FAITH ALIVE issue 8

The Interactive Magazine

ISSUE No 8

FAITH ALIVE AFGHANISTAN

WE CANNOT REMAIN INDIFFERENT Helping the suffering Church today www.acnmalta.org

SUCCESS STORY: Summer Camps for Young People

HAITI: Struggling families offered Emergency Aid

BRAZIL: 100 Bicycles & 5 Mopeds for Evangelisation

HOW TO use this magazine

A word from the National Director

Read Inspiring stories

…of faith-strong men and women around the world who are shining the light of Christ even in the darkest parts of the world.

PLAY VIDEO Catch a quick glimpse

Click on “play video” to catch a quick glimpse of the reach and impact of ACN’s work around the world.

Help us support those in need

We invite you to consider making a donation to help us fund key projects which provide essential aid to Christians in need around the world.

“ACN is expanding its role to improve the different situations of persecuted Christians.”

This month’s edition of Faith Alive is filled with success stories.

In the light of recent happenings around the world, there is the tendency to throw our hands and give in to despair but as you read through this issue, you will see how ACN is rekindling hope through its projects of charity, prayer and solidarity.

I invite you, as you read, to take note of ACN’s one million children campaign for peace and unity on 18th October and discover how you can be a part of it. This campaign is all the more needed for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world especially in Afghanistan and neighbouring Countries where Christians are living through the darkness of an uncertain future.

Thank you so much for your interest and solidarity in our mission of bringing aid to persecuted and discriminated Christians. Your concern and your love give us the strength and the ability to perform our mission, several times against great odds.

Call 00356 2148 7818

If you have any questions about the work of Aid to the Church in Need or would like to reprint any of the articles in this magazine in your parish or group newsletter, please do get in touch.

Email info@acnmalta.org

United in prayer,

39b, Mdina Road, Attard, ATD 9038

Twitter @acn_malta Facebook Aid to the Church in Need Malta Instagram acn_malta

www.acnmalta.org Aid to the Church in Need is a Pontifical Foundation of the Catholic Church and registered in Malta Reg. No. LPF-212, as a Foundation regulated by the second schedule of the Civil Code Chapter (16) of the Laws of Malta.

2

www.acnmalta.org

Stephen Axisa National Director Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) Malta

SUCCESS STORY

SUMMER CAMPS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Summer camps are proving to be an exciting way to inspire young people in the Faith and in the joy of the Gospel as ACN-backed summer camps have grown significantly over the past year.

Spiritual formation of the young is at the heart of the summer camps

3

YOUR DONATION IS SAVING LIVES

Play and outdoor activity during the summer camp

Over a thousand young persons took part in the camp this year in Homs, Syria, run

by Jesuit priest Fr Vincent de Beaucoudrey. He told ACN: “The catechism here in Homs is very lively. We had around 20 percent more people than last year, so now it’s almost 900 young people from 6 to 18 years and 250 aged over 18 – among them facilitators and educators.”

For them, the most important pillar of learning about the Faith are the summer camps, which they have been organising for several years for the children of different Greek Catholic parishes. “Why not combine the pleasant with the useful?” says Fr Andryi Nedostup, priest at the Prophet Elijah parish in Satpaev, who organised the camp this year.

Every year, about 20 children from Astana come to spend six days with God – in daily Holy Masses, common prayer and catechism courses. But they also learn traditional handicrafts, play and move outdoors.

The programme includes weekly catechesis, summer camps and ‘Faith and Light Groups’ involving seminars and other activities for young people to explore their Faith.

In Kazakhstan, ACN supports many summer camps for children. The summer camps are a formative experience for the young people in their search for identity, especially as they find themselves as a minority in a Muslim environment. This is especially true for the Greek Catholics.

4

www.acnmalta.org

Children learning traditional handicrafts at the summer camp

Please “Help us support those in Need” thank you

YOUR DONATION IS SAVING LIVES

HAITI:

STRUGGLING FAMILIES OFFERED EMERGENCY AID Bishop Pierre-André standing in front of a Destroyed church in the Anse-à-Veau et Miragoâne diocese after earthquake on 14.08.2021

5

YOUR DONATION IS SAVING LIVES

The school, the health center and the church of the presbytery of the parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help of Latiboliere of the Diocese of Jeremie, were severely damaged in the earthquake on 14.08.2021

After a devastating earthquake hit Haiti in August this year, killing thousands, injuring many people and damaging homes, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) sent urgent assistance for families worst affected by the earthquake and the floods that followed.

Conscious of the great efforts made by the Church to offer signs of hope to the people in their desperate situation, after so many natural disasters and in the midst of the violence and extreme poverty, Dr Thomas Heine-Geldern, executive president of ACN (International) said: “we could not abandon this Church, which is struggling to support its people.”

Forty-five (45) families in great need in Jeremie, which was devastated by mudslides and flash flooding from a tropical storm that landed just days after the quake, benefited from the first tranche of the emergency aid.

“Partnering with the local Church authorities, ACN responded to the needs for “food, clothing, water, medicines and temporary shelter for these people which is the most important thing at that moment,” according 6

www.acnmalta.org

Cathedral of San Luis of Jeremie after earthquake on 14.08.2021

Destroyed church in the Anse-à-Veau et Miragoâne diocese after earthquake on 14.08.2021. Bishop Pierre-André Dumas (Diocese of Anse-à-Veau et Miragoâne)

to Fr Jean-Jacques Saint-Louis, the Provincial Superior of the Montfort Fathers in Haiti. Members of this Order working in the areas worst hit by the natural disasters helped ACN identify the families who are in the greatest need.

ACN also sent help to Cardinal Chibly Langlois, Bishop of Les Cayes Diocese, who sent a frantic message to ACN saying: “The people are sleeping on the ground. There is no water, no electricity, no food, no clothes.”

Cardinal Langlois expressed thanks to ACN and its benefactors: “I thank you for your concern for our diocese. I am moved by your closeness, especially during this difficult time following the earthquake.

Please “Help us support those in Need” thank you

BRAZIL:

100 BICYCLES AND FIVE MOPEDS FOR EVANGELISATION AND CHARITY WORK

100 bicycles and 5 motorbikes for the amplification of the Cenaculos of the community Obra de Maria in Brazil

7

YOUR DONATION IS SAVING LIVES

Missionaries with a new bicycle at Cenaculo

In 2020, the Brazilian lay association, the Obra de Maria or “Mary‘s Work” celebrated its 30th anniversary. It was a great occasion, with the participation of 68 bishops and 300 priests.

The community today has around 3,500 members, from all walks of life, including Priests, Deacons, Consecrated Religious, married and single lay people. They all form one great family, a community that is present in forty different countries around the world today 8

www.acnmalta.org

In Brazil, the members of the association are active in 238 different parishes and 38 different dioceses. One of the initiatives of the community is the so-called “Cenacles“ (Cenaculos), an initiative that aims to help those who for whatever reason are in need of support and counselling.

Around 11,000 needy families currently benefit from their help.

Archbishop Antonio Fernando Saburido is very happy with the precious work they do, in his own Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife, and especially in the poorer rural parishes. He tells us: “Within a few years there have been great changes, both in the area of evangelisation and in the social field.”

Thanks to the generosity of our benefactors, we have been able to provide 100 bicycles and five mopeds for the work of these missionaries. This aid was greeted with great joy and gratitude in Brazil.

Please “Help us support those in Need” thank you

rbO a de a M ria

missionaries with a new motorbike

Twenty-year-old Jodson is one of these young missionaries engaged in the work of serving the poor and proclaiming the Faith. He writes: “Many thanks for your generosity and sensitivity to our concerns. Being able to receive a moped during this difficult time is of great help to me in reaching out to families who need our support and advice. Your help is extremely important to me and a great incentive to continue in the missionary life. May God bless you all.”

Elvina, from the town of Coroatà is likewise tireless in her evangelising work. She is delighted at the bicycles that she and the other young people have been given and writes: “This is a very beautiful initiative. Thanks to the bicycles, we can now also visit the families who live further away. Many thanks. You are the visible sign of Divine Providence for us, a sign that, despite all the difficulties, we must not cease proclaiming the Gospel.”

rbO a de a M ria

missionary with a new bicycle

rbO a de a M ria

missionaries with a new motorbike

9

AFGHANISTAN: “IN HISTORIC MOMENTS LIKE THIS,

WE CANNOT REMAIN INDIFFERENT” People light candles in prayer for Afghanistan in Helsinki Cathedral, in Finland (Lehtikuva)

10

www.acnmalta.org

Following the recent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, there are serious implications and profound concerns for the remaining Christians in that country.

The International executive president of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Dr Thomas Heine-Geldern says: “This situation is a huge setback for all human rights and especially for religious freedom in the country”.

More than 99 percent of the population is Muslim, but there are other believers constituting very small minorities of Hindus, Bahai’s, Buddhists and Christians.

Estimates of the number of Christians in Afghanistan vary from a high of 20,000 to possibly as low as 1,000. They live their lives of Faith in total secrecy, so accurate numbers are impossible to come by. There has been only one Catholic church in the country, hidden away at the Italian Embassy that had to shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018, there were an estimated 200 Catholics in Afghanistan.

In 2010, in Taliban-controlled territory, they killed 10 humanitarian workers, who had been accused of spreading Christianity and being foreign spies.

Reportedly, some leaders of underground house churches have received letters from Taliban that they are being watched. There is concern that Christians may be killed outright and that young Christian girls will be given in marriage to Taliban fighters. Even before the Taliban takeover, Christian converts from Islam faced ostracisation and even violence from their own family members.

In an interview with ACN, Sister Shahnaz Bhatti who had been working in Kabul since 2019 gives an insight into this reality. According to Sister Bhatti, life was already difficult for Christians and other religious minorities in Afghanistan before the withdrawal of the West’s armed forces. She said: “The Afghans consider all foreigners

from the West to be Christians. We were constantly being monitored and were not permitted to display any religious symbols. We Religious Sisters had to wear similar clothes like the local women, without the Cross that symbolises who we are.”

Sister Bhatti also described the problems faced by all women in the country. She said: “The most trying thing was not being able to move about freely, because as women, we always had to be accompanied by a man.”

She added: “But the suffering that made the greatest impression on me was when I saw women being treated as things. It was indescribably painful to see a young woman, forced against her will, to marry the man that the head of the family had chosen to be her husband.” On her own in a country under Taliban control, Sister Bhatti was only able to leave the country when she helped the nearby Missionaries of Charity get the young people they were caring for airlifted out of Afghanistan. She said: “I helped our neighbours, the Sisters of Mother Teresa, and their 14 children with severe disabilities get on the last flight to Italy before the attacks. The journey to Kabul airport was arduous; it took us two hours and we could hear the shooting, but in the end we made it.”

The young people are now being hosted by religious congregations in Italy. Their families have remained in touch, but are still in serious danger, according to Sister Bhatti.

The Holy Father, Pope Francis, has asked for Christians to fast and pray for the people of Afghanistan.

“As Christians the situation in Afghanistan obliges us to fast and pray. In historic moments like this, we cannot remain indifferent,” said Pope Francis. “For this reason, I address an appeal to everyone to intensify your prayer and practice fasting, asking the Lord for mercy and forgiveness.”

“Supporting Afghan Christians in practical ways will be extremely difficult and prayer will be especially important,” says ACN’s Dr Heine-Geldern. “We call on our benefactors and friends to continue to pray during this profoundly troubling time in the history of Afghanistan.”

SAVE THE DATE On 15th November 2021, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) Malta will be organising a special Rosary and Mass for departed benefactors and for peace in Afghanistan.

The event will be held at the Parish Church of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, Hamrun, Malta starting at 6pm (Malta Time).

11

One Million Children praying the Rosary

For unity and peace On the 18th O ctober 12

www.acnmalta.org

www.acnmalta.org

info@acnmalta.org

JOIN ACN TO CONNECT THE WORLD IN UNITY AND PEACE Would you and your children join our worldwide family to pray for unity and peace in the world? With the children in your life, and those in your school or parish, we invite you to join in our “One million children praying the Rosary for Peace and Unity in the World” Campaign.

As a family, teacher, or parish, you can pray the rosary together with your children on 18th October. On that day, you and your children will be able to join with hundreds of thousands of children and adults praying the Rosary together. For more than a decade, we at ACN have been

inviting children and adults from around the world to pray together each year.

The worldwide campaign is an invitation to remember the words of Our Lady of Fatima that the childlike and trusting prayer of the Rosary can truly change the world, defeat evil and bring peace.

We have material ready in 26 languages, including Maltese and English. For more information and to register please visit

Learn more https://acninternational.org/ millionchildrenpraying/

13

Y T I N U M M O C E JOIN TH

Subscribe to our

mailing list

er ceed miavteerial

print

please

help us support those

i n n e e e d m o h t a

Any kind gift you offer will support these and other similar projects around the world You may wish to offer a donation by visiting www.acnmalta.org/donate or through APS Bank: Name: Aid to the Church in Need Malta Foundation Bank Name: APS Bank, Attard Branch IBAN: MT72APSB77057008577220001771733 Swift /BIC Code: APS BMT MT | Sort Code: 77057 0035621487818

@

info@acnmalta.org

@acn_malta

Aid to the Church in Need Malta

@acn_malta