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Dear Mission Friends, The Dominican Mission Foundation supports missionaries who provide spiritual, medical, material, and social care for the native people of our mission areas. This letter is meant to give you a better idea of what our work is about. We have had a missionary presence in Chiapas, Mexico since 1964. Today, our missionaries serve over 200,000 people in 1,000 indigenous communities. We support two parishes, two human rights centers, a women’s center, and Hospital San Carlos, which serves 14,000 patients (primarily Tzeltal Indians) per year. The Catholic faith is becoming ever deeper in the life and culture of the Mayan people, through our work of evangelization, the celebration of Sunday Mass, and catechesis by 1,000 Mayan catechists. Mediation, reconciliation, and the reconstruction of peace are important ministries throughout the communities. The Church here is becoming an authentically Mayan Catholic community, close to the heart of the people.
In 1995 we began our second missionary endeavor in Mexicali, Mexico. Our friars are preaching the Word of God for the salvation of souls and building up community in one of the poorest areas in the diocese. With the help and enthusiasm of the community, we constructed four small churches. Home visits and a monthly food subsidy are provided for the elderly, sick, poor, and abandoned of the parish. Ministry among youth groups, choirs, and liturgy groups continues to grow and flourish.
In 2006, we expanded our work in Mexico to include our newest mission in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. At the Casa del Migrante warm meals, hot showers, clothing, a laundry room, and medical care are available to immigrants coming from southern Mexico to work in the factories of Ciudad Juarez, as well as to assist those who have been deported from the United States. Dominican Friars and Sisters and counselors are available, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to assist them in putting their lives together. When the cold, hungry, sick, and injured arrive at Casa del Migrante, we recall the words of Jesus, “I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me.” (Matthew 25). Our mission work in Guatemala consists of supporting various projects throughout 38 mountain villages: building adobe chapels for the celebration of the sacraments, constructing wells for water, sustaining a Maya/Achi bi-lingual school, funding a scholarship program, and maintaining sewing and weaving projects. Evangelization and the defense of human rights are also of paramount importance to our work.
In Lithuania, 50 years of communism and the Iron Curtain sapped the strength of the Church. Now is a time of rebuilding, mostly from scratch. Our Eastern European mission in Vilnius is one of our most difficult challenges, due to long-term economic depression and numerous “false Springs” that have left many people demoralized. However, our young and vital missionaries have embraced the challenge with great faith.
Our friars in Kenya incorporate Dominican traditions as they build up St. Catherine of Siena Parish through liturgy and worship. Nairobi University has campuses in the area and our Dominicans are responsible for ministry on two of these campuses. An unstable political scene and AIDS continue to overwhelm Kenya. We maintain our programs to feed the poor/sick, counsel those with AIDS, and provide spiritual and material assistance to the families left behind.
Finally, our support reaches to help the lepers of the Tala Leper Colony in the Philippines. Today, Filipino Dominican Friars and Sisters administer the Holy Rosary Schools, which provide a free Catholic education from elementary school through college for lepers and children of lepers. This education is geared towards the total development of students’ physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual needs, and is firmly rooted in Catholic faith, teachings, and values. Students are healed of the stigma associated with leprosy as they become integrated into the community and realize their worth and dignity as God’s children. Graduates of the college have gone on to become community leaders and many have returned to teach at the college. We ask for your prayers for our missionary efforts. Although there remains much to be done, we hope that with your support, prayers, and missionary spirit, our missionary labors will grow. Prayer: Triduum of Saint Martin de Porres
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