Winter 2011 - SSpS Magazine

Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters SSpS Mission Winter 2011

Called by the Spirit ~ Embracing the World IN THIS ISSUE: SSpS Presence in Bolivia In Romania with Sr. Anahi Tertianship in Australia News Notes

Sr. Maximiliana Sojka with a group of young people

SSpS Mission Magazine

Our presence in this country began 25 years ago in Cochabamba. The Sisters have now come to the highlands of La Paz, 4000 meters above sea level, next to the Aymara people near the beautiful and famous Lake Titicaca. The climate in this area includes plenty of sunshine as well as extreme cold at the same time. The people and the Sisters live very simply and must face the difficulties brought on by the cold weather. Our missionary work in the highlands is mostly with women. From the beginning our work has been to promote education for young women and young mothers. We also work with catechists in different highland communities and promote leadership among the Aymara people.

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In Tapacari Village, situated between the mountains of Cochabamba, is also a group of brave SSpS working in a boarding school for children 10 to 17 who come from more than 42 communities in remote and very poor Tapacari. These young people would otherwise not have access to education. More than 250 young boys and girls live at the Monsignor Angel Gelmi boarding school where they are recipients of the generosity and good hearts of the Sisters as well as other supporters. There are volunteers who give their service a few months of the year, some days, some weeks, to assist with the work of the institution. They are generous people in solidarity with the needy children and young people.

Even if their own experience with hardship and difficulties is very small, they are grateful to be able to provide support because they know that nothing is easy.

Young Aymaran women We are also present in Cochabamba where the people are very poor and many families come from different parts of the country to seek better living conditions. They live in houses without water and minimal living conditions. Many children are in poor health and have little schooling. SSpS Sisters work with programs for children providing such things as academic support and alternative medicine. They are treated with attention and love from the Sisters who live in this community.

The children’s program includes more than 200 participants between 6 and 15 years of age. The Sisters will accompany them with support throughout their school years and help promote good health for them and their mothers.

The mothers also attend Sr. Teresita Gestner’s classes in crafts, painting, textiles, etc.

Children dancing to Aymara Bolivian music

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SSpS Mission Magazine Sr. Jordana Przybyl with women of the neighborhood

while others lend support through their generosity and good hearts. We are all united in solidarity with the cause to fight poverty and misery. Thus all of our brothers and sisters can live life with more dignity.

Sincerely, we thank you all for what you have shared with the poorest of society.

SSpS Sisters in the Province of Bolivia

Children living in boarding care need health care, food, schooling, study materials, books, clothes, etc., not to mention the means to maintain the school itself. The Sisters often have to sacrifice in order to respond to the desperate needs of the children. None of the 250 children who live at the boarding school has the financial means to pay for a whole year’s tuition and their parents sometimes help with potatoes, goat meat and anything else they can bring. There are many generous people who share, in solidarity with the needy, with love and serious commitment to the poorest among us.

The mission of the SSpS in Bolivia is characterized especially by work with the poor and indigenous peasants with whom we share our daily lives.

It is a wonderful experience to give our lives in service to those who most cry out for life and life abundantly (John 10). Our conviction and dedication to our missionary work is strengthened when we have partners to help. We are all missionaries, some through lives of holy faith,

Women working

SSpS Mission Magazine

Dear readers, before beginning to share my experience I want to present myself. My name is Anahi Francou, and I am from Argentina. In 1997 I entered the Missionary Congregation of the Servants of the Holy Spirit. In the past year I had the opportunity to live in the United States to study English and prepare for my missionary work in Romania. There I could share about myself and also learn about other persons and their cultures.

Since last May I have been living in Romania. It is a place which I feel that God dreamt for me. At this time I am living in Raducaneni, a small town where the people are very amiable, warm, simple, believing, and poor.

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barefooted, because of their rugs. For me this is a gesture of respect and reverence. It is entering a sacred place.

Some of the houses are so simple that they only have a small table, a sofa, which later is transformed into a bed and a kitchen of wood.

The people are very welcoming, and they offer their visitors what they have. Sometimes it is as simple as eggs, milk, vegetables or bread.

One does not leave empty-handed. This gesture for me is very symbolic. From their poverty they give you their riches; they do not measure, they give of themselves generously.

Here there is no assurance of work, the people do not have much money, and what they produce is for surviving and passing the seasons of the year, especially winter.

At times I feel that time here does not pass. The streets are made of dirt, but the most common means of transportation is cars. In the summer we can see many cows in the fields, and very early we hear the barking Many times we can see small cars along the of dogs and the song of the roosters. Later in the day main route selling their vegetables and fruit or exchanging things or other food, for examwe can hear children playing in the street. ple the potato, which they produce.

My mission at this moment is studying the language, Romano. I have classes with a professor, but I also have many small teachers Sr. Anahi Francou with a group of young people who have no problem correcting me and telling me when they do not understand what I am saying. Those are the children of the area who help me very much in understanding them and the new culture.

Two days of the week the children come to us and together with some teachers we help them with their work and school activities. When I am with them, I try to help them and listen to them when they have to read. We do their schoolwork together. In reality I benefit a lot from those classes, too. Also on Fridays and Saturdays the young children come for catechesis.

Often we visit the families. For me it is a beautiful opportunity when I can come to know and share with them their culture, one very different from my own.

Most of their houses are of clay, simple, small. When entering one has to do so

SSpS Mission Magazine

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In their poverty and lack of work, they do not see hope and many of them try to escape from their pain with alcohol. Regrettably this is a great problem in Raducaneni, where about 85% of the population abuses alcohol. Many young people are seen roaming the streets, since their parents are drunk.

They prefer to be on the streets rather than returning to the house where they sometimes are abused by their fathers. This is a very harsh reality to which there is no simple solution. It is very painful for me to see how alcohol destroys families and individuals. Without judging, I understand that wine tranquilizes the pain that hopelessness brings.

Part of this reality is that many people have gone to other countries looking for jobs and better living situations. Those are especially young married people who leave their children with their grandmothers or other relatives and work most of the time abroad.

Romania has lived more than 40 years under the Communist regime, more than one generation. In this regime everything belonged to everyone, but nothing belonged to anyone; all was controlled, everyone was distrusted and freedom of expression was annihilated.

Now the country is part of the European Union, with many more possibilities for work and living. Despite all of this people of Romania live in great crisis.

Many persons say that at the time of Sr. Anahi and the children clowning around Communism, they were not free, had to work very hard, did not have much money, but they lived united among themselves and would help each other. Now they feel like the new generation is more individualistic and that they do not have work possibilities. It will take years before the people of Romania will heal their wounds from the time of Communism.

We Sisters try to accompany them and to be with them as much as we can. I only ask that you accompany us with your prayers, so that we can discover each day the mission that God has for us in Romania.

Cordially yours, Sr. Anahi Francou

SSpS Mission Magazine

In July 2010 as part of the preparations for final vows to the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters congregation, six junior sisters from different provinces arrived in Sydney, Australia to begin the eleven month 2010-2011 tertianship program. Six countries were represented through the birthplace of the tertians, including the tertian directress, Sr. Sarita Kurikattil, S.Sp.S from India. We formed a microcosm of multi-cultural S.Sp.S. community of the third millennium.

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questions with their broken, heavily accented English and gave lots of introductions. I noticed that relationship is very important to them.

Someone asked me my name and then asked if I am related to a Korean actress from an action movie. Even the cat was introduced, held by its owner and named. Coming from a society that has become so individualistic, I thought a lot about relationships being always mentioned.

I met some of God’s children at Croydon School. The smiles were wide showing lots of teeth. A seven-yearold girl came up and showed me her wiggly tooth. It hurts, she said. She trusted me. Then she asked me to have a picture with her.

Tertians in Australia

Meeting others, trusting others and coming together as members of God’s family is part of being a religiousmissionary. I left Croydon Public School that day more at peace, full of richness and gentleness. No hard feelings left in my mind only peace, peace……….

Sr. Dinah Marie Aguirre

I am pleased as a junior sister to be chosen to Sr. Dinah Marie with one of her students take part in this grace-filled program. Our community at Croydon Park is a league of nations. Getting to know each other is a delight!

We have different backgrounds, life experiences, ages, and food to share. With lots of laughter and tears in between chatter and story-telling, I felt privileged to journey with them to the very heart of who we are, a journey to the heart, into the deep of who I am – of who we are - to the sacredness of Arnold Janssen spirituality. It is a journey of shared dreams and hopes, a sacred time set apart.

At a Sunday night social, we gathered for our weekly recreation in the community room.

We had visitors from Korea and they asked

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SSpS Mission Magazine P.O. Box 6026 Techny, IL 60082-6026 News Notes

Members of VIVAT International, an NGO working at the United Nations in New York, are celebrating their ten-year anniversary. Both the SVD and the SSpS around the world will celebrate, for we are all members of VIVAT and are happy to have Felix Jones, SVD, and Zelia Cordeiro, SSpS, speak on our behalf for the voiceless at the United Nations. We also express our gratitude to all their predecessors.

SSpS have been actively involved for several years in Aid for Women, a mission helping pregnant women who did not feel they could support a child. Recently Sr. Margaret Hansen, Local Leader in Techny, Illinois, decided to host a baby shower in the Convent. Baby items were collected to be given to Aid for Women. This was preceded by 40 Days for Life, which involved praying for life in all its forms. 40 Days for Life tries to have someone outside praying at the Albany Medical Surgical Center/Family Planning Associates in Chicago at all times. Srs. Mary Jane Lusson and Marie Louise Jilk took part in this vigil.

SSpS Mission Magazine is published quarterly by the

Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters Our web site: www.ssps-usa.org

Our phone: (847) 441-0126

Editor: Sr. Elwira Dziuk, SSpS

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The Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters are an international community of Catholic religious women serving in 47 countries. Missionary activities include pastoral work and catechesis, education, nursing and health care, social work, adult education, and many other services designated to promote human dignity.