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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Small Credit Unions grow






It has been few weeks without words… but we’re still here and we still keep on going in this end of the world!!!!
     

While we keep on the Length path, we get close to the chtistenings time! About hundred people, kids, girls and boys, youths and adults will receive this sacrament on Easter Eve.
It’s a path that reminds us of beauty and freshness of our Faith! 
Just about these days, Father Norberto and Father Marcello are in a village 50km far from Bozoum for a 3 days encounter about marriage sacrament, but we’ll talk more about these soon!


The work on credit unions keeps going on. Two branches (one in Koui and the one on Ndim) are ready, now a third one is in construction.
The one in Ndim…looks like a house from fairytales! We substituted plate roof with proper tiles made from some of the locals


 
In these days we’re also training new staff: a dozen youths are attending a course to give them knowledge about managing and increasing activities on 3 new hatches that we’re planning to open right after Easter.


Does it make any sense that a priest, a missionary, is taking care of Credit Unions? Why should he be also involved in such area?

Well, first of all, at least in Italy, from Monte dei Paschi di Siena to Casse di Risparmio from1800, many similar institutions were created from local parishes
Specifically created to give simple people (such as farmers, small artisan and workers) a chance to keep safe their small saving and to get some credit.
And they did this along few centuries, as they understood the importance of working, and the result of working as a benefit for people’s life.
Work, family, better life style are born from dignity of God’s children.
This is what we are trying to build, day after day, in everything we do. All of us!








Saturday, March 3, 2012

During Lent, with a smile…



We just entered Lent …and I”like to share something nice with you…

"The missionary, the evangelist, must be a person of joy.

“Joy is the infallible sign of God’s presence,” claims Leon Bloy. When I became Archbishop of New York, a priest old me, “You better stop smiling when you walk the streets of Manhattan, or you’ll be arrested!”

A man dying of AIDS at the Gift of Peace Hospice, administered by the Missionaries of Charity in Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s Archdiocese of Washington, asked for baptism. When the priest asked for an expression of faith, the dying man whispered, “All I know is that I’m unhappy, and these sisters are very happy, even when I curse them and spit on them. Yesterday I finally asked them why they were so happy. They replied ‘Jesus.’ I want this Jesus so I can finally be happy. A genuine act of faith, right?

The New Evangelization is accomplished with a smile, not a frown.

The missio ad gentes is all about a yes to everything decent, good, true, beautiful and noble in the human person.

The Church is about a yes!, not a no!


( Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan's speech to Pope and cardinals on New Evangelization)