Europe – Page 83 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Time of sadness – time of joy

14 November, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

Last days went by with these two ambivalent feelings. Moments of sadness interspersed with moment of great joy- this because of our children.

On All Soul’s Day we attended the Mass which was celebrated on the local cemetery situated near our St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Gulu. After the Mass we went with our children to pray at the tomb of our small Angel-as we used to call Moses, who died 6 months ago. After prayer we covered the tomb with flowers which we’d picked from the tree growing in St. Jude Children’s Home.

Here The Day of All Saints is a day of great joy- in this special day children receive sacraments of baptism, First Communion and even Confirmation. The Mass in the Cathedral is pretty long- 4 or 5 hours, because there are for example 150 children to be baptized. Anyway we are in Africa, so the length of the Mass is normal, and good that our Cathedral is big and long so all people can enter. After receiving all sacraments all people gathered in the church, lift up their hand and candles and shout loudly to show their happiness. At the beginning, I was very surprised that the day, which in Poland is a calm day of reflection and prayer, here in Gulu is a one of the most happiest day. But when during the Confirmation each candidate reads the name of Patron out you get the feeling that All Saints gather in one place- beautiful experience, unforgettable.

Children from our Orphanage received the sacraments of Baptism and First Communion earlier- on October 28^th– memory of St. Jude, who is a Patron of our Orphanage. Children from both schools- Nursery and Primary, all workers, orphans and friends of our Orphanage met under the big tree to celebrate the Mass. Seven our children have been baptized and eight children first time received Holy Communion. It was a very joyful day for all of us. Children who received First Communion were in different age, between 10 and 16. None of them asked about toys or super gifts. All of them were prepared well by our catechist.

I came back to Uganda 5 months ago- I already live according to my routine, which is different from the one which I had 2 years ago. Now, the majority of my time I spend with children. In the morning with babies and disabled, in the afternoon with children from Primary 1,2,3 and children from Nursery School. But many different people who come to our house break our daily routine, for what we are very grateful. Some of them come for short time- like Peter- our Lay Comboni Missionary from Poland or for longer like David- Comboni Lay Missionary from Spain, who came for more than one month. Also meetings with Comboni Family, during the feast like on October 10th- the Feast of Comboni or just simple accidental meetings on the street, in the town or in the church. All these meetings give us a lot of joy and positive energy. So if someone plans to come to Uganda for a few days or maybe for longer, remember that our house is always open and you are welcome.

Greetings for everybody!!!!

Ewa, CLM in Gulu (Uganda)

The Trindade Community

9 November, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

I am close to the end of my three year missionary commitment in this beautiful Brazilian land that has given and taught me a lot.

I already feel a sad void for what will happen, a feeling that will call to mind faces, situations, stories, important moments that left a mark on my missionary experience and have changed me, since I allowed them to change me and make me grow a little more.

It is good to change when Life shows you paths that can only be healthy for your heart, for better or for worse.

Mission also means growth, meeting the Other, the meeting between you and Them, with God who makes us Us, and a You.

You end up meeting an itinerant God, who never stops moving and amazing you. A God who walks barefoot with you: “take your sandals off your feet, for the place you are stepping on is holy grounds!”

And this is what I did, walking barefoot in the marvel of discovery and self-discovery, knowing that God was walking with me.

I chose to end my three years of missionary commitment in Salvador de Bahia in a community that welcomes street people. The community is called Trindade.

It has been a totally different experience from my previous ones. I left prison work, which I hope to continue in Italy, in order to get to know another very hard and hurtful social reality, the life of street people.

The Community of Trindade is ten years old and it is located in a neighborhood close to the harbor and to a viaduct where many street people meet. The house is an inactive church building which has become a temporary home for those who are seeking to change their lives or at least try to.

Everything happens gradually. They keep on sleeping on the floor inside the church and begin a recovery coming from within, through self-esteem and a search for one’s identity.

When you live on the street you lose everything, not only material things, but you lower yourself to the point where you no longer recognize yourself, lost in an emptiness that devour you, where alcohol and drugs consume you on a daily basis. You no longer know who you are and have no dreams to build on.

Hunger, cold, the search for a safe sleeping place become the day to day priorities.

Dependence on alcohol and drugs lead you to taking chances, through stealing or prostitution until you lose your dignity.

This community was born of the meeting of Bro. Henrique, a Frenchman, and a street person who, looking for a safe place to sleep, came across this abandoned church.

Bro. Henrique is an itinerant monk who, years ago, chose to live on the street in order to know first-hand the dramatic situation of street people, by becoming neighbor to them and live with them.

He picked this church as a nightly refuge and in time it developed into a community, a home for those who have no home and a beacon of hope.

Today it gathers 35 men and women.

The Trindade Community is not an end, but rather a place of passage, of transition.

It is a place where one can get away from dependency on alcohol and drugs, find a job, be able to stand on your own two feet after years spent on the street.

It is like trying to glue back together parts of you that have been disconnected, in order to see again the original shape that was lost.

It is a simple community where everyone helps and cooperates to its upkeep and wellbeing of all.

They all cooperate and make themselves useful from the kitchen to the cleaning, the garden and some artisan activities, each one according to his/her talents and limitations.

I, too, have my cardboard where I sleep on the floor and I help out in everything.

I am learning what it means to do this: carefully store away my cardboard which is my mattress, roll it up in order to spread it again the following night. When I walk down the street now and see a piece of cardboard I feel like saying: “Look, that’s a bed!” because for a number of people that is exactly what it is, a home on the street.

Mission helps you see things from different points of view, especially from points where people do not like to dwell or look from.

You learn that you can live with little, what it means to sleep on the floor, to be hungry, not to be able to wash, what it means to be at the periphery of existence.

A little at the time, with kindness and by being available, I am beginning to learn the stories of the people who live in the community: they are stories from the street, of drugs, alcohol, losses and violence.

The words used are harsh and full of hurt and of scars.

In this experience, just like in my prison pastoral, I learn the most beautiful and interesting lesson: you need to learn to listen without judging and to make yourself neighbor.

In the community we also have a small newspaper, Aurora de Rua (Dawn of the street), written by the street people themselves. It deals with their situation, their lives, and their stories and with the importance of recycling. Yes, because many of their handcrafted products are made of discarded material and junk.

Behind all this there is great pedagogy: to be able to construct beautiful and useful things out of what other people consider useless junk.

This is how street people or prisoners, referring back to prison ministry, think of themselves as the rejects of society.

But everything is reborn to life, a new Life.

The paper helps to spread news and the realities of the street people, who are often discriminated against, excluded, abandoned and judged. There are stories that touch your heart and help you understand the depths of some human situations, so harsh and hurt.

On Thursday night the community opens its doors to the street people of the project “Get up and Walk,” created by the community itself in cooperation with the diocese of Salvador.

Unfortunately the Church cannot hold too many people and the street problem is vast.
The project is a place where street people can find psychological help and assistance in filling out forms for ID cards, work papers, or also for recreational activities, a place where to shower, find clothing.

For those who so wish, Thursday nights are a way to get to know the community, have a moment of prayer, a common meal and a place to sleep. These are small steps that help to create awareness, socialization, to share a meal, to be in a quiet place and to pray together…

Thursday nights are open to all, even to visitors, people from the outside who want to share this experience.

It is a very emotional time, as we live through concrete means the Gospel of Jesus who invites all to the same table, to share the bread with everyone, no one excluded.

It is a Gospel that takes flesh in Life and for Life, the Gospel in which I believe, where I meet God and God’s face. This Face of God has many stories, many wounds and lots of beauty. This is why I like the idea of a pilgrim God always walking, within each one of us, living in our stories. I am grateful for this choice and for this last month and a half I will spend in this beautiful and important Community of Life.

I will not say good-bye to Brazil, but simply “until we meet again,” because I will never forsake the relationships I created, the people who walked with me and who taught me to walk. For all of them it will always be, “arrivederci!”

God breathes through our hearts.

Emma, CLM

God wants to visit THIS man? – Meeting of the CLM in Nuremberg

8 November, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

At the meeting of the CLM, beside sharing time together, we worked fundamentally on two topics: What are the main points for the group’s work plan for next year and what does Sunday’s Gospel of Zaccheus tell us today from a missionary perspective?

The starting point we used for planning our work was the document with its conclusions from the European Assembly of Viseu, which was held in August of this year, which was attended by four CLM and by Bro. Friedbert.

As a result, in 2017 the group wants to prepare itself forcefully for the MCCJ Symposium on “Mission in Europe” and wants to foster the networking with MaZ (missionaries part-time). We also want to improve communications within the group.

The result of the biblical work was presented at the homily during the Sunday Mass in the community of St. Cunegonde.

Beside working, praying and sharing, we also had a lot of fun during this weekend and we even had a taste of a Peruvian drink.

CLM Germany

“You can’t have mission without love!”

3 November, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

Elia María Cabrita Gomes was born in Paderne, Albufeira, Portugal on January 29 1955. She is a retired nurse. In 2006 she had her first contact with the African Continent when she took part in a seven month project sponsored by International Medical Assistance (IMA) in the democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In 2011 she left for a two year stint with the Comboni Lay Missionaries (CLM) in the Central African Republic. She ended up staying in that mission for five years.

When she was barely 16 she was offered the possibility of having a two month experience in Angola, something she considered like “the spark that would fulfill a dream.” Unfortunately, her father did not approve and she did not go. All through her training as a nurse she kept on thinking about going out there, but when she completed her studies in 1976 she started working in the hospital of Faro, where she remained until her retirement, she married and has a daughter.

In 2006, she finally had her first experience when she joined a seven month project sponsored by the International Medical Assistance (IMA) in the democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “It was just a seven months experience that stimulated me and increased my desire to return to Africa, to leave my comfort zone and go meet other peoples,” to share.

She started volunteering in the Hospice of her home parish of Paderne and there she soon discovered the Comboni Lay Missionaries (CLM) through the magazine Além-mar. “I completed my formation with the CLM (2008-2010, I got to know Comboni, his slogan “To Save Africa with Africa” was totally meaningful to me, just as the going out to meet the poorest and most abandoned, to contribute to the improvement of their quality of life and to human development,” she tells us.

She went for two years and stayed for five!

She arrived in Bangui, the capital of the CAR, specifically in Mongoumba, for a two year stay, “without expectations, ready to accept and give whatever the mission required of me.” She ended up staying for five years that included “very strong life experiences. The beginning were a time of apprenticeship: to look and listen, to learn how to live, to accept and respect, namely to take the first steps in a culture and customs so different from our own,” she says. Commenting about her assignment to Mongoumba, she tells us that it is the seat of one of ten municipalities in the district of Mbaiki: “It is a town of around 8,000 people located about 120 miles from Bangui, deep in the equatorial forest along the border with the DRC and Congo Brazzaville. The municipality of Mongoumba holds 25,000 people belonging to various ethnic groups, including the Aka pygmies. Pygmies are discriminated against by the rest of the people who use them as cheap labor. They are the most disadvantaged members of society and live in various camps spread around the forest. Most of them live in grass huts and only a few have homes built with mud or bricks. They eat what they find in the forest. Their goods are limited to what they can carry when they change camp or when they go deep into the forest for fishing seasons, gathering honey, caterpillars… products that they sell or exchange for salt, cloth to cover themselves and trinkets. They very seldom have money and whatever little they have is not enough to cover medical care.

Evangelization of the pygmies is the priority of the mission of Mongoumba and most of our activities are aimed at improving the way of life of the people and their social integration. Through our joint pastoral approach and working to raise awareness of and promote health care, I was able to visit many camps, visit the sick, free children from parasites. During the first two years, thanks to the cooperation of the French Army, we organized several campaigns for the treatment of “pian,” a contagious and incapacitating disease. I walk lots of miles in the forest… In a harsh reality that cannot be changed, one can only give some creative touches and hope that the seed that was sown will grow.

After several years of activity, where the mission acted like a bridge between the people and the health center, results are beginning to be visible and gratifying. The pygmies are still the last in line to be received, but they are nonetheless attended to and, when they have to be admitted they share the same quarters of the rest of the population.

During these five years, taking care of the pygmies who were hospitalized, so they would not be forgotten, was one of my tasks. It is very easy to forget giving medication or an injection to those who have no voice! In this activity, I could always count on the generous help of the health workers from our physical rehabilitation center at the mission. Most of our work consists in raising awareness of the fact that we are all persons, in Sango “Zo Zo kwe,” and as such we all deserve attention and respect.”

She tells us that, after the coup of March 2013 “the country was submerged in chaos and lived under the threat of arms for three years. The poverty and the suffering of the people reached unimaginable levels. Notwithstanding the presence of many NGOs, the Catholic mission is almost the only institution that continues to work steadily to defend and support the dignity of these long-suffering people, carrying on activities in education, health care, human promotion, pastoral concerns, justice and peace… During these last two years my greatest concern was to find and treat undernourished children, the education of parents on hygiene and nutrition. It was a tiring work, both physically and psychologically, but the reward was in each child who recovered and could smile again. I was able to work with a good team, made up of local people, available and interested.”

To go without expectations, top return full of dreams

She concludes saying that, even though she arrived in 2011 without expectations, she returns in 2016 with the dream of someday going back to the mission in the CAR and find “homes that will not be destroyed by rain, with roofs that will not be swept away by the wind; healthy, well fed children who own books and go to school; roads without potholes (including dirt roads) and means of transport that will link the villages, the towns and the cities; pygmies who know their duties and can fight for their rights; new laws that will ensure that “witches” do not go to trial, but their accusers and attackers will; health centers and hospitals run by fully educated doctors and nurses, where surgery, analyses and tests are performed, where sicknesses have a name and a cause, forgetting about the existence of mystical illnesses. I dream that I will find a country where the pillars of education, the teachers, actually are in school and have better than an 8^th or 9^th grade education; and because “God loves his people,” I believe that the hatred that is still existing will make room for a lasting peace in a climate of love and tolerance. It is my dream and hope that the riches of this land will not end up in the wallets of a few, but may be used to improve the quality of life for all.

You can’t have mission without love! I love the country and I love the people, a people who is suffering but continues to laugh, sing and dance. It is my people! The smallest among them I keep in my heart with great affection, remembering the children, their pure and sincere smiles will warm up my cold winter nights.”

Text by Catherine Anthony, FEC – Faith and Cooperation Foundation

«Mind the gap»

2 November, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

It’s my lasts days in London, where I arrived a month and a half before. This moment, while I am writing, seems a scene almost worthy of movie: I am sitting in the underground station, waiting for the tube that will take me home, ‘looking for yesterday’, ‘for everything and ‘for nothing’. At the same time as I am mentally anticipating the journey to Poland, increasingly close, I cannot avoid remember the days “around here”.

In all of this, almost without realizing it, the warning expression recorded on the ground, “mind the gap”, called my attention. Gap between… Save space … How much space is enough for us to be safe? From when and until when should we keep this space? And waiting for what? The “right time”? To go where?

Pope Francis frequently reminds us that we are invited to come out of our comfort zone and have the courage to reach all the peripheries. We should feel impelled to go further, closer, higher, deeper. To pilgrimage more.

These weeks have been, and continue to be, essential in this time of preparation for the mission. Not only because the opportunities to be in places that never had, to meet new people, the language training and learning, … But also for what I am learning about life in community and «space». I have learned that this time we live in, whatever it is, is the time of learning.

We are trainees and heirs of the great love, the love of Christ. Even if some moments seem hard to face and we think that there’s no way out; even if our «appreciation» converges to impatience, I am maturing the idea that loving God means to accept with patience and attention the meetings with others as messages of full sense, even we not feel able to understand them immediately and properly.

I remember that on my first day of classes, in one of the guides that have been given to me after the inscription, was written with great emphasis “the present is now and the future starts right now”. In fact, if we don’t give up on life, our present, we are always starting and building the future. Every day that the Lord gives us is a blessing and a sign of faith in us.

In this community I have learned about the importance of building a life that is not a closed and intransigent life; I am learning about the importance of not get hide or behind the line where everything seemed safe or guarantee. Though, I am learning that the waiting and the patience will always be essentials requests and parts of our lives that need to be mature.

I entrust that my trip did not begin here, and it is not even to finish so somewhat here. In the true travels, in the great travel, I do not think that questions about what we do have considerable interest. We came, we are and we go. And then it makes sense to feel and realize in our lives the expression of the words of the Holy Books: in this world, we have not a stable address/ residence. The scenery of the world is passing, everything has a provisional dimension.

Heidegger once compared the journey of life to a person walking in a huge forest where i tis pitch dark, where it is raining and thundering, and one has a completely lost the way. There is a bolt of lightning and for an instant the way is clear. Then it is dark again. All one can and must do is keep going in the direction one saw illuminated by the lightening flash. This is our challenge and our opportunity: to keep going, to trust that God is faithful, to remember the way in the light of those key moments through which God intervenes in our lives.

Marisa Santos. CLM Portugal