This video is about Children eating tasty food brought by the Railaco Jesuit Mission in the remote sub-district Cocoa in East Timor.
It’s quite incredible that 100 children turn-up in the small sub-district of Cocoa outside Railaco today to greet us.
The last week of June was a very fruitful and memorable time for the 18 visitors and parishioners from the parish of St. Canice in Sydney Australia that spent the whole week in East Timor.
Travelling into a remote sub-district, Khoda meets and shares a meal with children of the village. The Railaco Jesuit Mission in Railaco has been driving out to this village for fifteen years now. Khoda got busy chopping onions and garlic to help make the meal, before climbing aboard the stormtrooper to drive up the mountain to the village and help serve the kids. Imagine how big and round their eyes were when Khoda alighted from the back of the stormtrooper he was travelling in with his mum, Odelia Potts, and started marching up to the gathered kids playing his bagpipes.
The word neighbour derives from those near-by. When the neighbour is drawn into the exchange of kindnesses, our human-ness is enhanced by the enabling of goodness.
This is what the relationship between St Canice Elizabeth Bay parish and the Jesuit Mission in Railaco is all about – simply being neighbourly, the mutual comfort each of us derive from having good neighbours.
Fr Jorge Serrano Sj, a visitor from the Jesuit Curia in Rome came to St Canice’s today with Helen Forde of Jesuit Mission to get a first hand view of the many outreach activities in our parish. Fr Jorge says, “people want to be invited to be part of the mission of the Society of Jesus”.
It is from the heart and compassion of the donors at St Canice’s KingsCross Sydney that make this program possible, the happiness of the children and the communities is a fulfillment for the donors and all of us. The value of the program lies on how people from first world countries like Australia are able to connect their lives through their donation to people in a poor country like Timor.
The story of the Jesuit Mission in Railaco can be tracked in the series of “Letters from Railaco” and other posts in our earlier Railaco Blogger site from 2009.
Mobile medical clinic is a healthcare program run by Jesuit mission in Timor-Leste. It covers eleven areas in the districts of Ermera and Liquica. It’s primarily managed by Filipino Jesuit Father Antonio Martins Abad-Santos. Every year it offers medical care to more than 5000 people.
Students from three of Sydney’s Jesuit Colleges came to St Canice’s this weekend to join in the parish Feast Day celebrations. Thanks to your collective generosity, we’ll be sending more than $10,000 to Fr Bong in Railaco to support the humanitarian works of our sister parish.
If we Caniceians continue to heed the frequent calls of the gospels to reach out to the needy, St Canice’s will be kept very busy acknowledging all our contributions, large and small. But beyond that, and as importantly, we would be living out our faith, enriching our spirit and building our parish community.
