Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Lilongwe (Agenzia Fides)- Mission Sunday in a mission country: a testimony from Italian Monfort missionary Fr. Piergiorgio Gamba in Malawi. Fr. Gamba was reporting from Mount Chaone, near the great Chirwa swamp which from above dominates Lake Malombe.
“This mount was a refuge for the Ayao people who made slavery their favourite occupation and then had to face Sikh soldiers brought from India to restore peace” the missionary said. “This explains why most of the 10,000 people in these 21 Chaone villages are Muslims and they speak Chiyawo”.
Fr. Gamba told Fides about Mission Sunday 21 October in a village in Malawi: “Early in the morning with the children and adolescents from Balaka mission we walked to the foot of the mountain: a two hour climb awaited us. The Balaka missionaries were welcomed with a surprise visit. During the night a baby had been born and his granny was rocking him and asking repeatedly “give me a name for this child”. A rite often seen in these villages where the guest, the traveller is considered sacred and a bearer of blessings. So we gave the baby a name, Paul, to recall the Mission Day and then we started the long climb”.
“We were not the only ones of the way to Chaone. From the part of the mount close to Lingoni mission, Bishop Thomas Msusa of the diocese of Zomba, was on his way to be present at the great Mission Day. Bishop Msusa is the first Catholic Bishop ever to reach these villages”.
“It was wonderful to see this community, mainly Muslims, meet with the Catholic Bishop, the son of a local Muslim leader and head of a mosque who some years later became a Christian to follow his son the Bishop. A bishop who speaks the same Chiyawo as the Muslim chiefs. On the mountain there are also three Canossian Sisters, an important presence for the Chaone girls, for the women who are second or third wives ... How to explain to these why the sisters dedicate their lives to assisting the sick or teaching in schools and will never have children of their own?” the missionary underlined.
Celebrations continued with the blessing of a new mill “where the people may now come every day to grind corn. The bricks and sand and the water were carried up here by the village people who longed for a mill”.
“This is the gift of Mission for which it is worth spending your whole life” Fr. Gamba concludes. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 24/10/2007 righe 35 parole 480)
