In mid-April 2020 we began a food collection campaign to face the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic contingency, to help the neediest families in El Paraiso and nearby villages in Xochimilco south of Mexico City, where the MCSPA has been working for more than three years.

We launched the campaign among friends, family and collaborators emphasizing what Pope Francis mentioned in St. Peter’s Basilica on March 27: “Like the disciples in the Gospel, we were surprised by unexpected and furious storm. We realized that we were in the same boat, all fragile and disoriented; but at the same time, important and necessary, all called to row together, all in need of mutual comfort”.

The response did not take long, those months we felt wrapped by so many generous hearts, full of hope that we wanted to bring to these families along with a bag of food and hygiene items. Then we became aware that the necessary information about Covid-19 that could have saved several lives had not reached these places.

Sadly this did not surprise us, in El Paraiso, live more than 3,000 migrant families from regions that have been devastated by poverty, insecurity or drug trafficking. Most of these families found nothing more than a piece of land “hidden from the authorities” where they live in wooden, plastic and cardboard rooms without the basic services to live with dignity, the rest is unaffordable for them.

These settlements are called “The invisibles”, they are families that do not appear in the statistics, that are not counted in the urban development plans, is social programs, etc. Officially they do not exist. Here we saw a clear manifestation of what Pope Francis talks about in the apostolic exhortation Evangelli Gaudium and which was already mentioned since 2007 in the V General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate:

“Today everything enters into the game of competitiveness and the law of the strongest. As a consequence of this situation, great masses of the population are excluded and marginalized: without work, without horizons, without a way out. The human being is considered in itself as a consumer good, to be used and then thrown away”.

Faced with this, in addition to the bags of food and hygiene items, we took on the task of bringing workshops about Covid-19, in addition to giving them masks and antibacterial gel necessary to follow the prevention protocols.

With this activities and by inviting people to help us to help these vulnerable families, they become less invisible. We are becoming the “voice of the voiceless” and we are turning the good news of the Gospel into concrete actions, not only the members of the MCSPA who are in charge of the activities, but all the people who have wanted to listen to the cry of these families and who want to be co-responsible with Christ in the construction of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Blanca Beltrán

MCSPA

As part of MCSPA safeguarding efforts, Fr. Wycliffe Ochieng is implementing a girls’ empowerment programme along the lake deanery (Lake zone of Turkana County).

This programme is meant to create awareness and prevent sexual abuse among teenage and adolescent girls from poor backgrounds.

Girls get trained on various topics and also receive dignity kits (pads, soap, lotion, mosquito nets, sandals among other items).

If you would like to support this programme you can do it through our website link.

Kindermissionswerk, Aachen, Germany, in collaboration with the Missionary Community of Saint Paul the Apostle (MCSPA) in Malawi, organized a two-week training in project management concept in order to equip members of various religious and non-religious organizations with essential skills required in project development, implementation and reporting.

Development projects are a necessity in uplifting the lives of the most deprived and marginalized. In this regard, Kindermissionwerk and the MCSPA deemed it an imperative to train various members of religious and non-religious communities who are engaged in different development projects.

The training was convened at Nkhotakota Safari Lodge, situated along Lake Malawi. The breeze from the lake and the tranquility of the site provided an ideal condition for the training. Fr. Manuel Hernandez of the MCSPA facilitated the training. His proficiency and wide experience in running projects were put at the disposal of everyone. Among those who attended the training were members of the Missionary Community of Saint Paul the Apostle, the Society of Montfort Missionaries, priests from the dioceses of Lilongwe and Karonga, Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sisters of the Holy Family of Bordeaux, Carmelite Sisters and a representative of Tikondane Organization. These are people running various projects in Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe and Malawi irrespectively. The training was divided into two phases of one week each. The first phase was conducted in December 2019 and the second phase in April 2021.

Speaking after the training, Fr. Bernard Maganga said, “This training has helped me know what matters most in writing a project, implementing and giving a reporting. The sessions have been very informative and inspiring. I am very grateful to Kindermissionswerk and the MCSPA in Malawi for considering Montfort Missionaries in this training. What I have learned about project management shall be of immense benefit to the whole Montfortian family and the people of God at large. Zikomo Kwambiri!!” In addition, Fr. Angel Valdivia said that the training will help in preparing sound projects, matching with the requirements of various donors.

Lastly, the training ended with a beautiful ceremony in which every participant was awarded with a certificate of participation.

By Innocent Letasi Phiri.

The Valencian Communication Agency Alberto Pla premiered on April 15th the documentary “I want to be like Genet” for the Valencian NGO Moss Solidaria and the Missionary Community of St. Paul the Apostle in Ethiopia.

The project of this documentary arose after many conversations in Ethiopia about the strength of Ethiopian women in the face of adversity. What today would be called their resilience.

In this documentary, Genet, a 22-year-old girl, tells her story of overcoming adversity and her vision of how some of us can bring out the best in others.
Mari Olcina, from the NGO Moss Solidaria, and Lourdes Larruy, from the Missionary Community of St. Paul the Apostle, present the activities carried out by MCSPA in the region of Muketuri, on the Ethiopian high plateau, together with the women who are at the forefront of each activity:

Enat, in charge of the educational classroom for children with disabilities and responsible for the program of care for children with malnutrition; Friwot, preschool teacher at the San José Mother and Child Centre; Yitayish, a former student at the “Maite Iglesias” students’ residence and Deribe, responsible for one of the children’s canteens in the area.

All of them women full of strength and with a great sense of solidarity, who, over the years, have grown and have become references of hope and strength for everyone.

Many volunteers, visitors and supporters have been moved by watching this documentary, recognizing familiar faces, and seeing the evolution of the projects in the 13 years since the MCSPA began its presence in Muketuri. 3,000 views in just one week of the documentary being available.

We hope that this documentary will contribute to the culture of solidarity proposed by Pope Francis in “Frattelli Tutti”, to put us in the place of those who have been born in a part of the planet where survival is a daily struggle.

We would like to thank all the people who have collaborated with their intellectual and economic means, volunteers from Spain, Chile, Mexico, and so many people from numerous places who have us in their prayers.

Lourdes Larruy, MCSPA.

The documentary is available at the following link: https://youtu.be/MPHNO9z8m9c

As every year at this time in the mission of Nariokotome in the north of Kenya, next to Lake Turkana, we usually pick different fruits, sometimes dates, sometimes custard apples, sometimes papayas or grapes and now it has been the time for oranges.

 They are not oranges of great quality but the children of this area, being the only oranges they have ever tasted in their lives, consider them to be the best in the world.

 We usually pick around 300 kg and apart from making a little marmalade to keep for the year, we give the rest to the schools so that they can taste the oranges that their parents or grandparents helped us plant 25 years ago.

Fr. Antonio Aguirre

Nariokotome Mission

The Apostolic Nuncio to Ethiopia, Archbishop Antonie Camilieri, visited the Apostolic Vicariate of Jima Bonga at the invitation of Rt. Rev. Markos Gebremedhin, the local bishop. The invitation was to officiate at the blessing of St. Paul’s Church in the compound of the Brothers of Charity in the town of Bonga.

Apart from the blessing of St. Paul’s Church, the Apostolic Nuncio also visited several communities in the Kaffa region to learn about the realities of the Catholic Church in this part of the country. At all his visits, we could see his joy in sharing a few days with so many faithful, who, with all their simplicity, offered him their heartfelt joy.

At his visit to Agaro Bushi, Archbishop Camilieri said that he had no words to express what he felt, that it had been the best welcome ever given to him in his life. He said that joy is a characteristic that good Christians should have and seeing them so happy, singing and dancing, left him in no doubt that that is what they are.

Sarai Zavala Acosta

MCSPA

Today, we celebrated the solemnity of Corpus Christi at our Mission in Nariokotome. Due to the ongoing public gathering restrictions because of the pandemic, only a small group of our members, young men and women associated with MCSPA and some of our workers attended the Mass.

After the Mass we had a procession to four different homes within the mission taking Christ to them. It has been almost three months that most of our parishioners have not been able to receive Christ. The families that we went to were delighted to have the Blessed Sacrament reach their homes and were very reverential during the benedictions.

May the body and blood of Christ keep us united and in peace.

Fr. Denis Odongo
(MCSPA)

In mid-April we started a campaign to handle the threat to the Covid-19 pandemic in the neighbourhoods near El Paraiso, in Mexico City. The MCSPA has been working in these neighbourhoods for over 3 years. To control the spread of the virus, we intended to conduct talks on hygiene and to distribute food and basic hygiene products the people to stay in their homes. The aim was to give 80 basic packages consisting of food and toiletries.

Two months has passed and with the help of many people – friends, our families, organisations, foundations, businesses and schools, we have been able to distribute 1,168 care packages to six villages in Tlahuac and five in Xochimilco. We are now waiting for more donations for the next round of distribution.

The safety protocols have become stricter as the days go by. We have the responsibility of protecting ourselves and also others from being infected by the virus. The hygiene talks on preventing the spread are very important in the villages which are further away and more isolated. The information that they normally receive is very vague. They may receive messages that increase paranoia or those that claim that the virus is not real and only an invention of the government!

We are still receiving food and toiletries. We want to see if it is possible to reach out to four more villages in the mountains of Xochimilco where there is serious food crisis since many families have lost their jobs and have no means to feed themselves. These are families who do not receive support from the government as they are so remote. We would like to give care packages to 400 families in these villages and 200 more to other families in Apodaca Nueva Leon, where the parish priest, Fr. Alejandro, friend of my family, has offered to help deliver the packages.

We would like to thank all who have been helping out to make all this possible. We are counting on your support to help the families who are suffering from the economic consequences of the lockdown and thus give them a breath of hope in these times of the crisis.

Blanca Beltrán

MCSPA

The situation that the whole world is going through right now can bring the best or the worst out of each one of us. It all depends on the path that we take.

It’s almost two weeks since we attended the last celebration of the mass at El Paraíso, the neighbourhood where the Missionary Community of Saint Paul the Apostle has been working for over three years at the request of the Bishop of Xochimilco, Rt. Rev. Andrés Vargas. El Paraíso lies inside a cultivated area called Chinampas in the district of Xochimilco. Since the contagion rate has apparently been slower here, Mexicans are still carrying on with their normal lives. Some of the families that live in El Paraíso told us that there is no way that they can stop going out of their homes to work because they would not be able to get their basic necessities. Most of them are street peddlers who cannot stay home and have to go out into the streets because “there is no other way”.

How can you ask a population that lives from hand-to-mouth to stay indoors? How can you ask them to wear a mask when there are none left although the government says that there is no scarcity?

Being aware of this latent need and with the support of Bishop Andrés and Caritas Diocesana from the Xochimilco Diocese, we have started a campaign to help those in need. We are giving to each family of the poorest communities in the cultivation area of Xochimilco, food and cleaning products that could last for a month.

We have been able to do this with 70 families thanks to donations from many friends and acquaintances. The beneficiaries were very thankful for the help since many of them did not have any more food to eat. It is important to understand that a lot of these families survive on temporary jobs: cleaning houses, selling things in the streets etc. and many of them have family members with chronic diseases or who are disabled in various ways.

We have seen that donors have answered with a great amount of generosity, sharing what they have even if they do not know how long this whole situation may last, and letting faith guide their actions with the hope that there will be enough for everybody. Pope Francis said that “we are all in the same boat”. We can honestly say that, now more than ever, this quote make so much sense: what affects one person affects all of us.

This Holy Week will be about us all walking alongside a suffering Christ, recognizing that our humanity is what brings us together, rather than our place of origin. It is our time to decide whether we want to come together, making sure that everybody has what is necessary to stay home and safe, or if we wish to be carried away by fear, protecting only what is ours because the world outside apparently does not affect us.

We will keep trying to provide more and more families with food, gloves, mouth covers and workshops to prevent the spread of the virus. It is our mission to be able to say “stay home and leave only for the essentials, with a face mask and gloves” but for that, we are in need of generous hearts.