Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Quito (Agenzia Fides) – The city of Quito (Ecuador) will host the 4th All-American Youth Missionary Encounter (IV Enajomis) August 18-22, immediately following the celebration of the 3rd American Missionary Congress (CAM 3). The Encounter will be attended by 5 persons from each country: the National Secretary for Youth Missionaries, a youth missionary leader, three youth representatives from the youth groups present in the country, and the National Director of the PMS in each country.
The Pontifical Missionary Societies, in their task of placing particular focus on youth missionary training, have been gathering the youth of the Americas together for eleven years, enabling them to strengthen their missionary commitment in their local Churches and throughout the world. The missionary youth linked to the PMS in the Americas hope to respond to this calling to evangelize, that comes from the continental Church.
Previous “Enajomis” celebrations have yielded much fruit in the area of missionary youth ministry and have led to the establishment of the Secretariat of Youth Missionaries in countries that did not have it before, such as Peru and Uruguay. Thus, they have become opportune moments in organizing and promoting youth ministry.
The general objective of this Encounter is to establish and define means and instruments for deepening in the knowledge of the document from the 5th General Conference of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops and the conclusions of CAM 3, so that youth missionaries may live the mission ad gentes evermore intensely today.
Among the specific objectives are: revision, analysis, and reflection on the contents of these documents that pertain specifically to the youth; establish a Youth Missionary Service in each country and continent; give guidelines for youth missionary work on the continent; give structure to the coordination effort of the youth linked to the PMS so that they may gain official recognition on various levels and obtain the necessary economic and logistic support from the National PMS Directors’ Offices and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples; establish strategies and alliances of youth missionary cooperation among the missionary groups in the various different countries, through the PMS.
During the Encounter, there will be a Youth Missionary Exposition where every country can present its youth missionary services. There will also be opportunities to share testimonies, training methods, goals, experiences, and to look over the missionary progress in each country and formalize an All-American Proposal. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 21/7/2008)
