Dispatches from The Field Afar - Mission experience across three continents. 

Today we hear of faithful work in service with the poor, in stories that come from the Phillipines, Tanzania, Hawaii, and Brazil.

On a sick call to a remote barrio in my parish, on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, I entered the house of an emaciated woman.I heard the woman's confession, anointed her and gave her Holy Communion. Then I asked if she would like to see a doctor. She said yes, so I went to town to get the doctor and brought him to the village on my motorcycle.

After examining her, the doctor gave her a bottle of pills, telling her to take three pills a day, one with each meal. I returned with the doctor a week later to find that she did not look much better. She had consumed only one-third of the pills. When the doctor asked why, the woman said that she ate only once a day, and his instruction was to take one pill with each meal.
Thomas Marti, M.M. (pictured above right in Talomo, Philippines)

There is a saying in Swahili: Mountains never meet but people do. I experienced the truth of that saying in Grand Central Station in New York last year when I met an old friend from Tarime, Tanzania, where I worked 32 years ago.

I had received a message from a young Tanzanian named Brian Wadugu. He said his father, Andrew, had come to Maine for Brian's graduation. Andrew was the son of the local Mennonite pastor in Tarime. I had helped put Andrew through high school with the support of my sponsors back home. What an amazing feeling to see Andrew, his wife Quinter and his son Brian walk into the great hall in Grand Central. The young man I knew in Tarime was now not only the father of a college graduate but also headmaster of a school near Musoma, Tanzania, where many Maryknollers have worked. A little help can make such a big difference in ways we may never anticipate.
Donald Doherty, M.M. (pictured above with Tanzanian women)

It has been my delight to teach First Communion class to Honolulu's Hispanic community. Every group is special and it is a joy to accompany these children as they prepare to receive Jesus for the first time. Last year they read a beautifully illustrated story of the Last Supper in their textbook and re-enacted the event. Afterward, as a home activity, I asked them to draw their idea of Jesus' Last Supper with the Apostles. The next Sunday they turned in their papers. Each was unique. There were long tables, square tables, round tables and one with the Apostles sitting on the floor. The last one to bring me his paper, second-grader Ricardo, showed me all the features of his drawing: six Apostles seated on either side of Jesus, plates of bread and cups of wine on the tables. Then he pointed to a large, round platter at the end of the table and said, "This is pizza."

Bless the simplicity of a child's heart. Offer Jesus a pizza treat at the Last Supper? Why not? Perhaps he'd love it!
Eleanor Killion, M.M.

Good Friday is a day of prayer and fasting for all Catholics, but people understand this in different ways. In the town of Duas Estradas, where I grew up in northeastern Brazil, poor people go from house to house asking for their "fasting." The food that they collect will nourish their families for a couple of weeks. A similar tradition is to exchange the "fasting" of fruits, sweets or fish with families and friends. One year my mom used this as a ritual of reconciliation. She and her sister-in-law hadn't talked to each other in more than a year after a dispute.

One Good Friday morning, my mother took fruit to her sister-in-law and said, "Here is your fasting." My aunt thanked her and later that day brought my mom's fasting and they were reunited. Fasting is more than not eating; it is cleansing our hearts of anger and stubbornness to embrace the promise of the Resurrection.
Flávio Rocha, MKLM


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