MARCH, 2009
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My Diary – March 2009
1st March 2009 : It is a time of flowers. The garden is full of flowers. Our banana tree gave its first bunch of bananas.
1st March 2009 :During this season of Lent, we have the Stations of the Cross with the girls of the Centre, one station per day. On Fridays we have the stations of the cross in our chapel with the girls of the hostel. Some neighbours also join us.
8th March 2009 :The youth of the parish had the Lenten Penitencial Procession. It started on 7th afternoon & ended on 8th afternoon. There were about 300 youngsters from different parishes accompanied by their animators. They had to take their food, the Bible, book, pen & toilet articles & things necesary to spend the night there. About 20 girls from our hostel & 6 from our Centre participated & Sr . Bea went with them. They slept in the open air. They had interesting talks, films, group work etc. They had a chance to go for confession. The Eucharist was the culmination of the day. Many spiritual programmes like these are organised at the parish level for the youth. We had a recollection for them during this lent & many participated too. They love to sing & dance when they pray. However it has still not entered their heads that going for Sunday mass is obligatory & going for daily mass can help them grow spiritually.
7th March 2009 : Two of the girls from the hostel attend the Sankara School of Creative Art. Today they had a fashion show of the clothes they themselves designed & stitched.
12th March 2009 : We had a session for the girls of the hostel on the theme ‘Jesus Model of Responsibility. I had to organise it. I was very nervous, since I had to do it in French but but I am a born teacher & also very creative. I explained to them that RESPONSIBILITY means ‘The ability to respond’. I told them that the three elements of responsibilty are 1. Look. 2. Reflect 3. Act. I explained how Jesus followed these steps. Then I asked the girls to act out scenes from the New Testament & show how Jesus was responsable & frankly I was amazed at their creativity. I am sure they will never ever forget this session as they participated fully and enjoyed it throughly
14th March 2009 : We were invited for the first profession of two novices of the Congregation of the Missionaries of Africa – Veronique & Marie Ange, . They were founded by the White Fathers who have done a marvellous work of evangelization here.
The sisters are also called White sisters & were founded in Africa for Africa for the spiritual growth of the church in Africa. They have houses all over Africa even English speaking Africa. The ceremony of the vows was simple & very touching. The choir sang very well. Here the choir that sings for the vows of the novices no matter which congregation it may be consists of the novices of all the other Congregations here in Bobo & Nasso. They go several weeks earlier twice a week to practice the hymns chosen & later they help to serve the meal.
Our two novices Cecilia & Jacqueline were there with their Mistress of novices - Dominique. At the end of the Mass the Veronique & Marie Ange received their ‘Mission’. It is exciting to hear this because no one knows this before & all wait with anticipation. Veronique will go to Ghana. It is an English speaking country & I met the Regional Superior of that country who attended the vows & will later take Veronique to Ghana. It was nice to her in English & listening to her experiences there. She told me that there are only 4 congregations in her Dioscese & none in other Dioseces around. She said the bishop kept asking for other congregations to be a presence there as the people are very receptive to hear God’s word but there are many sects that are taking advantage of this.
I felt something in my heart, a voice that kept beckoning me to go there one day perhaps from the Province of India. Ghana is on the southern border of Burkina Faso & therefore close to the Region of Africa.
22nd March 2009 :
It is the Birthday of St Vicenta Maria. We had a fête to honour her & also to collect funds for our trip to Segou. This trip is expensive. The girls need their identity card which cost them 2500 francs, the vaccination for yellow fever & meningitis cost 5000 francs & we charged just 3500 for the transport & meals, even though it cost us much more. We had a little programme where our cook Severin read out a poem which he himself composed on St Vicenta Maria. As it was read, the girls has to place the alphabets of the name of Vicenta Maria on the backdrop. We were amazed to see crowds of people. It was most unexpected.
In the two big halls we sold the clothes & shoes that we received from Spain at an extremely low price, so that the poor can benefit & have something new for Easter. We had a lucky dip where everyone won a little gift & so this game was very popular.
Finally we had the draw of the Raffle. The first prize was a bicycle, (given to us by the cycle factory) the second a mobile phone, the third a camera, the fourth a calculator & 10 other consolation prizes. We collected nearly 80,000 francs (Rs.8000/-) It was not worth it as the prizes cost much more. Thankfully they were all gifted to us so we did not really lose.
27th to 29th March : We had a rally of our girls from all the houses of Africa. We took 50 girls from each house.The theme of the Encounter was : « Young girl, YOU are responsible for your life. ». Since October, we had been having sessions on responsibility with the girls of the Centre & the hostel once a week. They also prepared some skits, songs & dances which we put up over there.We also prepared the liturgy, chose the hymns, wrote out the petitions etc One of the items of the offertory procession was an OAR, representing that each girl is responsible for her own life.
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Please pray that the Good
Lord give me the grace and strength to persevere in my mission.
God Bless You.
Sr. Margaret Correa
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YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
Vincenta Maria Social Services Society
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