Browse past isues
Help the mission
Support the mission
Get in touch
The kindness and compassion that Sr. Brenda Imdeke showed towards a woman, defaced by a terrible illness, conquered the hearts of Muslims in a little town in Kenya. Kind gestures have the power to make wonders.
Murder, rape, torture, pillage and displacement of a large number of civilians in Darfur, have turned this Sudanese region into a hell. Portuguese Comboni Missionary, Fr. Feliz da Costa, who has been working in Sudan for 20 years – the last three in Nyala – is a privileged witness of the crimes committed in the territory and of the people’s longing for peace.
A Korean-born Maryknoll priest recognized as an “honorary” Seon (Zen) Master maintains that Seon is a way of praying rather than a religion, and Jesus was a “grand Seon master.” According to Father Kim Alfonso Hak-boum, who has been learning and practicing Seon meditation in Japan and Korea since the mid-1990s, Seon can also be an effective tool for inculturation and interreligious dialogue.
“Islam transformed the life of Charles de Foucauld,” Brother Ventura said. His own, no doubt, equally has been deeply affected by his long sojourn in the prayerful isolated Christian enclave in the middle of the Algerian desert, a sort of cathedral shaped by Nature.
In Seongnam, a commuter community close to Seoul, the South Korean capital, Fr. Vincenzo Bordo is a very well-known figure. Indeed, it is not easy not to know him, because he is a sort of a “street missionary.” His goal: to feed the hoboes, drunkards, ex-cons, the poor and elderly, the mental cases, the disabled – all of those who have no permanent place of their own and are “street people.”
Sr. Mary Batchelor celebrated 60 years of religious life, 60 years dedicated to God and to the education of thousands of young people in Australia and Africa. Her students in Mapuordit, Southern Sudan, call her Mary, our diamond.
Filipino missionary Bro. Simplicio Buena Soliven has been working in Marsabit, a mission in the Eastern Province of Kenya, 250 km from Ethiopia, since last year. As a social minister, he is happy to share his faith, talents and knowledge with the Kenyan people, especially prisoners and youth. He is doing exactly what he wanted. And says: “I am in love with Kenya.”
Death of parents, poverty, alcoholism, domestic violence, family breakdown and lack of love push children to the streets. It is estimated that there are over 60,000 street children in Nairobi. The Koinonia community has a few rescue centers for them where, from April up to December, they learn to live as a family and prepare to be welcomed in one of their houses in January of the following year. One of them is in Kibera slum.
Comboni Missionary Father Renato Kizito Sesana is a communicator. He has edited two magazines, set up a radio station, published a few books and has been collaborating with various publications, radios and televisions. Recently, he became a blogger. But all these activities have always coexisted with field work. His involvement with the media goes hand-in-hand with the causes to which he has been dedicating his life, especially the youth and the street children. His ultimate aim is to make the Gospel relevant in the different circumstances of life.
Four Comboni Missionaries and a lay person share their lives with the 120,000 poverty-stricken Korogocho slum dwellers and, with them, breathe daily the foul stench of Nairobi’s dumping site. But, they prefer to stress how they have been personally enriched by the experience.
