MISSIONARY SISTERS
OF OUR LADY OF AFRICA
‘WHITE SISTERS’ - MSOLA
..... at the service of Africa
Dear Readers,
After the Resurrection the disciples of Jesus gathered
together and full of fear and confusion, were
transformed into ardent MISSIONARIES when the
wind of the SPIRIT filled the house and descended in
the form of tongues of fire.
That same SPIRIT is at work in our world of today in
all kinds of ways and in all sorts of people-including
each one of us!
We can find inspiration in what Càrol Garcia Murillo
writes about how the Spirit has acted in her life
An Inspiring Vocation…
Càrol, from Spain, wanted so much to join our
Congregation and she started her training full of
enthusiasm. Yet God showed her a different way.
Ill health obliged her to leave but now she is living
her vocation in her home country as an Associate
Member of our Congregation. May her story inspire
all of us especially those who feel that they can do
nothing because they are limited by ill health, age or
disability.
She has written a book: “Mi Hermana Africa”
about her experiences which has been published in
Spanish. May it soon be translated into English!
My name is Càrol, and I am an audiologist. I spent a
long and intense period full of experiences in the heart
of some of the most wonderful countries in Africa.
My dream started in the autumn of 2001. After a long
and deep discernment process and a stay in London, I
left Europe forever, or so I thought. I lived in Uganda,
Tanzania, Kenya and Algeria, in several communities
of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa.
While I lived with this religious family, I combined
Càrol with a friend in Uganda
Issue No.12
May 2016
within her own experience of illness and disability.
Many of us can identify with her suffering and will be
encouraged by her story.
Sister Begoñia Iñarra helps us
to understand how by networking
with others we can make an
effective contribution to the fight
against modern slavery.
May the Spirit of the Risen Jesus
fill us and send us forth …
Càrol at the launch of her book
my studies with pastoral tasks. My previous nursing
skills, and a special training on AIDS and palliative
care at Kisubi Hospital in Uganda were very useful
for my daily duties to accompany and assist people
with AIDS and other severe conditions, especially
those who did not have enough means to travel to a
health centre.
In my visits to the patients I encountered suffering,
loneliness and death. Eventually I learned how those
who felt alone and fearful tried to look at the future
in a different way. Without doubt, that was a key
learning experience which has helped me to accept
my present situation!
As days went by, the happiness I experienced
convinced me that God was truly inviting me to join
this way of life. Then suddenly, during my novitiate,
a serious sickness changed everything. Though I
thought it would be something temporary, I had to
return to Spain and remain there. That happened in
2006, and since then I have suffered from a respiratory
illness which has affected my physical condition. The
people. Even this lack of mobility has not stopped me
from living for the Gospel. Communion and prayer
are my main sources of hope. While I cannot carry
out any physical task, I have a positive attitude and I
still believe from my wheelchair that a fairer world is
possible. I do certainly have dark, unhappy moments
full of uncertainty but the moments of happiness and
gratitude are even more numerous. God plays an
essential role in my story!
I live with the company and under the care of my
mother, brothers and sisters, family and friends. And
I have chosen to live a life which, in spite of all, I
perceive as wonderful.
Why did I write a book?
I never thought I would do so. It never occurred to
very drug that saves my life debilitates my muscles
me that I would write something about myself, and
and my bones.
less still, a biography. The idea came from my sister,
The discovery that my missionary dream, my Gemma after reading some letters and articles I had
professional career and my most cherished desire written. Writing a book has been a big challenge, not
were suddenly gone was very hard for me.
only because of the usual obstacles which I had to
My friends, the “White Sisters”, did not give up overcome, but also because of my physical condition,
on me! Four years ago, they invited me to accept which made it difficult for me to type thousands of
a Missionary Compromise and
characters. Those words have
become an associate member
become an unforgettable story. I
of their family. No matter what
do hope that “Mi Hermana África”
my situation was or where I was
is a window through which a
living, I could never forget them.
different view of Africa can be
“It is my health, which is extremely
contemplated showing the hope
weak, not my faith” I pronounced
and trust characteristic of our
these words then and I repeat them
brothers and sisters living there. I
quite often.
am sharing with you a story of my
Book launch - Carol with Sr. Marie Carmen of
life, one in which my deepest desire
MSOLA general council.
Now, I need several drugs and
is destroyed and then revives,
treatments in order to remain
compelling
me
to
live every single moment with the
alive. I cannot breath normally, my body suffers a
lot, I cannot walk and I cannot engage in the normal same enthusiasm as that first day!
activities of daily living. I depend entirely on other Càrol Garcia Murillo
Carol in Uganda with same friend
“There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done,
but always to the same Lord;working in all sorts of different ways in different people,
it is the same God who is working in them all” (1 Cor. 3b-7)
Young Women Looking for a Better Life in
Europe
Sister Begoñia Iñarra lives in Paris where she
belongs to an organization named RENATE
(European Network of Religious against Trafficking
and Exploitation). She shares what she has discovered
through contacts with exploited young women.
In the “hot neighbourhoods” of major European
cities where prostitution is practiced, we meet very
young Nigerian women, whose number is constantly
increasing. Most come from Edo State in southern
Nigeria. Three factors contribute to these young
women being drawn into the networks of human
trafficking: their desire to go to Europe to work
and help their families, lack of economic means to
Bed in fields (photo credit: Paolo Patrizi)
undertake this journey and the difficulty to enter the
fortress that Europe has become. Two or three days
after their arrival they find themselves in the poorest
places of prostitution: the woods, parks, along roads
or in some streets of ill repute.
Through meeting these young women and the persons
accompanying them, I learned how they came and
what makes it so difficult for them to get out of
this modern slavery of which they are the victims.
They sacrifice themselves for the well-being of their
families and do not realize that the person to whom
they owe their debt is their pimp, the one who holds
them in bondage.
As an older member of the family they feel responsible
for the well-being of their parents and siblings. They
dream of going to Europe and a woman, the “madam”
who hears this, from neighbours or family, offers to
help them realize that dream. Once the young woman
says she is ready to go, the “madam” meets the family
and offers to make a contract in a voodoo temple.
The “madam” promises to bring the young woman
to Europe, to get her a residence permit and provide
her with a job that will allow her to pay the debt of
the trip. The amount is not mentioned. This madam
explains that once the debt is paid, the young woman
will be free to marry and to have children.
The young woman promises to family, ancestors and
the sorcerer-priest to keep the contract secret and to
work to pay the debt of the trip to Europe. She is told
that if she follows the madam and regularly pays her
debt, the ancestors will protect her, but if she dares
to break the contract, then their anger will fall on her
and her family, and illness, death or misfortune will
follow. The family guarantees this contract.
Some days later, the girl goes to Lagos where the
madam gives her the documents for the trip, true or
false. If the madam is rich and influential, she will have
a visa and will travel by plane with the madam and
other girls who travel together, but separated. They
are taught a false story that they must tell the police
claiming that they are refugees. Those less fortunate
ones travel through the desert, accompanied by a
boy from the madam’s family, finishing in Algeria,
Tunisia or Libya before crossing the Mediterranean.
When they arrive in France, they are told the amount
of debt: € 50,000 to € 80,000! She gives them a small
room shared among 4 or 6 girls costing from € 300
to € 400 per month for each one! Some girls know
that they come for prostitution, but others just learn
it upon arrival.
Most come legally to work as domestic servants,
waitresses or hairdressers, and believe they can
control their own money. The reality they find is a
shock! Under the dictates of the “madam,” they must
exhibit themselves outdoors rather ‘undressed,’ to
attract customers passing by in car or on foot. They
are forced to have sex with men behind bushes, under
Trafficked women...(photo credit: Elena Perlino)
makeshift tents or on the street, winter and summer.
Sometimes they are attacked and injured by customers
or by gangs who rob them of the day’s money.
Most of the money received goes to pay the debt,
but the madam allows them to send some money to
the family, so as to keep them because the family
demands more and more.
They do not feel victimized, because their suffering
is only the consequence of their choice to help
their families back home. They have an ambiguous
relationship to the madam who is their pimp. She
helped them realize their dream of going to Europe;
she provides them with housing, though at exorbitant
prices. She guides them in their request for asylum
that most will never receive. She gives them a place
for their work and allows them to send a small amount
of money to their families. They are afraid not to
keep to the contract and have the ‘djoudjou’ turned
against them. But they do not see that the madam
does not fulfill her part of the contract, as they are
“undocumented”. Worse still, the lady has her spies
among the girls, which creates an atmosphere of
mistrust among them.
They are isolated apart from their customers and
the subway. They think that prostitution is the only
way to stay in Europe. They dream of the day when
they will eventually pay the debt and find a husband.
All this makes it difficult to get out of this situation.
Our role during formation-tours is to be there for
them, without asking anything, to show interest and
respect them. They see this, especially when they feel
exploited by customers and by the madams and are
even wary of their companions. The fact of seeing us
regularly, allows them to create a relationship of trust
and helps them, when they finally take the decision,
to be able to verbalize their situation and to take a step
to get out of their present situation.
Sr. Begoñia Iñarra,
Community Gay Lussac (Paris, France)
Celebration 150 years of
Missionary Life
The Missionaries of Africa
(White Fathers) and ourselves the
Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of
Africa (White Sisters) have begun
celebrating the 150 years since
their foundation!
Both our Institutes were founded
by Cardinal Lavigerie, Archbishop
of Algiers: The Missionaries of
Africa in 1868 and the Missionary
Sisters in 1869.
From the beginning our two
institutes have collaborated in the
Missionary Venture united by
the same founder in our love of
Africa and the African People and
by our collaboration in MISSION
over the almost 150 years of our
existence.
This year 2016 we are ‘looking to
the past with gratitude.’
The year was initiated last
December when our two General
Superior Generals Father Richard Bawbor and Sister Carmen Sammut
Councils met and took time to
thank God for their vocation,
participation in the evangelisation
of Africa and for the life and
missionary achievements of our
brothers and sisters.
In the light of the ‘Year of Mercy’
they symbolically opened the
Holy Door to the chapel of the
Generalate of the Missionaries of
Africa and passed through it.
“God beyond our dreams, you have stirred in us a memory,
You have placed your powerful Spirit in the hearts of humankind.”
(Bernadette Farrell)
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To receive more copies, contact us:
The Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa:
Flat 12, Montpelier Court, Montpelier Road, London W5 2QN
Tel: 020 8998 6731 Email: [email protected] www.msolafrica.org
Registered Charity No. 228983