RSCM GENERALATE

February 2010
SHM Novitiate

FELICIANA's Apostolic Experience in Porto Seguro - BA

On the 4th of May of 2009 I left the Novitiate house bound for a new community where I did my Apostolic Experience. Ir Jacinta is the name of the RSHM community where I lived. It is a small community but with a big welcoming heart through the members who are part of it: Sisters Cecília de Sousa and Ana Helena Andreão, and Lázara, a laywoman who also belongs to the community.

The community of Ir. Jacinta is situated in the centre of Porto Seguro in the State of BAHIA. It is a very beautiful city, with lovely countryside and beaches, with tourist areas... In spite of good things it also has its challenges and difficulties, but it is Faith and Hope which grows and remains in the hearts of the Bahian people – Porto-segurense.

The sisters are inserted in projects and other social works and there they defend life and struggle for justice with the people. In Porto Seguro we work in two projects - NOSSA CASA (RSHM) and BEM QUERER A VIDA (government).

The project BEM QUERER A VIDA is for children from 2-6 years of age and NOSSA CASA is for children and adolescents from 7-15 years old. The two projects are situated in the Bairro de Vila Vitória a locale on the periphery of the city of Porto Seguro.

During this time I stayed working in the Project of A NOSSA CASA where I was inserted in the local reality, living with and learning many things with the children, adolescents, monitors. I learned to make dolls of ‘fuxicos’ with leftovers and scraps, to play ‘capoeira’ and to play the flute.

I was involved with the liturgy group of the parish where we share in different ways of celebrating liturgy, and also in the bible school with the youth, where we deepened the question of global warming – it was a good experience.

I participated in various reflective events
including:

    -   Week against Sexual Abuse of Children
        and Adolescents, during which we
      deepened this theme with the adolescents
       of A NOSSA CASA

    -   The Cry of the Excluded on 7th September
.
    -   A week of Preserving the Environment
        which pushed us to reflect on this theme
        in the Projects.

It was a time in which I perceived that it is very good to be disponible and open to give and receive, responding to the call "to know and love God and to make God known and loved so that all may have life".

Feliciana de Campos