Jan 25, 2021
The Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) first began their work in Brazil, in the city of Alfenas, 100 years ago. Today, they continue to help local communities all over the country, wherever and whenever they are needed most.
Community cars for pastoral work
OLSH communities in the cities of Barração and Campinas are both raising funds to buy a car each, which will prove invaluable to their pastoral work in local areas.
Sisters in Barração cover a total of 17 mission stations in the city and surrounding area. Some of these stations are located up to 40km away from the city, catering to local farmers and their families who are not able to travel into the city to hear Mass. Sisters in Campinas run a local kindergarten, caring for 296 children from the ages of two to six for eight hours a day. The Sisters here provide food, education, and spiritual care to these vulnerable children, and the school survives on donations and goodwill.
Each of these two communities needs a car at a cost of €5,000, to be able to continue their essential daily work.
Children’s choir in Mirinzal
In Mirinzal, the local children’s choir run by Sr Maria is a safe haven for youths who come from backgrounds of severe hardship. Last year, we helped Sr Maria to buy musical instruments for the choir, and this year, she is asking us to help her to raise funds to buy three wireless microphones for the choir to use during Masses.
€500 will buy all three microphones, allowing the choir to continue to play wonderful music at parish celebrations.
Mass for remote communities
OLSH Sisters in Mirinzal are asking for your help in buying essential liturgical items for Mass, such as missals, chalices, and lectionaries, for three of the 18 mission stations they cover in remote locations across the north of Brazil.
€813 will provide liturgical items for families and individuals across three mission stations to continue to join together in faith and celebrate Mass in their spiritual communities.
Empowering local women
In Alfenas, an OLSH-run social work centre helps 65 families from the region,providing them with essential food supplies once a month. The Sisters here also have a special purpose in empowering local women, enabling them to learn various practical skills, such as sewing, which will help them to earn money and provide desperately needed financial support for their families.
The OLSH Sisters at the social work centre are raising funds to replace a number of tools in their sewing and fabric painting workshops. They need two cabinets and two sewing machines, which will allow them to continue their work in helping local women to learn invaluable skills for self-sufficiency.
€700 will buy items facilitating practical skills that will provide a lifetime of benefits to women and their families in the area.
CAN YOU HELP THE OLSH SISTERS IN BRAZIL?
Jan 21, 2021
The Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) are a vital part of our Sacred Heart Family, working all over the world, often in partnership with MSCs, under our shared motto:
“May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved.”
CARING FOR THE ELDERLY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA
In Papua New Guinea, a community of 86 OLSH Sisters provide dedicated hands-on care for vulnerable individuals and families, from young children to the elderly. In the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, financial assistance from the Irish Province allowed the OLSH Sisters in Papua New Guinea to provide extra safety measures in the Hartzer Centre, an aged-care centre attached to the main convent in Port Moresby, the country’s capital, where the Sisters care for elderly OLSH Sisters and MSC missionary priests who have devoted their lives to serving the people of Papua New Guinea.
As we all know, hygiene is one of the most vital defences against the coronavirus, and our mission friends in Ireland and the UK have already helped to provide extra sinks for improved safety measures. The Hartzer Centre has eight rooms for their elderly residents, but the centre does not have a dedicated laundry area of its own, and this creates significant difficulties surrounding hygiene as the centre’s nurses must bring all dirty laundry through the convent dining room to reach the communal washing area.
Sr Relida, Provincial of the OLSH Sisters in Papua New Guinea, has sent her “deep gratitude” for the changes we have already helped to make, and now asks if our mission friends in the Irish Province could please help the Sisters to build a small laundry area for the Hartzer Centre, to ensure the continued safety and care of vulnerable elderly residents.
In a time where good hygiene can quite literally save lives, especially in the case of the elderly and infirm, can you help us to help the Hartzer Centre?
A donation of €235 will buy a washing machine for the centre, while the new laundry room will cost €7,100 in total.
SOWING SEEDS FOR THE FUTURE IN SOUTH SUDAN
The Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart recently marked 25 years of service in South Sudan, where they have been involved in everything from education and nursing to general pastoral work.Most recently, the Sisters have been working to build gardens which will help to provide a stable and sustainable source of food and water to families in the region who have very little.
The gardens contain bores which are drilled and fitted with a pump, a tank, and a watering system.
These gardens are used to grow a variety of vegetables, and, when cultivated to their full potential, will be hugely beneficial in the long-term provision of nutritious food supplies to local families, who are up against a daily struggle to afford to feed their children.
The gardens are an investment which will provide years upon years of profit to local communities, from being a source of nutritious food to providing local students who tend to the crops with the physical and mental benefits of gardening.
CAN YOU HELP THE OLSH SISTERS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
Jan 18, 2021
Feliz Navidad!
A heart warming token of gratitude from the Community of Ecuador that received funding from your donations that helped form a community building a church and centre in their parish.
Below is a Letter of Appreciation from P. Moacir Msc to our Provincial Superior Fr. Carl Tranter MSC.
“Thank you for having been our angel during this time of pandemic helping Pastoral Social and the Community of Ecuador of the Future.
The youth of Ecuador del Futuro prepared a beautiful novena for the community. Even by zoom and twice in person, it has been a special moment.
Attached is the video they prepared to wish you and your mission team a Merry Christmas.
P. Moacir, MSC.”
SUPPORT MISSION PROJECTS
Jan 14, 2021
Five academy learners that are greatly benefiting from your extremely generous donation very gratefully received : Koketso Mamogopodi, Lucky Marema, Vokois Mohlabini, Thato Moeti and Litha Lugalo.
Last year as part of our World Missions Appeal you helped us aid the students at Berea-Albion FC & Academy in Pretoria South Africa and we are glad to report the donations have been put to good use. The Academy helps young disadvantaged learners through quality education, accommodation, housing, nutrition, football training and development for a better future life. These youths often have struggled with poverty, HIV/AIDS, abuse, alcoholism, and poor educational backgrounds.
We are pleased to say that since then they have been able to fund the erection of water tanks and buildings which include an eatery/dining area and outdoor meeting and entertainment area for our academy learners.
Neil Bosman, co-founder of the Academy has expressed sincere gratitude for your continued support .
CAN YOU HELP OUR MSC MISSIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA?
Jan 7, 2021
Missionaries of Charity Community
Neighbours are important. I think we’ve come to a deeper realisation of this over these last twelve months. If there is to be anything positive taken from 2020 it must surely be our shared reliance on one another. In addition to the heroic efforts of front-line workers, we have seen neighbours arrange shopping, collect prescriptions, and perhaps most importantly pick up the phone and call to make sure people are doing alright. Some might argue that we had lost this sense of community, but even if we did it’s back in a big way and not likely to be forgotten anytime soon.
Since I wrote last, we had our own Christmas in Loreto, which was both simple and wonderful. There were about thirty students and interns who had stayed with Sr. Orla and me for the holidays. On Christmas Eve we had a prayer service that began at sunset and ended with us singing Silent Night under a perfectly clear, stary sky. For Christmas Day itself Mass was celebrated in the school yard and some of the local villagers joined us in giving thanks for the birth of Our Lord.
This was followed by a special festive lunch of goat, chapatis, ingera, sukumawiki, and (for those of us Irish missionaries who might be feeling a little home sick) potatoes and tripe (an enthusiastic yes to the first and a hard no to the second!). Traditionally you eat the food using the flatbreads instead of cutlery. Sr. Orla managed without difficulty. I brought a fork. Eleven years in the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland taught me to be prepared!
Mary Immaculate Hospital is run by the Comboni congregation and is one of the few health care facilities in the region with a surgical unit. This is led by Br. Rosario, who is also one of the hospital’s surgeons.
Christmas in South Sudan is all about visiting. People travel home to be with family and friends. They catch up with the local news, laugh over good times, shed a tear if there has been a tragedy, but above all they spend time together. The same is true for religious communities. Throughout the Diocese of Rumbek we have sisters, brothers, and priests from all over the world, working in a number of key ministries. There is little opportunity for down time, as the demands can seem unending. Visiting one another for a cup of tea, chatting over some lunch, or gathering for some prayer is truly priceless. Hospitality is both a special and necessary grace.
Our first port of call during Christmastime was to the Missionaries of Charity or Mother Theresa’s sisters to you and me. They work close to the Cathedral in a number of ministries for the poor, including a post-natal residential nutrition programme and an outreach project to a village of people with leprosy. The students came along as we celebrated an early morning Mass with them, followed by breakfast, which went down very well.
Our next stop during the holidays was Holy Cross Parish which is run by Spiritan Fathers, including Monaghan native Fr. John as the PP and Fr. Nolasco from Tanzania as the assistant pastor. They had just installed solar power in their church in time for the Christmas vigil. It is a real gift in a town without an operational power grid and where light at night-time is rare. In addition to their parish ministry, they are also in the process of building a primary school in the bush. St. Joseph’s should be ready for its first students later this year.
There is a firm belief that education is foundational in the development of South Sudan. While Loreto emphasises the importance of schooling for girls, our neighbours, Br. Eustace from Sri Lanka and Br. Joseph from South Sudan, are doing the same for the boys in the De La Salle Secondary School. What they are trying to achieve is more than just academic excellence. The schools promote a philosophy of education that is respectful of local culture, is rooted in Catholic values,and which forms the leaders of the future.
Our last visit was to the town of Mapourdit. Don’t bother trying to find it on Google maps. I’ve looked and it’s not there. The town itself was once a refugee camp but has now taken on a life of its own, in part because of the work of the Comboni Missionaries and our MSC sister congregation, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Br. Rosario, from Italy, is one of the two surgeons in Mary Immaculate Hospital.A brief tour of the facility showed us how they use the little they have to provide maternity care, malaria treatment, surgery for gunshot wounds, hepatitis vaccinations, HIV / AIDS programmes, and basically anything else you can imagine – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Comboni hospital, the schools, and the parish are supported by Sr. Wendy, Sr. Rita and their lay associate Pauline, all from Australia, who have worked there for twenty years.
On leaving we found that we had an addition passenger. Fr. Placide, the PP who come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, surprised us with a goat to thank us for our visit. It was a long two and a half hours home over a bumpy road with a clearly irate and aggressively incontinent goat. In case you are wondering she is settling in fine in Loreto, but later this afternoon I have to clean out the back of the truck. A small price to pay to for seeing the remarkable difference religious are making here in South Sudan.
All in all, it was a very special Christmas indeed.
God bless,
Fr. Alan
HELP US TO TRANSFORM LIVES IN SOUTH SUDAN
Dec 22, 2020
These are some of the kadua and sukumwiki that the local women grow to feed their families.
I don’t know how your morning is going, but I spent mine hunting down a jailbreaking duck. Born and raised in Cork City, I’m an absolute novice when it comes to anything to do with rearing animals or growing crops. I’m used to getting my eggs in cartons and my milk in convenient two litre plastic containers from Centra, so life here has presented some exciting new challenges. One thing is certain though, I’m not taking my food for granted any more.
Lorteo Rumbek does its best to make use of the land around the school to provide some of the food it needs for its students and staff. Each year for several months they grow groundnuts, a nutritious local staple. They also keep goats and pigs. In fact, just last week our community grew with the arrival of eight new piglets. And then there are the ducks, the newest members of my flock. Certainly not God’s smartest creation, but clever enough to give me a run for my money. After a quick Google search to confirm you can’t get rabies if they nip you (one was especially enthusiastic for his food two weeks ago), we’re getting on surprisingly well.
The food security that we take for granted at home, is wildly aspirational in South Sudan. Self-sufficiency and resilience are very much part of daily life. Localised fighting, an infrastructure severely damaged by flooding, and insufficient irrigation systems, mean many families live hand to mouth. Whatever meagre crops they grow must be watered long before dawn and late after sunset, to avoid the intense heat of the day. It involves long hours of backbreaking work, but the women who look after their small plots work miracles with the dry, sandy soil. In the villages around the school, Loreto has drilled several wells and set up hand pumps that provide much needed access to water. The people cultivate kadua and sukumawiki, both similar to cabbage, which they use to feed their families or, if they are fortunate enough to have a surplus, sell in the market.
Last night after Mass with the students, we were discussing the miracle of the Nativity and the simplicity of the stable for Jesus’ birth. For us, this experience of abject poverty shows usthe humility of God entering into our world in the form of a small, vulnerable child. However, it was explained to me that this is how children are born here in South Sudan all the time. Each home is made up of a number of tukuls or mud brick huts with grass roofs that house the families and any animals they have, sometimes sharing the same space for added security. This echo of the Nativity reminds me of how close Jesus was to those living at the very margins of society. There is no Christmas shopping here really and even if there was,there wouldn’t be the money to spend on such luxuries. Instead, the focus is on being together, to sharing the little they have, and being grateful for whatever blessings they have received.
While I’m intrigued by people living in such close proximity to their animals, I still haven’t entirely embraced the local way of life. My ducks and I need our own space. In the end it took the best part of twenty minutes for me to shepherd my errant duck back to his coop. It may have been my imagination, but I did get the sense that the rest of his flock welcomed him home with an awed sense of respect for his daring escapades. If I was being absolutely honest with myself, I think he probably deserved it.
After the Sunday Masses, there’s always time to enjoy a coffee and a mandazi, a local South Sudanese cake.
We’re only three days away from Christmas, so from everyone here in Loreto Rumbek, we hope you have a joyful time as you celebrate the birth of our Saviour and a peaceful New Year.
God bless,
Fr. Alan
HELP US TO TRANSFORM LIVES IN SOUTH SUDAN
