TESTIMONIALS ABOUT MISSIONS
1.- How did the missions influence me?
Testimony of the young Ricardo Cué Isoba
The mission for me has been, is and will be an unforgettable and unrepeatable experience. It’s a feeling of happiness and fulfillment that doesn’t compare to all the luxuries we have in daily life.
To be honest, the first time I went to a mission was involuntary, rather forced by my father, since he was the promoter of this apostolate in my family and I have no end in thanking him for having put me through this unforgetable experience. I remember that the day we arrived I was angry and not wanting to cooperate. It was somewhat normal, since I was 14 years old, I had never left my vacations to go to something like this and I remember that my dad told me: “Look, I promise you that you will not have a bad time, but, if you really you have a bad time, I swear you won’t come back next year”; So I said to myself: “Now I’m going to have a good time or I’m going to do everything possible to have a bad time so I don’t come back.”
The first day, with my bored and angry face, I went on a house-to-house mission and I was realizing so many things that I never thought could make me change my mind. Then, that afternoon at lunch, I found out that it was my turn to give a talk to the young people. Do I give a talk to young people? What was I going to say? But then the Father who accompanied us came up to me and said: “Calm down, I know you will be able to do it, just entrust yourself to God and you don’t need anything else”. The afternoon arrived and I did not expect so many people. There were about 30 young people, between men and women, sitting waiting for me to talk to them about something. So I looked in my backpack and saw a book called “Missionary Manual” and blessed book; I opened it up and right on the page that came up was a current topic. I started talking and kept talking. The minutes passed and I spoke and when I realized it, more than an hour had passed and I no longer knew what to do. So I put them to talk to each other and they left happy.
When I returned to rest, the first thing I did was go tell the Father how I had gone and I was so excited that the Father asked me: “Well, what did you tell them?”, at that moment my mind went blank and I no longer knew what to say to him and I answered him: “I don’t remember, I don’t know” and he began to laugh and said to me: “Did you see how by entrusting yourself to God things turn out as one wants and expects and, that the one who spoke was not you?” you, but God through you, who manifested himself in you?” When he told me this, I was stunned and petrified at how right he was.
With this I want to make you understand that you do not worry about what is going to happen, because only God knows why He sent you and He will ALWAYS help you so that you never have a problem, I guarantee that.
Time passed and it was time to return to missions and I was more than ready. This experience that I am sharing with you today is something inexplicable as to why, or rather how, you enjoy a week without television, friends, girlfriends, cell phones, clubs, parties, and everything related to the Easter holidays that you don’t we had lived properly.
I want you to think that: days, parties, friends… and time for it, there is always plenty, but, giving a week of all that to God, for other people, believe me you will never regret it.
Finally, I only have to thank God for having enlightened my father to go on missions and to all the missionaries with whom I have lived because they have made this an unforgettable experience.
So I invite you to reflect and think a little about this little text that I share with you so that, like me, the missions change your life.
2.- Testimony of a missionary
Testimony of Carlo Bruzaferro Monti
Leaving my family and country and spending two years on a mission was a decision I made exactly one year ago. Here I am, in Mexico, and right in the middle of that my great mission, the Megamission arose.
I had already participated in other small missions, but this one did allow me to take stock of how everything is going. It was like a summary of everything. I will split the mission in two ways:
1. The shock with the reality of the world.
2. The encounter with God.
reality shock
First, because we left a rich neighborhood in Monterrey and arrived in a very poor town in Hidalgo: Atotonilco. What struck me the most was how the boys who went with us had no idea what poverty was. I had already forgotten many things that I had not seen for a long time.
Not knowing these realities explains how many people do nothing for others! Not knowing what is going on is the reason why many people are well settled in their armchairs.
But I wondered if people really don’t know what happens in those towns. Could it be that they live in bubbles so closed that they will never see an image of a starving child on television? Or, could it be that television is something so artificial that everything seems to be a lie? Or, could it be that they see so many scenes of this type that they are already anesthetized?
There are many Saint Thomas who need to touch the wounds of Christ to believe. Many people who are not satisfied with the images on TV have to go there to live and realize what real life on our planet is like. They want to check what they see on TV.
Many of these boys really transformed after touching the sores, eating tortillas with nopal every day, sleeping on the floor, not bathing because they did not have water, living with the insolvable problems of the people, families abandoned by the parents, very serious diseases and expensive to cure, innocent abortions, chronic alcoholism, etc. In short, they were transformed after living like 90% of the people who live in the world.
Hopefully everyone at least believes after having touched the wounds of Christ, since there are still many people in the world who, even after touching them, continue as before.
The encounter with God
I say that many met God for the first time, because they realized the gifts that God had given them: intelligence, food, comfort, the best doctors and hospitals, a car, a computer, work, health, healthy friends, family, and the Catholic Faith! They realized that they should share all this with others, that they should leave some things to help others. They saw that happiness is in giving! The people there had nothing and yet they offered us their houses for twelve men with food and everything. They took their children out of the rooms to host us. They are simple people but they have postgraduate, master’s and doctorate degrees in generosity!
-We teach the wisdom of these people! What do they know? Why do they have nothing and are happy? Why are they so generous if they have nothing? Because? We want to talk to you Lord!
Many of us who went on missions had already forgotten how to pray, but we really wanted to do it. We wanted to agree with God, thank him, apologize for the lost time, ask him for help to know what to talk about with people, we wanted to understand the reason for such generosity in a world so mistreated, we wanted to learn to love.
– Love? What’s that?
– A novelty that a man has just told us, what is his name?… Ah, Jesus of Nazareth!
Many people for the first time had to place all their trust in God, because there their money, titles, social contacts, friends and relatives did not help at all. Yes, that mission was more useful for the missionaries than for the people.
We concluded that Our mission was, not in one, but in two abandoned towns: One was called Atotonilco and the other… our own hearts.
We discover that our hearts are sometimes more deserted, drier, poorer than we imagine. We discover that everything we have on the outside does not fill us, on the contrary, it can stagnate our hearts. Only God has the power to flood us with satisfaction, happiness and Love. He is the only one who can teach us to be like these people: detached, simple, joyful, truly generous and happy. He is the only way, Master of Love!
Christ, make our hearts like yours!
We felt this importance one afternoon when we found ourselves in a chapel in the middle of the desert, after having walked all day summoning people, after making them walk for hours to come to Mass and waiting two hours in the sun for the Father who did not came. We all were left at a loss for what to say or do, so we decided to pray the Rosary with the people.
I couldn’t believe that we were going to leave everyone without Mass after so much sacrifice. We fervently asked for the Father to arrive, and in the 3rd mystery of the Rosary, when we had finished asking for the Father, he arrived to say Mass.
I looked at everyone and realized that I was not the only one amazed at Mary’s intercession, with the power of prayer. It was as if God wanted to teach us to ask (Ask and it will be given to you).
Return to the main page of
missionary work
Mission history
From athlete to missionary
Letter from a missionary in Angola
Germán Fresán, in the footsteps of San Damián de Molokai
The three P’s of the missionary
Christ would never sleep on the floor
Sign in the guest book
return to the sunmund
Subscribe to Javier’s Catholic Web mailing list for free to receive weekly updates.