The New Year's letter to the entire Dehonian Missionary Family from Father Jacob Szałek, a missionary from Chad, is moving and very personal. It reminds us that service in the missions is a unique and paradoxical vocation, where joy is always intertwined with suffering. It is in this suffering, so often incomprehensible and causing a feeling of profound helplessness, that the Gospel proclaimed by missionaries is the only light that can illuminate the darkness of daily worries.
January 2025
Jesus Christ be praised! My heartfelt greetings to the entire Dehonian Missionary Family!
"Mary gave birth to her firstborn Son, wrapped him in diapers and laid him in a manger, for there was no room for them in the dwelling." [Luke 2:7]
In writing this New Year's letter, I would like to refer to the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the Missionary of Love, who said: "Make love for the poorest of the poor always alive. Do not think that it is a waste of time: to feed the hungry, to visit and nurse the sick and dying, and to welcome with open arms the unwanted and homeless. No, because this is our love for Christ, shown in action. The more degrading the work, the greater should be your love and effectiveness of action. Do not be afraid of a life made up of sacrifices, which comes from a life of poverty."
As it happens, the climate of poverty is not alien to me. For almost 20 years I have been serving as a missionary in one of the poorest countries in the world... I have witnessed the birth of God in the great material poverty of the local people....
My daily life is living with people who are very poor. It is not always easy! There are situations that scare me and make me feel helpless in the face of the poverty around me....
Two weeks before Christmas, a young woman, my neighbor, died. She died in childbirth. On her own feet, she went to the health clinic to give birth there. The delivery took place without any major problems. She gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. It was 11:00 a.m. After several minutes, the nurse realized that the woman was bleeding heavily. He called an ambulance, and they transported the neighbor to a hospital two kilometers away from the clinic. They placed her in the emergency room. She was still bleeding heavily. The emergency room staff told her husband to look for someone who had the same blood type as his wife. After an hour, he found some random guy to draw blood from him and give it to his wife (it was already about 1:00 p.m.). When everything was ready to start taking blood from the donor, my neighbor, in front of her husband's eyes, began to weaken and after several minutes she died... She bled out...
It's hard to accept that a young woman dies in the hospital, and only because there was no doctor to take care of her. The city of Lai, where I live, is a provincial city. Lai for Chad is like Bydgoszcz or Torun for Poland. A provincial hospital on a weekday, in the morning, is unable to provide medical care to a young, dying woman... Great poverty, in every dimension of the word!
A few moments after her death, nuns from my mission took the woman's body from the hospital and transported to her husband's home. There they washed her, dressed and transported to her family home. It is customary in Chad for everyone to be buried next to their family home, which is where they were born. In the villages, the graves of the dead are located in homesteads. In cities, on the other hand, funeral rites are held in the place where the person was born, with the body eventually resting in the city cemetery. There are no common graves for husband and wife. After death, everyone is buried where they were born. The deceased returns to their hometown.
My neighbor has orphaned nine children. Her husband is a catechist in my mission. He is an ailing man, almost 30 years older than his late wife. A few days after the funeral, we had a frank chat... He told me about the customs here when someone dies.
My neighbor has a great grudge against the sisters and aunts of his late wife, because when they were performing the toilet of her body on the day of her death, they (the sisters and aunts of the deceased) took from his house (in front of his eyes) everything that belonged to his wife: her clothes, linens, all the kitchen equipment, plates, pots. Everything that his wife used - all this was stolen in a few moments by the deceased's immediate family. Nothing can be done... These are the customs here! When your wife dies, her immediate family takes everything your wife used from your house.
I'm thinking about those aunts and sisters of my late neighbor... How greedy and heartless one has to be to take everything from a relative's house in front of her husband and nine small children. I don't even care about the husband anymore, but about those kids! Everyone tells me - this is the custom here. What poverty!!!
A neighbor is strongly affected by the passing of his wife. He loved her very much. He is worried about the future of his children. He is about 65 years old, or a little more. His wife was younger than him by almost 30 years. The youngest child - the one that was born - was taken by the parents of the deceased. They will take care of the upbringing of this girl....
Such a sad story, which perhaps does not fit the time when we rejoice in Christmas... I wanted to share it, it will be lighter on my heart.
May Christ find a place in the heart of each of us!
With the gift of prayer +
Fr. Jacob - missionary from Chad