Mexico – Page 9 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

What are the Comboni Lay Missionaries engaged in?

6 June, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

The answer is a bit complex, for now I will just tell you what Caro and Mine (two CLM) do in the mountains of Guerrero, in Na’Savi culture, officially known as Mixteca.

They are located in the village of Huexoapa, in the municipality of Metlatónoc, and the parish of San Miguel Archangel, Diocese of Tlapa. In Huexoapa live about 200 families, their language is tu’un savi or Mixteca, although some also speak Spanish.

The CLM have a missionary presence in this town for six years, eight have been the missionaries who have served in this mission, in different periods. Each has shared part of their being, their knowledge, their faith with the people and in turn, the people with them.

Caro came to this mission in September 2014 and Minerva in February 2015 to take over the companions who were there. God willing, they will be for three years in this town. Although the time they have there is not enough to know and understand all the wealth and weaknesses of the culture they have tried to assimilate what it has been possible for them, feeling part of the people, enjoying and appreciating the good in it, and contributing to build a better place, each from their skills and knowledge.

Caro offers evening classes remedial education, for the moment 19 children of various grade levels are involved, and she take care of them at different times. The support is reduced only to read (12 children) and mathematics (7 children) primary level. It is very probable that the number of children increases, as more and more people are interested and come to her asking her to “help them to study.” Minerva teaches knitting and sewing, but now informally, since she just came to the place, the ladies are just beginning to learn about their work, but those who have already approached have shown great interest, and not only ladies but also some of the young, who learn very easily.

Other activities they perform, is the accompaniment of children, youth and adults participating in some pastoral activities, such as support for the three catechists of the community in the preparation of the catechism for confirmation, first communion and presented sacramental talks; weekly meeting with young people in which human and Christian formation occurs; formation in values and catechesis to children; Holy Hour on Thursdays; support in the preparation of the Liturgy of the Word to the young person who is going to chair, or in the organization of the liturgy when they have Eucharist, which is most of the times. They are also having guitar lessons, and have a quasi choir, two mandolins, a tambourine, three guitarists (two women and a man), and two more persons interested, but they have failed to learn because of lack of instrument, although all are just learning, they are encourage to play some songs at Mass or at the Liturgy of the Word.

Also they spend one day a week to visit families so we can know them more closely, some of the time accompanied by a young or a child from the community that helps as a translator, since they do not speak the local language, and not all families speaks Spanish. They are striving to learn, both in daily life, trying to memorize the words that people taught, and in the hours they devote to study, with the help of a young lady from the village.

They are also trying to cultivate a small orchard, on the back yard that is part of the house that the community gives them to live. For this, as for other activities that they perform as well as the needs that are presented to them, they have the support of the people involved in the above activities and who do willingly.

Caro and Mine know that work is hard and sometimes things do not go as they wanted. Although there are many the signs of life found in this culture, there are also present signs of death, coupled with this their personal limitations and defects, however they know that “the works of God are born and grow at the foot of the Cross” (St. Daniel Comboni).

Being with this people they realize that they receive more than they give, but I will speak on that subject later.

I conclude making you an invitation to join in the building of the Kingdom of God, from what you feel called to provide: counseling, financial support, prayer, giving part of your time or giving your life to the service of the mission.

“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” We have lack of you!

CLM Mexico

Mission-field Metlatónoc, Mexico 2015

17 May, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

This year 2015, the mission team have consisted of ten people, we went on Friday March 27 to Sunday April 5 to six communities in the mountains of Guerrero, all of them belongs to the parish of Metlatónoc: Llano del Nopal, Cocuilotlatzala, Buenavista, and San Pedro and San Pablo Atzompa. Carolina, who is on a mission permanently, participated accompanying the community of San Juan Huexoapa and Minerva (who is on community experience with Caro) went to El Paraiso.

Besides this week celebrations, we visit the families and share their joys and sorrows, leaned with alternative medicine in the community of Llano del Nopal. There was no lack of gathering with football matches or trips to the river, enthusiasm and youth participation, tolerance and support of the elderly, and the joy of children painting and sharing the material we prepared for them.

It was a great experience of openness, respect, teamwork, dialogue. A great moment to be available to the meeting and knowledge of other ways to celebrate Easter.

And the opportunity to be attentive and listen to what God wants to say to each one of us in a particular way, but also to his “Church” through this simple Church that allowed us to accompany and enrich each other.

We thank God for this beautiful experience and also for all the people who went to mission in different parts of Mexico, all the families of the communities that welcomed us, especially those who treated us with love, for all the Comboni family.

We share with you the celebrations and gatherings of this week in images.

CLM Mexico

Missionary CLM Meeting in Mexico – March 2015

14 May, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

With God’s grace the monthly meeting of the Mexican CLM took place, where we had a great gathering, laugh, sing, prayer. We pray the Holy Hour, have prayer of Lauds and participate in the Eucharist.

The focus was place on preparing the group to participate in the Easter mission field to Guerrero, where there is permanent MCCJ presence and also the CLM, with the presence of Carolina Carreon and Minerva Juarez in the community of San Juan Huexoapa. This mission is in the Diocese of Tlapa in Guerrero, in the parish of Metlatónoc. Father Gabriel talked about the willingness and openness with which the missionary must prepare, Eric told us about the customs and traditions of the people na saavi, Manuelita told us about the history of our permanent mission house, and Ramon shared with us his experience in mission field last year that his first time.

With great enthusiasm, we continue forward with the invitation to all who have the concern to be part of this project of the Comboni Lay Missionaries. Continuing with the ideal of St. Daniel Comboni.

Thousand lives for the mission.

CLM Mexico

From Chiapas

16 February, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

Hello friends! Good day to all of you! From this chosen people of God, I greet you with a big hug and joy in my heart. I wish each and every one of you buddies and brothers in Christ and St. Daniel Comboni to be well physically and spiritually and enjoying the life that gives us our Father in heaven every day.

After my training in community experience as CLM, I find myself missioning in Chiapas. Here I am very well, working in the San Carlos Hospital. I am living a new missionary experience and starting this great mission that Christ is entrusting me among these indigenous peoples. The parish have 80 communities, but we attend more than a 100, walking up 15 hours or more to come to our Hospital of San Carlos, because sometimes, in other hospitals or health centers they do not want to attend because they do not understand them. We have six main dialects, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, Tzotzil, Ladino, chol, but the predominant are Tzeltal and Tzotzil.

It is a great missionary work and a great humanitarian work directed by the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Padua for over 30 years. They have a nursing school within the hospital and that is where we train the indigenous people as nurses. Then, they work in the hospital attending their own people. They are who translate us. Here, patients feel at home and family, and although they have to pay recovery fees, they prefer this hospital. By this, is being met what St. Daniel Comboni prophesied in his Plan “Save Indigenous with Indigenous”. My memories and prayer for everyone. We are united in our fellowship with our heart and our missionary spirit, love you all and wish you the best in your missionary life. Greetings and a hug to all.

Your little friend and sister: ISA. 😉

Experience in Mozambique

5 January, 2015 by Alberto de la Portilla

Beloved Missionary Family:

In the joy of receiving the Baby Jesus in our hearts transforming everything that we can not do by ourselves and hurt us, having closed our calendar year in harmony with ourselves and our brothers. I start this new year sharing with you what I’ve lived in this mission until today.

I end this 2014, making community with the Comboni Lay Missionaries, Flávio Schmidt (Brazilian) and Márcia Costa (Portuguese), and joining forces with the Mozambican CLM in formation Francisco and Margarida better known as marriage Martinho, Ancha (all three are teachers) Zeferino (young from the community); working in harmony with the missionary team of the Comboni Missionaries (Fathers and Brothers) and the Comboni Sisters, in the parish of Carapira.

As relates to me, I do what it takes to stay well in the human, spiritual and mental. Even with the care I take, I do not escaped common diseases of this area. I have had my moments of spiritual weariness for neglecting my personal prayer however; I try to take it up again, to achieve inner peace. In relation to the study, the local language for me has been a limiting factor because I cannot take the time and concentration to study, most of the time people speak Portuguese. Personally, I feel blessed by God for allowing me and entrust this mission where by my presence and contributions will give the message that God has for this people leaving in the heart of the people I meet every day.

The community for me has been the home that we are built, we have a community day a week distributed as follows: 1st retreat, 2nd free, 3rd issue of training, 4th evaluation and when there is a 5th free. We recognize that it is not always easy. We are limited in our communication and integration for teamwork; important to work together as entrusted to us. We centralize our gaze on the person of Christ, our engine, our source for announcing “The Joy of Gospel”. Going through times of trial where each of us show our strengths and our limits. Pooling areas for improvement has been a way in which we manage to restore dialogue when we’ve moved away from each other, we’ve managed to walk together in this time, making in the best possible way our work and commitments. We have gone through different stages where we have learned to respect, act in solidarity and support us in what we are required or permitted, in times of illness, home activities, needs work, apostolate in the parish, days off, etc.

The CML in formation have been an important support in putting me on my missionary walk, in tune with the reality of the community that frequently, naked eye, is not seen. It is a challenge for me to be responsible in forming them, following a proposal made by international committee. We developed a training plan that meets the needs of the group and thus get to be in tune with the CLM of the world. With them, we make Morning Prayer Tuesday and Thursday one week in each house. They have participated in our annual meeting enriching the results we achieve because they always made their contributions to decision making. We did some missionary animation in the Comboni parishes and Women’s School of Nacala where the Comboni Sisters work, we find a group of Lay accompanying the sisters in Nampula; in some of the animations we put some religious accessories on sale to raise funds for the realization of our missionary work.

We had a missionary week in the community of Namajuba. We met another reality as it is an area where they are exploiting minerals from the earth and also some of the problems of our community (water, schools, land) are repeated and especially forming a good team with two young students of the ISC who joined the CLM group.

In the school, my work has been in accordance with what it is needed. Mainly in the Secretariat, from there you can do any work: cleaning at different school locations, sales, inventories, operating manuals, counseling and vocational guidance to students, etc. Always in coordination with the management, administration, pedagogical and head of boarding school; with the arrival of two workers, who sends the district, has boosted the tasks.

I am part of the vocational parish team with Brother Luis (Ita), Sister Lily (Mex) and in her absence Sister Maria Pia (Ita) joined. We organize monthly retreats with young people who want to have a vocational guidance to enter the seminary or religious congregations. It has been a missionary space I’ve always liked to work.

It was a jubilee year full of parties, starting with the opening of the 150th anniversary of the Comboni´s plan. We had our bimonthly meetings where we used the method see-judge-act to analyze the reality of our mission. Continuing with the diaconal ordination of MCCJ José Alberto and Abelino Diocesan, and also had their priestly ordination in May and December I participate in both of them. The perpetual vows of Sister Lily, the 50th anniversary of Carapira Parish, the Comboni assembly, the assembly the Comboni Missionary Sisters celebrating its 60 years in Mozambique. Celebrations of the Sacred Heart and St. Daniel Comboni, the 50 years of the School Carapira Industries, farewells, welcome and anniversaries.

In the village of Carapira I always learn something new: their patience and availability committed me every day to give my best in performing any activity. It is not easy because I do not know the language, but training the leaders, in each of the different ministries, has being our main activity. All missionary experiences that I lived in Mexico have served me very much, allowing me to share what I have with respect for what they have, without imposing the way to live the faith, but enriching. We have great challenges as a missionary team in this sharing and receiving.

I sincerely appreciate your help and cooperation. We will keep in touch, united in prayer for the good of the mission, your Sister in Christ Missionary Beatriz CLM

P.D Jesus Missionary, who was born to show us with simplicity to be a Human Being in the Love of God, grant us the graces we need for this 2015.