Mission was
founded by Frs. John Thompson and Larry Gilmore
On March 5 ANS posted this follow-up to an interview they published on March 3 (see below).
(ANS – Tappita, Liberia – March 5) - The Salesian mission at Tappita, in the
Liberian forest, is now being re-established some years after the 1989-1997 civil war forced its missionaries to depart.
The mission was founded
by Frs. John Thompson and Larry Gilmore, American Salesians, in the mid-1980s.
For one year the future martyr Sean Devereux (murdered in Somalia for defending
the rights of the poor) was a volunteer at the mission.
When war made it too
dangerous for the Salesians or Mr. Devereux to stay, the mission was
transferred to local clergy, who were not able to give it much attention.
In the current phase of
re-awakening, the mission needs everything: little things, like whistles to
referee games at the youth center or catechetical materials, to the most ambitious
programs like restarting the school and setting up the youth center. It is a
reality where the pioneering spirit of the mission ferments every activity of
education, social development, and evangelization.
The three Salesians who have taken over the mission
have given themselves a few months to size up the situation, understand the
challenges, and draft an action plan. They currently live in the house that
belonged to the Consolata Sisters until they too had to leave because of the
war. In the last 20 years the house was used occasionally by the priest who
visited the mission from time to time and then stayed permanently, but its
deterioration was progressive and fast.
For the Christmas holidays [sic], the community had
decided to adopt the “do as it has always been done” method to see and learn
from the situation. And despite the challenges of the realities at Tappita –
rationed electricity and water supply, sketchy communications, linguistic
difficulties with the local population – the SDBs have begun to shape pastoral
activities.
In January, all the parish groups met: pastoral council,
finance committee, men, women, youths, altar servers, choir, and various associations.
“Every evening, from 5:00 p.m. onwards, we ‘listened,’” explains Fr. Riccardo
Castellino, SDB.
The parish also has 24 outstations in the villages.
The Salesians have decided to visit them all. Every Sunday one of them stays in
the parish, and each of the other two journeys to a neighboring village.
The local people are simple and poor. They live on
agriculture, and though they do not lack food, they have no cash. All the
communities, with the little they have, have built or are building a little
church of mud and sheet metal.
“There is a lot of work to do, and this involves a
great deal of energy and material resources. But they too are children of God
and deserve our full attention,” Fr. Castellino concludes.
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