Scalabrinian Missionary Sisters in Mozambique, a presence of hope for those who suffer
In response to the Lord’s call and the Congregation’s sending forth, we said YES and set out on mission, “Being Migrants with Migrants”, missionaries in the Itinerant Service Project to BE AND BE with the thousands of people, children, youth, adults, elderly, in the Cabo Delgado Province of Mozambique. Here more than a million people have been forced to move within their own country or to neighboring countries due to the terrorist attacks that began in October 2017 in some districts of northern Cabo Delgado and have been intensifying, causing mass displacement, thousands of loss of life, destruction of homes, residences and infrastructure, abandonment of plantations. People are forced to leave everything they owned, with no time to choose, the imperative of the moment is: “flee or die.”
It was in this complexity of war and instability of the country that we, Sisters Rosa Maria Zanchin, Erivalda de Lima Miranda and Marinês Biasibetti, carried out our mission in the Itinerant Service for 6 months, from October 2021 to March 2022, in the District of Chiúre. There we lived our mission in six of the nine resettlements that the municipality made available to welcome and integrate the more than 50,000 displaced people who are struggling to restart their lives in a space that they did not choose; but thank God and the good will of many, little by little life is taking on new meaning. Although the war started almost 5 years ago, in this district most have arrived in the last two years, which coincided with the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, delaying the granting of visas for the Sisters assigned to this mission.
However, our Scalabrinian presence has been and continues to be a blessing in this context of vulnerability and suffering, resilience and hope, in which time does not want to erase the traumas and the marks of all that they have seen, heard and lived, as these are families who have lost their loved ones killed or missing. For most of them, life will never be the same again. The nostalgia for the past is the dominant mood, nostalgia for living with the community in the villages of origin, for their customs and values, in which the community itself became an extended family. On the other hand, the unsatisfied needs of the present, the insecurity and fear of the future leave open wounds in permanent suffering, because the places that the governmental structures have destined for the beginning of a new history are communities that are also disadvantaged and live in precarious situations, where there is a lack of almost everything, food, clothing, decent housing, health care, in short, the social services that are indispensable for physical, religious, moral, and psychological integrity. “They fled from an unbearable destiny to end up in precarious places.” Yes, they were forced to change the characteristics that defined them. War and population displacements have also forced host communities to change their rhythm of life, in a new social cohesion in the sharing of social services and other basic infrastructure necessary for integral well-being.
We, Scalabrinian Sisters, wish to give thanks for our 6-month experience in this blessed land of Chiúre, which is home to a welcoming and supportive people. In a particular way we shared our mission in the resettlements with the Sisters of the Congregation of Mary Help of Christians (Salesian Sisters), with young activists and with the support of the Priests of St. Elizabeth Parish, of the Bishop of Pemba Msgr. Antonio Juliasse Sandramo and many other people who made it possible for our mission to reach a successful conclusion. We saw, heard, and shared stories of pain and overcoming, we lack words to tell, but in our hearts they are kept as unforgettable memories that gave more meaning to our being consecrated and, at the same time, helped for some moments our brothers and sisters to forget their sufferings and recover new perspectives of life.
We Sisters arrived to add up, because in the field there were already some humanitarian organizations that were carrying out their work in different areas. Our activities prioritized psychosocial accompaniment through listening, sharing, and specific dynamics of self-overcoming; the constitution of supportive groups, respecting gender and age distinctions; spiritual and pastoral accompaniment; orientation on and distribution of alternative medicine; activities with children; literacy classes for adults and school reinforcement for children; economic support for the development of small businesses of self-sustainability; promotion of self-supporting business activities, such as cutting and sewing, craftsmanship, weaving, cooking; home visits, among other activities.
