The diocese of Boa Vista/RR, always concerned with helping its missionaries learn about the profile of a Church with an Amazonian face, offers training to missionaries who arrive to work there every year. This year was no different. In mid-March (11-17), Sister Eunice participated in the training that brought together 17 missionaries who were arriving in the diocese to help with evangelization within the state of Roraima, since the diocese covers the entire state. These were very intense days with moments of theoretical and field training.
Each missionary is a gift from God to the Church. No one comes in their own name, but for a greater mission. This God who loved us and called us also places us in communion with these people. Regardless of the parish, missionary area, or indigenous mission that the missionaries are part of, each one is part of a story that encompasses the more than 650 thousand inhabitants of the state, and of these, a very significant number are indigenous, around 12 ethnic groups. A single diocese with more than 500 Catholic communities (indigenous, migrants, farmers, riverside dwellers, immigrants from other countries). All evangelization work is done in a network of communities.
We made field visits within the city of Boa Vista: to the Coordination and Interiorization Center (CCI), the Reception and Support Post (PRA), and the Consolata Center (of the Catholic Church). All of these entities are linked to immigration from Venezuela and other countries. To give you an idea, between 2018 and 2024, 144,503 people crossed the Brazil/Venezuela border, not counting those who entered illegally through clandestine shortcuts. In 2024 alone, our country received 21,802 immigrants. This data is from the Coordination Center in Boa Vista and can be found on the International Organization for Migration's research website.
During our field visit, we visited the municipality of Fronteira Pacaraima, on the border with Venezuela. There, too, we encountered a huge challenge with the entire migration issue. We learned about Operation Acolhida, coordinated by the National Army. We were informed that around 300 to 400 immigrants enter every day, to be sent to other cities or to stay in Pacaraima. To give you an idea, the city’s 10,000 inhabitants are joined by another 10,000 immigrants who are trying to restart their lives, fleeing hunger, poverty, death and indignity in their home country. The Church is doing what it can, with small projects such as bakeries and small businesses, but the challenges are many. There are several “invasions”, in which families who have nowhere to go settle in places that are difficult to access, on the hills and along streams. Imagine the dignity with which these families live.
We also visited the Surumu Indigenous Mission, where the Consolata Fathers serve. We were received with great joy and affection. They shared the suffering of having the Church and the house of the Sisters who lived there burned down by the Indigenous people themselves, “bought” by the Farmers and Rice Growers a few years ago. However, we found a happy people, with a great determination to move forward. Today they live on their lands, demarcated by the government, but they know they need to keep fighting, given the instability of government agencies. The shaman, Mrs. Mariana, also welcomed us with songs and dances and told us that indigenous culture is very valuable, because it is contact with God. Indigenous prayer is all of nature coming to meet the person. She exhorted all missionaries: work with faith and courage, work with commitment. A strong appeal to continue the path of communion in sharing life, in the Word of God, in the Eucharist celebrated, in short, in all mission/evangelization carried out.
May God the Shepherd be praised for the opportunity to have this experience, which was and is a renewal of life choices. May we enter with greater enthusiasm into this reality of the Church that is not only “exempt”, but that seeks to be constantly present with the different, with the peoples, with the cultures. Each reality we encounter is a cry and may this not go unnoticed in our mission with these people. We conclude with a speech by Pope Francis, who, by the way, has a special affection for this reality in the Amazon: “I dream of an Amazon that fights for the rights of the poorest, of the native peoples, of the last, so that their voices are heard and their dignity is promoted. (...) I dream of Christian communities capable of devoting themselves and incarnating themselves in the Amazon in such a way that they give the Church new faces with Amazonian features.” (P. Francisco)
Sr. Eunice Grespan, sjbp
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