Testimonies

For many years as I grew up, I lived by the conviction that my destiny was to develop myself in the engineering career. I grew up in a mining town, in Mufulira, Zambia and seeing the prospering lives of engineers of all kinds who worked for the mines, I felt attracted to the good life that those engineers led. At the same time, I grew up in a very Catholic family and so from very early on I had a strong desire to become a priest. So, for the first three decades of my life, my vision of life oscillated between serving my own personal career goals and the deeper goals of serving God and humanity.

“Try to engage our students in a social project!” says Father Axel Bödefeld SJ, the headmaster of Loyola gymnasium. He has this wish for the students of Loyola gymnasium, which is considered the best school in Kosovo. Ignatian pedagogy however aims at more than best results in comparative tests. He wants the elite students to receive an education for their hearts as well.

My first involvement in HIV and AIDS ministry happened in 2003. I was sent as regent to the new Jesuit organization, African Jesuit AIDS Network (AJAN), created by the Jesuit Major Superiors of Africa and Madagascar and put under the leadership of Fr Michael Czerny. Being part of the infancy of AJAN became also the beginning of the journey into the reality of HIV/AIDS and issues related to it.

Although I was born and raised in Haiti, I was not fully aware of the dire realities of my own people until I left my country in November 1993 for Panama, where I lived for two years as a novice.

“We need to go out then to the ‘outskirts’ where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, prisoners in thrall to many evil masters”, and “go beyond the church walls”.

Père Stanislas’ concern is to make the children and youths living on the streets understand that children are not born of the streets, that life continues to be sacred, that family continues to be the basic unit of society and that each person has a unique value in the eyes of God. May Mgr. Munzihirwa intercede for the centre, which carries his name, so that we may give renewed spirit, joy and love for life to the so-called street children.

This is a short story of a relatively young and happy Jesuit scholar who did not plan to return to the social apostolate. After a period of joy and labor in the field of academia, education and coaching, I did not expect to receive the call to the coordination of social service and research in Europe and the Near East. The first response was a mix of interest and disquiet.

Shantha Ram is accused of rape and murder of Kanchan Kumari, a 8 year old girl, his neighbor in the jhopari-patti (cluster of huts) along the railway track near the Bihar State Secretariat, Patna. The incident took place on 16.12.2007. Ram went absconding, but was arrested on 07.08.2011 and is in Patna central jail since then.

Miyashita Park is a park located in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward, a major commercial center. Many people experiencing homelessness have stayed in Miyashita Park in small cardboard or other structures since the late-1990s.

“Paradoxically, it is among those who most intimately know the power of death that we find the most stubborn faith in the power of life and, therefore, in the power of the God who is the source of life.”