Comboni Lay Missionaries

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Mexico

Children and poor rejoice in my presence

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Lety LMC

Testimony of Leticia Ordoñez Bañales

Originally from Guadalajara, Mexico, this Comboni Lay Missionary (CLM) decided to accompany the Catholic community of Rondos, a small town located on the heights of the province of Lauricocha, in the department of Huanuco, since November 2011. She ends her commitment this year and now tells us about her experience.

My vocation began when I was 16; I attend a Mass of missionary sending. The parish organized the event to send a Comboni priest who was leaving for Africa. I felt the call of God and in 1988 and I joint the religious Missionaries sisters of Guadalupe. However, I didn´t feel my vocation realizes and in 1999 I retired to participate in the mission fields in Guatemala with the Episcopal Pontifical Mission Societies of Mexico (SSMO) until 2000.

In 2001 I joined the CLM while working in the parish notary of Saints Crispin and Crispiniano of Guadalajara. In 2004, I had to drop everything and travel to Mexico FD to participate in an experience of community formation with other Comboni Lay Missionaries.

I first came to Peru with Rocío Quintero, my Mexican partner, in 2005. We were both sent to Huarin, in the Sierra de Huanuco. Salome Flores, a Peruvian lay, joined us and accompanied us for a year. Rocío had to return to Mexico after the second year. The third year came the Peruvian laities Doris Pereira and Enrique Garcia. I returned to my country and between 2009-2011 participated, along with Mexican CLM Marcela Alanis and Olivia Ayala, of the new mission in Metlatonoc in the state of Guerrero.

Currently, Rondos is the town where I perform my mission since November 2011. When I arrived, I found again Rocío. Together we carry out the work with the “mamitas” and an education program for the children of the town. We give religion classes in primary schools and biblical catechesis for children and youth. We keep the library open during the summer months and organize “useful vacation” workshops for students. Besides, we have training at the School of Mothers and prepare candidates for the sacraments. Especially, we encourage couples to marry in church, but only there was a marriage in 2013. The patron saint fiestas are times of increased demand for sacraments. We always consider on our agenda visiting the sick and helping the poor and vulnerable elderly.

This second experience in Peru has been characterized by the loneliness that many times I have lived. After six months Rocío had to return to Mexico. After a while came Daniel, a Peruvian CLM, with a great desire to work and a great friend of children. But he only remained seven months. The time he was, we make a great teamwork. Last year they sent Sharliman, a Brazilian CLM, who could not get used to the altitude of 3650 m and had to ask to be transferred to Arequipa one month after reaching Rondos. However, the whole time I was alone, God and Mary have been my company.

I confess you that many times I say to God: “What do I do here alone?” And the answer comes from children who knock on the door to ask me something; mamitas who ask me “How are you?”; young people who say, “I have come to visit you”; the sick and abandoned that rejoice in my presence. The school kids exclaim with joy sister Lety! Behold my reason for being present among them! You may wonder why I did not stay? Because I need my blood family and they also need me. In addition Rondos has the right that YOU take my place.

Magazine “Missión Sin Fronteras”

Great Missionary “Kermes”

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KermeseOn October 12 the CLM of Mexico joins the great feast of the Comboni Family celebrating our founder and guide: St. Daniel Comboni. The priests, brothers, sisters, laity and a large number of benefactors and friends live a great missionary kermes. The activities began very early preparing the place with much enthusiasm. Both breakfast and lunch we were able to taste several Mexican dishes and some desserts; there were even international cuisine, represented by sushi and kimbap. In the area of ​​ amusement we have the raffle (it’s always fun to know what you’re going to win), inflatable, civil registration and the big auction that were a success. By the way, we were in charge of the chopped fruit.

Amid such missionary environment, could not miss the sacrament of reconciliation, and to celebrate with a flourish, our Holy Eucharist, which was enlivened by Comboni´s and missionaries songs. The most important thing we must remember that it’s all for a great cause: THE MISSIONS. We thank everyone who supported this noble work either selling, consuming or simply by their presence and prayer, as their bit was definitely necessary and essential to accomplish our great event. May God continue to bless us all and with the guidance and strength of St. Daniel Comboni we move on.

José Luis Hernández (CLM, México).

Mission in Guerrero (Mexico)

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CarolinaOctober 15th, 2014, a month after the departure of Carolina Carreón Martinez to her destination in Mission where she took a commitment to work for 3 years in the mountains of Guerrero. In this community, where there is the presence of the Comboni Fathers, among Mixtec indigenous peoples (NAU SAVIL); place where they missed the presence of Lay Missionaries since previously they had been accompanied by the CLM Marcela Angeles, Olivia, Lety, Rosario and Alma.
Carolina, who said yes to God’s call to present Its Kingdom, revealing His love for humanity, trust and respect for indigenous peoples so that they become the protagonists of their own liberation. She counts on the support and prayer of the Comboni Lay Missionaries Group to where she belongs to.
Regards

Adriana M Salcedo Cabello

Service

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Martha

Hello everyone. I am Martha, yes, a little similar to that of the Gospel, which had many things to concern and is disturbed knowing that only one is needed. I am originally from the state of Puebla, Pue., Mexico. There, I have a very beautiful family consisting of my parents, Martha and Fermin, four sisters and three brothers and almost twenty nephews. I am 33 years old and I work in the city of Mexico, in the education sector. I love languages, play basketball; my favorite music is the one where the guitar sounds (mariachis, trova, trios, bachata, street musicians, ranchera).

The reason for this message is for you to know a little about myself and share my joy at the appointment that I received last September 14 to assist the missions in coordinating the Comboni Lay Missionaries of Mexico. I consider the Comboni family as my spiritual family even I do not know everyone personally, it’s nice to know that my family is very large and we are united in the love of Christ and St. Daniel Comboni missionaries.

I thank God for this call to service and I join you in praying for unity in our missionary family. I would like to present the names of the team members who will serve the CLM of Mexico.

  • General Coordinator. CLM. Martha Morales Cruz
  • Ministry of Economy. CLM. Adriana Margarita Salcedo Cabello
  • Secretary of Education. CLM. Ma. Teresa Moreno García
  • Secretary of missionary animation. CLM. Manuela Valladares Esquivel

 

Martha Martha

Here I share two photos. On the left, I am on the mission field in the mountains of Guerrero, in the community of Buenavista, with Adomid a na savi smiling child. And on the right, on my last birthday with four of my nephews: Luz, María José, Cuauhtémoc and Guadalupe.

Martha Morales

CLM serving the people in the mission

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IsabelHello there! My name is Ma. Isabel Barbosa Buenrostro, I have 39, I’m CLM “Comboni Lay Missionary” and I am also “Surgeon and Obstetrician.” I was born in a small town in the State of Jalisco in the country of Mexico, my town is called Santa Cruz de las Flores, belongs to the municipality of San Martín Hidalgo and is 2 hours from the city of Guadalajara. I studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Guadalajara.

I met the Comboni Missionary Sisters in late 2004, in 2005 I joined their congregation, first they sent me to my first missionary experience to Ecuador, where I spent the months of February and March, accompanying the Comboni Family in communities of Afro-Ecuadorian and Indigenous, that’s where I began to understand the mission and I realized the great thirst for God that have our sister nations, as they are very abandoned and discriminated, suffer from great material poverty but are rich in values ​​and traditions that they still retained. I studied one year of formation in the postulancy, but in 2006 I left the Congregation of the Comboni Missionary Sisters since religious discipline limited me to work as I wanted my profession, and it was that I discovered the Comboni Lay Missionaries and saw that there was the place I wanted to practice medicine to the poor and to fully realize my missionary vocation.

My work with the sick is one of my greatest passions, because that’s where I see the face of Christ and where I found great satisfaction and human growth to be an instrument of God helping to heal bodies and souls… I heard the call of God upon my 20 anniversary, I was in discernment few years in the Religious Congregation of Active Living “Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus”, but since I started working at my social service as a doctor in rural villages, I discovered that my vocation was purely missioner. And here I am, I go ahead cultivating and fighting for my vocation. Because it is the biggest and most wonderful gift that God has given me and that’s where I see my true and complete fulfillment as a human being, I think the mission to which I was sent to this world, is to go to the chosen people of God, especially the poorest and most abandoned. For as St. Daniel Comboni, I feel I must devote my life to serve my brothers as Lay Missionary Doctor.

Since I met the Comboni Family, everything has been very nice, God has given me the opportunity to do some short missions, especially as a volunteer; after my first missionary experience in Ecuador in 2005 and leaving the Postulancy in 2006, I’ve done mission fields: In 2006 in the Andean highlands of Peru, in Huancayoc, Waras Region with Quechua indigenous; in 2010 in the Forest of Ecuador in Pambilar, Esmeraldas Province, with indigenous Awás; in Guatemala in 2013 at the Parish of the Comboni Clinic in San Luis Peten, with indigenous Quec”Chis.

And, in recent times, I have concluded my Community Experience and Missionary Training as CLM, as it is part of our statutes for the CLM to be form eight months intensively and prepare for mission Ad Gentes for a minimum of 3 years. This training has be performed together with my colleague Carolina; the first 3 months in the State of Guerrero, Mexico, in Metlatónoc Mountains, where we have a mission place as CLM with the Comboni Missionaries, is the region of Mixtec indigenous communities. It really has been a strong and very special time; we shared the mission in the communities of Huexoapa, Atzompa and Cocuilotlazala. Here we perform religious and social pastoral, especially caring for the sick. For as Laity, we combine our professional, family, social, spiritual and religious life, that’s the beauty of the Lay Vocation. CLM in our profession we can support missions in different social projects. The other 5 months, from February to Julio we have been studying in Mexico City, where we stayed at the Seminary of the Comboni Missionaries, hence we get different workshops, as a part of our professional studies, we must receive religious, spiritual and human preparation for been good missionaries.

Well, what I’ve learned in this time is that: All mankind are the family of God, we have a common Father and all nations, peoples and cultures of the world are brothers and sisters. Depending on the context where we were born and raised, we all have knowledge and experience of God, because God has been planting the seeds of His Word in the history of all peoples. I learned that our Catholic Church is Universal and we must also be brothers of all religions and especially we must respect and preserve the cultures of our indigenous peoples, Afro-Americans and African. As missionaries we shall accompany them, walk with them, to live our faith and share life with them; and work with them to recover their dignity as children of God and responsibility for their own human development. That’s the Comboni charism that showed us our founder St. Daniel Comboni. Because the message of the Good News that Jesus came to bring us to the earth and we still screaming every day through His Word, the events of the world and the beauty of nature and of life itself, is to be happy on this earth and then the happiness will reach its fulfillment in eternal life. Prayer and spiritual life is our greatest food as missionaries. The Comboni Family have celebrated for thanksgiving to God, the conclusion of our training experience on July 6, 2014, in the Chapel of the Comboni Seminary in Mexico City, where the CLM Advisor of Mexico (P. Laureano Rojo), the Comboni Provincial of Mexico and the Fathers Formators of the Seminary, presided the SENDING MISSIONARY MASS as Comboni Lay Missionaries: Ma Isabel Buenrostro and Carolina Carreon. God with the power of his Holy Spirit, continue to give us his peace and light to all his children, so that everyone become missionaries, and announce and make life the teachings of Jesus Christ.