To carve is to think with the heart and speak with the hands. I admit that it is an exercise resulting in a lot of sweat …
But this exercise shows how vital it is to go to the end of life just as the sculptor takes his time to go to the end and give life to his work.
I was born in 1934 in Dordogne. In July 1956, I took my first steps in the congregation of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa. I was sent to Africa where I had different activities. Since I am retired, I can practice the art of sculpture.
In my missionary life, I was able to fulfill several services, thanks to my self-taught training;it is surely a gift from heaven, the greatest gift. Thus I was able to respond to various calls in my religious family.
In Algeria, I gave a home economics course to girls I worked with them in the embroidery workshop. I participated in a work of education and accompaniment in the City of abandoned children in Algiers. At Ben Aknoun hospital, I shared my gifts in the service of occupational therapy and in recreation animation.
After this time in Algiers, I left for six years in France, which allowed me to be a family worker in the Maghreb environment.
Then I was sent to Tunisia. There I worked with one of our sisters, Kordula, in an education office. This was to train educators of young children in the practice of manual work.
What struck me the most in my missionary religious life was being able to share my life with people who had a belief and culture different from my own. I experienced the joy of giving and receiving which, for me are inseparable; there is no “one direction only” in sharing!
Now, having reached retirement age, I am in France. I live here my religious missionary commitment differently but just as intensely. The flame inside me has not wavered!
I live in interiority, a certain solitude that I like. This may seem paradoxical, but no. A certain solitude is necessary to draw from it the interiority which accompanies our action.
Sister Magali Thomasset, community Sceaux, France
