The cheerful day has come – Christ has risen from the dead!
So rejoice and look to the future with trust. Let this special time be the time of the Faith and real meeting with the Risen Lord. May the joy of this wonderful event fill your hearts and brighten up every day of your life.
Acholi´s team
Dear friends,
I hope you are all well. Myself I am very fine here. Meanwhile i feel
at home and I am very happy to help the pupils by teaching
computer lessons.
Through help from Germany I got ten laptops. During day time
I am in the classroom and in the evenings I teach the sisters
and the people from the nearby village how to work with a computer.
Every day I am very busy and happy to give the people here
some perspectives for their future.
HAPPY EASTER and many greetings from Alenga in Uganda,
Elena!
This is what it means to be a missionary, be able to accept the changes with joy and hope wherever they take us and with the brothers and sister you find. And it’s much easier when I discover with enthusiasm, that also in Krakow I feel at home and like a family member. The community has welcomed me with love, and the meeting of my new companions for adventure has made only increase my desire to get to Africa. An international community, three Polish and one Spanish lady, speaking English and with the intention and desire to learn quickly the Acholi.
We are Monika, Ewa, Asia and Carmen, and despite the cold Polish winter there is a very warm feeling in our hearts and all willingness to walk this path together as a community. We don´t know if it is the desire that we all have but we have connected really good and the atmosphere we breathes is wonderful.
We continue with the training process trying to assimilate and internalize things as necessary as knowing who we are (Comboni Lay Missionaries), our history and what it means to integrate and enter in a different and unfamiliar culture, that we want to approach with the utmost respect.
I think we’re a team that is going to complement quite well, where there is much freshness and the joy of living the Gospel and the Mission, as Pope Francisco is reminding us and that we will try not to forget at any time in our experience in Gulu (Uganda).
It could not have been more positive beginning of this year with my family, the Comboni family, with the Polish laity and the Comboni Fathers in the community of Krakow. Together they manage to transmit the idea, that we all dream, of unity and enthusiasm for a common goal: to follow Jesus next to the last.
Carmen Aranda Arnao. CLM
Christmas is a presence, a presence of love. This is the style Jesus choose for his mission, this is the style we are also supposed to have in our life as missionaries…wherever we are! Since we came here in August 2011, we have always tried to be a presence that could arouse question marks in the life of the people; It is very hard to give answers because of the differences we have, but at least we can witness our style of being family, doctor, educator, father, mother, husband, wife and Christians.
This is the reason why we always refused to make very big projects, to build structures and so on.
Jesus didn’t come with money…He came poor; Jesus didn’t build temples…a part the temple of His body. Living here now for a quite long time we had the possibilities to compare our style with the style of some NGOs…for us, we don’t have any task to reach, we can just do our work and live our life as best as we can. If we should evaluate the life of Jesus considering the results He obtained, we could say that He failed. But we know that it is not like this.
In the same way, it is not good to see that in the hospital the nurses go on being lazy despite Maria Grazia tries to make them understand that they should be more committed for the good of the patients, or it is not rewarding when you fix a meeting for justice and peace commission and no one comes…but we are sure this is the right way to be present among these people.
So, wherever you are living in this moment, we wish you to be a presence of love for the people around you. Not minding about the results you will get, but trying only to give your best following the plans God prepared for you…in the same way Jesus tried (and succeeded) to do the will of the Father!
We need to feel presences of love around us, we are called to be presences of love among the people.
Happy Christmas from Aber (Uganda).
By Marco Piccione
In our parish there are four groups of CYMG. The abbreviation CYMG stands for Christian Youth Missionary Group. There are 150 young people attending the meetings. They want to act by spreading faith, hope and love among youth. They are involved in many different activities e.g. prayers, Bible sharing, seminars, workshops, debates, games, music, dance and drama, educational video shows, competitions and animations.
They participate in national and regional assemblies. During these meetings they can take part in competitions. This year they took part in National Congress of CYMG in Kampala. Twelve members and Fr. John Bosco competed against other groups from the whole country. They won and became the number one! It was the moment of joy and celebration both for them and the whole parish. Many people from other parts of the country didn’t expect the group from Karamoja to win because this region is considered to be undeveloped. It is also said to be the poorest in Uganda.
In fact, the young who wanted to go to Kampala had to face a lot of difficulties while organizing the journey. It was hard for most of them to cover the costs of transport. Almost all of them weren’t able to pay for it so they had to look for sponsors. I knew about their problems and thanks to the money which you sent to me, we could help them. They are very grateful for your support and generosity and they want to say thank you to all of you!
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By Danusia. Polish CLM in Uganda
