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_web.jpg) What was your greatest discovery about/with the people to whom you were sent?
From March 2008 to February 2009 I lived in the district of Oecusse (Timor-Leste) with the Missionary Dominican Sisters of the Rosary. That year was marked by the sharing, the dialogue, the joint force and work to provide the best for the children resident in the boarding school named Colegio Nossa Senhora do Rosario.
It was also a period marked by many small discoveries that colour my daily life there. I discover a new language, a new cultural habits, a new way of thinking and giving sense to the world, a .new social organization, a new pattern of social relationships, a new way of expressing feelings, emotions and ideas, new strategies to deal with the frustration and difficulties, new way of practicing the religion. And all those small discoveries were amazing – sometimes even shocking – and they seemed to be clear expressions of the diversity and inner richness existent in each human being.
But the biggest discovery I found inside of me. I learnt how good and sweat is life when we live for the others! When we fill our life with simplicity and we allow the love to flow between us and the others, we become more tolerant with the differences, our limits expand, we do incredible things that we thought we couldn’t do, we have creative ideas, we try the best to solve the problems even in hard situations and we find a little of God around us. And suddenly, our smile become so dependent on the smile of the others that it seems that we all together are only one.
I would like to congratulate DVI for these 10 years promoting the volunteer experiences around the world, connecting the different Dominican communities, making real the dream of so many people, and allowing the flow of love keep going…
Manuela Fonseca, DVI former volunteer in East Timor from Portugal |
DVI IS TEN YEARS OLD!
