You have helped us to grow
The running of the school in Gumo needs close collaboration between the principal, the teachers, the children and the parents. In the background, Sr. Margaret Kibola From Sr. Margaret Kibola, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso You have helped us to grow” This powerful statement was cited by our first batch of 2020 Junior High at St. Charles Lwanga Roman Catholic School, expressing their gratitude to all they felt I was to them as pupils in the school. They were under our care for 11 years: 2 years of kindergarten, 6 years of primary and 3 years of Junior High School. This group has successfully finished their Senior High School last year 2023 and are pursuing their tertiary education. I was a missionary in Ghana for 18 years. I taught as a teacher in Sorugu Primary School for 5 years and was headteacher at St. Charles Lwanga for 13 years.…
“Sharing the path”
Young Tunisian girls and French Scouts with Sr. Speciosa (between the girls and the Scouts) and Sr. Rekha, a Missionary of the Immaculate on the far right. From our Sr. Spéciosa Mukagatare, Director of Caritas Tunisia “Sharing the path,” a place of collaboration and growth It was Palm Sunday, just after the celebration ushering Christians into Holy Week, while believers of Islam were halfway through the holy month of Ramadan. As a Lenten effort, the faithful of St Cyprien de la Marsa had collected non-perishable food items over the weeks, thinking of the poorer families in our working-class neighborhoods. The priest, Jawad Alamad, then proposed sending the young scouts on a mission to distribute to needy families the food collected during the Sundays of Lent. He contacted Caritas Tunisia to direct these young scouts towards the most needy families. The Caritas Tunisia team responsible for listening and…
Faith leaders invite you to the Season of Creation
Here is a link to the video of Faith Leaders inviting you to the Season of Creation 2024
Season of Creation Resources
Here is the link to the website with all the resources for the preparation and implementation of the Season of Creation activities: promotional, liturgical, etc… Deepen your Season of Creation experience by taking advantage of these free resources. Your event will have a bigger impact if the community is engaged and inspired. We invite you to use these resources to share the word with your church, invite the bishop or other regional authority to join the celebration, and even take the word to audiences outside your church by reaching local news outlets. Please feel free to use and adapt these materials any way that suits you. Resources
The art of collaboration
From Sr. Maite Oiartzun – Nshimirimana, Burundi Based on my experience, collaboration is an art. In the Trinity, source of inspiration and creativity, we are invited to contemplate the collaboration between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The bond that unites them is Love: “As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my Love… so that you bear fruit and your fruit endures.” John 15:9-16 Collaboration solely focused on human strengths is faced with fatigue, discouragement and sometimes the temptation to resign because collaboration can become a difficult mission. To persevere, I need to be rooted in the collaboration that Jesus of Nazareth developed with the disciples and with all of Creation. I note that three conditions are important for good collaboration: having a common objective, personal and group motivation and the deep desire to engage in a dynamic of giving…
The opening of a new foundation: The Ouarzazate community in Morocco
Sr. Maria Carmen Ocón Moreno, Sr. Rehema Toiwoki Kimesera, Sr Angela Kapitingana and Sr Maria Julia Alonso Martinez From Sr. Rehema Toiwoki Kimesera and Sr. Maria Carmen Ocón Moreno We are delighted to share with you that the official opening of the Ouarzazate community took place on Sunday 14 July. The ceremony took place in the only church that exists, St. Therese which is attached to the sister’s house. The Eucharistic celebration was presided over by Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero and, curiously, it was the only time since we have been here that there were no people other than the sisters, in this case our Congregational Leader, Sr Angela Kapitingana and Sr Maria Julia Alonso Martinez representing the NOUA leadership team and ourselves. It was probably a sign of how we are called to live our missionary presence in this place, with discretion and simplicity, but with great…
Collaboration with other Congregations
Ms. Marina van Dalen, coordinator of The Netherlands sisters, reports on the collaboration in the “Worldhouse” in Boxtel Since a few years we have several Medical Mission Sisters (MMS) living in our care home “the Worldhouse” and in the adjoining apartments of the Molenhof. This year they are 12 MMS Sisters and thus more numerous than we are, as three Sisters passed away in 2024 and only nine MSOLA are left. From the beginning we had a good working relationship with them. Our lay workers also take care of the MMS sharing in the cost of course. This is also to our advantage; we can keep our staff because of this collaboration. We also take care of 2 Assumptionist Fathers with the same conditions. Over the years we got closer with each other and got to know one another better. The MMS are also missionaries and many…
“House of Generosity”
For Sr. Valérie Kaboré, Hydra Parmentier, Algeria, collaboration takes the form of mutual aid, solidarity, partnership… I would like to share with you my experience at a day care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related illnesses and their family caregivers. It is a work of the Archdiocese of Algiers which began in 2015. I joined the team in June 2019 and have taken charge of its coordination since 2020. It is the only center of its kind in all of Algeria. The small team is made up of a cook, a speech therapist, a psychologist and three social care assistants. We welcome sick people, members of their families and occasional volunteers during the day. We also open our doors to interns, psychomotor therapists or speech therapists and everyone else. Finally, we have a partnership with health professionals such as doctors (geriatrician-neurologist-psychiatrist), physiotherapists, associations, professionals from other professions…
The history of the Mijikenda tribes, Kenya
“It is the study of the language that will help you to understand the people with whom you relate. We need to make ourselves similar to them, by adopting their external way of life, their clothes, their food, their nomadic life, their language; by being in a word, all things to all people to win them to Jesus Christ. Eat their food, learn their language and dress like them.” Words of Cardinal Lavigerie the founder of the Missionaries of Africa and the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa. From our Sister Xaverine Mukatabaza from the Malindi community in Kenya Dear Sisters, Brothers and Friends, Greetings of peace. It is my joy to share with you a bit of the history of Mijikenda tribes found along the coast of Kenya. This is a place of first evangelization. The Muslims are more numerous than Christians. There is also…
Meeting on trafficking in Nouakchott
On Saturday June 8, in Nouakchott, we invited some of our friends, collaborators and parishioners to our community to participate in a meeting to share and raise awareness on migration and human trafficking. We were 22 participants. There were also 17 children who were present with their parents and one of our parishioners took care of them with games and songs. We had two resource persons: Ms. Fofana Dikel, migration project manager at Caritas Mauritania, spoke to us about migration, starting by defining this word, giving the different types of migration and ending with some concrete examples of what is experienced in Mauritania and all the dangers of illegal immigration. Our Sr. Begoña Iñarra, who intervened by Zoom from Spain, highlighted the general aspects of human trafficking: how to detect possible victims of trafficking, how to act towards them, what organizations work against trafficking in the destination…