“Mission to Arvayher. People’s plans and God’s surprises” – a video report with this title was prepared by Mongolian Christians, waiting for the Pope in their country.
Inese Steinert – Vatican
According to the latest census data, Arvajher has at least 20 thousand inhabitants. In this settlement, located 400 kilometers from the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Catholic missionaries began their activities 20 years ago. Before that, nobody knew Catholicism here.
For a long time, the missionary of the Consulate, today the apostolic administrator of Ulaanbaatar, Giorgio Marengo, recently promoted to cardinal, served as dean in Arvayher. In his words, it was a mission “on the front lines”, because one reality is in the capital, but completely different in the province. The first missionaries who arrived in Arvaykhera also left behind the “little security” that had arisen during their initial stay in Mongolia, in order to “open up to a completely new life” again.
Missionaries set out to build bonds of trust with the local population and the authorities of the populated center day after day. Now, looking back on the procession, Giorgio Marengo, cardinal and missionary in one person, admits that “the hand of God has guided them through an experience that was far from easy” when “it was not known what might happen to them”. In this experience, the missionaries were guided to open themselves to the surprises of the Holy Spirit. The apostolic administrator of Ulaanbaatar reveals that “sometimes we tend to go with ready-made ideas, with examples that we carry with us”, but “it is important to be ready to change the program”, to be humble and “to listen to the Holy Spirit who speaks through reality”.
Later, the missionary movement moved towards “a simple witness of life together with the smallest, with the poorest”. Thus, “there was also the desire of some people to approach the faith”. In the video report, the testimonies of the missionaries – father James Meit and sisters Magdalena Maturi and Teodora Mbiliņi are heard, in which the characteristics of each authentic apostolic activity are unwittingly revealed: concreteness, presence in the everyday life of peoples, joyful humility of people who recognize that the mission to reach and change people’s hearts is not all theirs, but God’s merit. “We are not doing anything big. What we can do with them is to be friends and do small jobs together”, says Sister Teodora. She adds that she feels blessed by God, because what she has seen in Arvajhera is not what she “read in the textbooks”, but what she “actually experienced in life”.
Real and living facts and encounters are what can be seen in the video report from Arvajhera, which accompanies the missionaries in making them in the image of Christ. Being like Christ is the secret and fruitfulness of every authentic missionary experience. Not looking for visibility through disturbing events, but walking daily paths in gratitude and trust. “If we think about the life of Our Lord, the 33 years He spent on this earth”, then “the first 30 years passed in the anonymity of Nazareth”, notes Cardinal Marengo. Later followed three years of service and three days of suffering, death and resurrection.
“The life of a missionary,” continues the apostolic administrator of Ulaanbaatar, “can often seem barren” when many days are spent “doing seemingly insignificant things”, but they are lived in faithfulness to Christ, trying to build relationships with others, as Jesus did with his friends and disciples. “Furthermore, in this canvas of life, the Lord weaves the whole mystery of his love for the people to whom we are sent.” It is not necessary to come up with missionary strategies and big plans, but “we have to open ourselves to what real life tells us day by day”. Thus, people will be able to see that “behind our poor lives there is a message of love, of mercy that reaches out to them and that can possibly move them towards faith”.
The thanksgiving of the baptized Mongolians, those who first felt the attraction of faith in Christ, proves how Christ continues to favor the poor and the little ones. In the video report, elderly spouses Perlima and Renani talk about the joy that comes from attending Holy Mass and from the prayers they use every day to ask the Lord to protect their lives and the lives of their livestock. Both spouses reveal that they met the small Mongolian Catholic community at a time when life with their four children was very difficult, when there was no work and they could not afford food every day. However, Perlima and Renani add that since then, every night, despite the lack of food, they have recognized that they are “rich in the love of Christ”.
2023-08-25 15:02:36
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