Poverty

I ask myself sometime when will this suffering end? When will South Sudanese become one people and work together for their development? The desire to serve God and His people that pushed me to join religious life few years ago is kind of renewed desire every time I get to witness or hear these painful stories.

Through these experiences, I have witnessed amazing humanizing efforts in the social apostolate: empowering women in a society where they are excluded, violated or killed; ... and announcing the Gospel values of justice, solidarity, hospitality and love amid a broken and searching world.

This is one of the most significant events in my life in which I learnt that if we fight together with definite purpose and proper plan, we can overcome any difficulty. It is because of God’s grace that we came to know of SHGs in 2014 and with support from the Purvanchal Pragati Samaj we emerged victorious in 2017 after three months of continuous struggle for the justice.

Since high school, my favorite book has been Third & Indiana by Steve Lopez. The novel is about a teenage boy who gets caught up selling drugs in Philadelphia

‘Working with the excluded’ necessitates a vision of all encompassing inclusion, confronting excluding attitudes and structures as a contemplative, being ready for collaborative action with all, especially the youth, cherishing our Common Home, the whole world, both the land and the sea, with its infinite possibilities for sharing resources equitably and sustainably, celebrating life and celebrating suffering itself like in the Last Supper of Jesus.

Working for and with the poor and marginalized brings abundant graces but not without challenges and moments of hopelessness and desolation. However, with prayer and dedication, we learn from each other and support one another and find the support of the loving God who leads us on our journey.

Two years ago this March, we installed in our office of the Ecology Program of Jesuit Service Cambodia in Phnom Penh, a solar power system to provide for the electrical requirements of the entire office. With only 3 laptops, 1 printer, 3 fans, a couple of lights for working at night, and the periodic charging of phones and other devices, it isn’t a very big office. Nevertheless, we decided to disconnect the electrical lines of our office from the main building in which we were located and to try, from then on, to be fully dependent on the sun’s radiation.

I write this piece on the tenth anniversary of my ordination. Such milestones punctuate our lives. They help us to pause and look back over the paths we’ve trodden. I entered the Jesuit novitiate when I was 31 years old and so brought with me a fair amount of lived experience.

Mr. Vieng is a strong, 57 year old man from Laos. I knew him in 2009 in the prison in Thailand, where I work for the Jesuit Ministry. Vieng is a very hardworking and humble man who loves planting and gardening

In 1988, the year of the Seoul Olympics, I graduated from college and immediately entered the Society of Jesus. As we novices were beginning the second year of novitiate we made a 19th annotation "spiritual exercises in daily life."