The moment I am writing these lines is a few days before Judgment Sunday. How stunning the words of our Christ are! What does He tell us? That the criterion of judgment will be how we behaved towards our brother. Towards our suffering brothers, the sick, the imprisoned, the thirsty, the naked, the needy…
My beloved brothers, all of you who love Mission and support its work are included in these words of our Lord. For He told us:
“Whoever quenches our brother’s thirst, whoever gives him food, whoever clothes a naked, whoever visits a sick person or a prisoner, it is like doing the same to me.”
I would like to thank you wholeheartedly for being there and supporting the work of our Diocese. With your help we do all of the above that our Lord wants us to do. We build clinics, schools, churches, drill wells, give food to the hungry, visit prisoners.
It is your love that gives us the wings to do all this. We have a program for malnourished children. How can we describe the feelings that overwhelm us when our eyes fall upon those poor creatures! Pictures speak louder than words. How many hungry mouths wait for hours in the queue for a little milk?
I remember a conversation with my Elder.
-“Elder, I want to join the Mission,” I said.
-“Mission means shared hunger! What those poor creatures go through, you will experience it a hundredfold”, he answered me.
-“I can bear it”, I answered with the courage of ignorance.
That answer was to haunt me forever. I’m ashamed to admit it but I didn’t stay hungry. Maybe a few times only. But I saw weakened babies crying out from this curse; I saw women’s breasts like hanging empty leather pouches barely dripping any milk; I saw old men pushing rice into the younger’s mouths so that they might have more chances of survival. Tragic irony: no matter how much I had eaten, I was still hungry. I was hungry like an animal. I would scream in my loneliness.
Thanks to your support though, I also saw eyes shining at the sight of a milk carton. Hands grabbing life. Tongues greedily licking around the mouth to pick up every trace of food that was left there. I felt satiated watching my kids eating. My soul was sweetened at the sight of a full belly giving a baby deep sleep.
We express our deep gratitude to Dreavia Rontamil company for securing 38.000 boxes of multivitamin milk for our children. That was indeed a relief from the entrenched hunger. A drop in the sea of despair, which though is enough to change its color and turn it from black into white; from bitter into tasty; from deadly into full of life. From tasteless into as sweet as Holy Communion.
Dear Mission companions, thank you once again for your help and support!
† Prodromos of Toliara
