Today we’re going to introduce you to the fraternity of Kabarondo, in eastern Rwanda. Welcome to our neighborhood, known as “the Hill of the Eternal,” “umusozi w’Uwiteka” in Kinyarwanda. It is on the edges of the city. Here people comfortably situated economically rub elbows with others who are materially quite poor. We live among them, […]
My parents had already had four children before I was born, but three of them had died at an early age. Of those four children they had only one daughter left, my big sister. So, in order to protect me, when I was born, my parents didn’t want to name me. In that way, death […]
In our fraternity in Awka, Nigeria, several large trees stand on silent guard. We call them ukwa (African breadfruit trees). They are there, familiar, almost ordinary… and yet, they hold within them the promise of a celebration. Over here, when we know that there will be ukwa at a meal, something stirs within: smiles appear […]
On this day, we celebrate the birth of the Most High, who made himself tiny to to join us in our humanity. We risk becoming accustomed to this, and yet it is so astonishing, so marvellous, that we need to celebrate it every year anew to remind ourselves of it. Here in Tanzania, today we […]
Two countries that are far apart and two fragile lives. Yet both are animated by the same spirit of trust. These two stories in fact tell a single story: that of a bond that is born of vulnerability. On a street corner in Kenya While walking around our neighbourhood in Kebeneti, I came across an […]
I was born in a small village in north-west Cameroon. We were four children, two boys and two girls. My mother belonged to the Baptist Church and even though I never knew my father, he handed on to me his Catholic faith. There’s nothing glorious about the journey that brought me to give my life […]
Life springs up in Wushwush in southwestern Ethiopia, and communion flows from the spring! We live in a little corner of paradise, a truly luxuriant “green spring” at the forest’s edge. The earth is fertile and generous. When we work with her she gives her fruits unstintingly. The coffee tree, with its white flowers, is […]
Every Sunday, the little sisters in Cameroon help to bring communion to the sick. Often, they themselves are the ones to be evangelized by these meetings. They come away transformed by these encounters. Like Fioretti, we have gathered up some of their memories of these meetings. For some time now I’ve been bringing Communion to […]
I pushed the door open and discovered a little infant, all smiles, his arms stretched out wide. I immediately fell in love with that baby. I was touched by the way he opened his arms and by his really lovely smile. It was like he was waiting for someone to pick him up and hold […]
The fraternity of Kicukiro is located in the capital city, in central Rwanda. It’s a very lively neighborhood: there are lots of people everywhere, in search of work and of a better life. And like everyone else, we were also looking for work, because we were finding our artisanal work increasingly hard to keep going. […]