health care (e.g. nurses). Even if they currently do not work in the missions abroad or in development work, they enter their experiences into their work, i.e. in additional projects, intercultural commitments or financial donations. Furthermore, the far reaching impact on the life of ‘missionaries ad tempus’ are commitments concerning topics like sustainable way of living, migration and globalization as well as global justice. Being interviewed, some returnees emphasized that their faith was strengthened by the experiences in other parts of the universal church.

Later on, items of the agenda confirmed this positive and sustainable impact: Mathias returned from Uganda last year and reported about his time in Kasaala. Together we discussed the projects and his input at secondary school and farming.

Sigrun who had been in Matany/Uganda some time ago provided insights into her field of profession in tropical agriculture and horticulture. During the past years she returned to West Uganda several times for biological surveys.

Lena let us have a look behind the curtain of political science, bringing closer the dispute between the African Union and the International Criminal Court.

All the contributions showed the plurality of MaZ and the topics they deal with. Father Markus Körber and Father Hubert Grabmann, two Comboni Missionaries participating in the gathering, reported about their present missionary work in South Sudan and in Kenya. Father Hubert Grabmann assisted in the formation of CLM in the DSP some years ago; now he received CLM in his parish in Kenya for the second time.

Apart from the official programme, there was time for sharing information about life and changes, watching football games of World Cup, having barbeque as well as singing and praying together. At the concluding mass we prayed for the CLMs in formation and those in missions. We thanked Br. Friedbert Tremmel for the hospitality. We bid farewell to Father Günther Hofmann before his departure to South Africa in the near future. For the season of Advent and for next year we have already been planning further meetings with contributions from MaZ/CLM.

Christoph Koch