by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
The project will provide individual and group counseling to local Bolivians. Along with a psychiatrist, Fr. Greg hopes to counsel low-income adults and families who do not have financial access to professional counseling services. The psychologist and Fr. Greg will offer counseling services in individual offices at the Maryknoll Center. They will counsel adults and families on home visits. In order to accommodate the needs of a few clients, they will sometimes meet them at a public location near their place of work.
In collaboration with two other Bolivian professionals, Fr. Greg will offer courses, workshops and seminars. The courses will focus on spirituality for personal transformation. The education and counseling will emphasize the potential healing, purpose and interior peace of a mindful spiritual life.
In Bolivia, there is a genuine need for group and individual counseling to address the psychological, emotional and spiritual needs of struggling families and individuals. Nevertheless, many families are more concerned with immediate material needs than counseling. Fr. Greg would like to take a combined approach to address the counseling needs of poor Bolivian families by creating a small counseling center for single mothers through collaboration with a pre-existing tutoring and daycare center for the children of single mothers and fathers.
“Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, as indeed you do.”
1 Thessalonians 5:11
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
Servicios Misioneros Proyecto Laudato Si
Fr. Alejandro Marina, M.M.
Missionary Services is the program through which we continue to offer “missionary formation” to the Churches of Latin America and beyond. Led by Fr. Alejandro Marina, M.M., this training is carried out through online workshops, administration of the “Ex-CMMAL” building so that various organizations committed to the mission, have their headquarters to offer their formative proposals which include counseling and spiritual accompaniment, and the Laudato Si Program: Care of creation and formation in an ecological spirituality.
Missionary Services is the program through which we continue to offer “missionary formation” to the Churches of Latin America and beyond.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
Virtual Outreach through Website and Podcast
Daily Gospel Reflection podcast, done in conjunction with the Digital Marketing Unit at Maryknoll, NY. In order to facilitate advertising of personal and Maryknoll programs with the faithful, a website containing weekly websites will be used. The funds requested here are specifically for the upkeep and maintenance of this website. Success will be based on the number of visitors and subscribers to this virtual event.
Daily Gospel Reflection podcast with Fr. Daniel Kim, M.M. done in conjunction with the Digital Marketing Unit at Maryknoll, NY.
“The call of each [missioner] is unique, but their journeys have a common thread. They all felt God inviting them to move out of self to something more, to leave their homes to proclaim the Gospel to people who may never hear it if not for them….The challenge for each of us is to listen for the voice of God constantly saying, ‘Go, prophesy to my people.’
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
Social Hall at Transfiguration Parish
Fr. John Eybel’s project includes the construction of a social hall adjacent to the Transfiguration Parish church and rectory in Mabatini, Mwanza. The Social Hall will allow for large groups to meet, e.g. 500 youths, and for potential parish income from wedding receptions and other major social functions.
With your help, the re-acquired property will serve the social needs of Transfiguration parishioners offering potential space for education, meetings, receptions, recreation and Sisters’ housing.
“Poverty is not an option. The poor have no options. Develop a situation where the people have opportunities, and they will flourish.”
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
The reforestation project will take place in 20-30 outstations of St. John the Baptist Parish. Two types of drought-resistant trees will be planted. The trees will bring various nutritional and socio-economic benefits to the local population. The second part of this proposal is for a solar pump for a well in St. John the Baptist Parish. In 2015, the Society funded the drilling of a well in the Parish. That well is now the main water source for the surrounding community. Fossil fuels are used to power the pump. Shifting to a solar pump will protect the environment and relieve the community of the costs entailed by purchasing diesel. If the trees survive, the tree project will become self-sustaining. The well has already been a self-sustaining project. The solar pump will enhance the well’s durability.
This care of creation project is for sustainable trees in the semi-arid area of Kibwezi in southeastern Kenya and a solar pump for a well. The Moringa Oleifera tree can provide a source of nutrition to community members, especially during the dry seasons, and the use of a solar pump will eliminate the need for fossil fuels to power the power.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
Mission Outreach Programs
For several years, the Region has been sending teams of university students to serve in impoverished, pastoralist, marginalized areas of northern Kenya: Turkana, Isiolo, Marsabit, and Pokot. The teams assist in parishes for 4-6 weeks and carry out educational, catechetical, women’s empowerment programs, and health programs in the parishes. Two mission teams of medical, nursing, public health, and pharmacy students volunteer for medical ministry in Turkana, northwestern Kenya. University students will offer tutoring in parish schools for primary and secondary school students. They will assist catechists in providing religious instruction. They will offer health education in matters of diet, hygiene, maternal health, children’s health, human sexuality, and HIV prevention. Medical, nursing, and pharmacy students will assist in parish dispensaries. Students in agriculture and animal husbandry will offer training on small-scale agriculture and livestock development.
Your support will give student participants the experience of mission for a new understanding of themselves as agents of evangelization by living our Catholic faith. Fr. John Waldrep wants to assist parishes in northern Kenya with their educational, catechetical, women’s, and health outreach programs.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 8, 2022
Aid to Women and Children
Fr. John Waldrep has developed a system to assist women meet their expenses and start some small on-the-street businesses (fruit and vegetable stands, fast food stands, and stands for small domestic items and beauty products) that enable them to meet their expenses and move away from commercial sex work. The second part of this project is maternal assistance to pregnant secondary school young women and university women. Pregnant university students are denied on-campus accommodations soon after the first trimester. In addition to meeting the costs of pre-natal care, they must pay rent and utilities, prepare to cover delivery costs, purchase baby clothes, and buy food. Often, families refuse to assist pregnant students and insist on ending the pregnancy.
With your help, women will be able to establish small on-the-street businesses and meet their daily needs for food, housing, education and medical care for their children. Pregnant young women will be able to attend secondary school and university students will continue their studies.
“Everywhere we are touched by the triumph of the human spirit and enriched by encountering people’s faith experience. We join with them announcing the healing, reconciling and liberating Jesus.”
by Dionel Rodriguez | Feb 2, 2021
Clinical Pastoral Education at Bugando Medical Center Subsidy, Tanzania
With your help, we will subsidize school fees for the Clinical Pastoral Education Program (CPE) at Bugando Medical Center (BMC) in Mwanza.
Maryknoll priest Fr. John Eybel. M.M., supervises students in the program two days each week while living at Mabatini Parish in Mwanza Archdiocese. His education project is not self-sustaining but is paid for by student fees and contributions from the hospital and from the Tanzania Episcopal Conference. Most participants are seminarians currently coming from Musoma and Mwanza.
“As we reach out in compassion and solidarity with the poor, let us keep in mind that we’re not making God present but rather witnessing God already present.”
by Dionel Rodriguez | Oct 9, 2020
La Posadita del Buen Pastor
La Posadita del Buen Pastor (Little Inn of the Good Shepherd) provides shelter, food and medical care for children and women with HIV/AIDS. There are 14 children and 7 women living at the Posadita. This is one of only two AIDS shelters in Peru for women and children.
The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers work in collaboration with The Sisters of the Good Shepherd which founded La Posadita de Buen Pastor in 1998 by Sr. Victor Mestas, a Good Shepherd Sister.
by Dionel Rodriguez | Aug 10, 2020
Medical and Pastoral Services for Prisoners
Fr. Joe Fedora works to provide medicine to the detained and secretarial services the Chaplain at Peru’s largest prison, San Pedro de Lurigancho, a facility built for 3,300 prisoners that currently holds 10,000, making it the most densely populated prison in the Americas. The aim is to accompany people abandoned by society and, for many, even by family. Established in 1999, the project continues to medical and pastoral care to the forgotten.
Father Joseph Fedora offers counseling, the Sacraments, and medicines to prisoners who are HIV+ and receiving little or no care.
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,* and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28
