Valinande Isabelle Kahambu, a Congolese Comboni sister: “Giving Hope”

After working for almost 10 years in Mexico, a few months ago, my congregation, the Comboni Missionary Sisters, asked me to step into the neighbouring country and now I live in the State of Texas (USA), specifically in the city of San Antonio, where I work with migrants.

Never before could I have imagined that such a large and powerful country needed to be evangelized! In my missionary life, I have faced the challenge of integrating into a new culture several times. I had to put aside my own and accept different customs and ways of doing things, making the effort to start from scratch, accepting being “ignorant” to let myself be taught and learn to love the unknown. It is not easy, and now in the United States, I am reliving that experience.

I work in a reception centre for migrants who arrive from different parts of the world. The suffering they have experienced on their journey here is a reality that breaks my heart. Only they and God know how they can survive these experiences; listening to their stories makes my heart ache!

When I know their reality, I feel a great sense of helplessness for not being able to give them all the help they need. However, the time I spend with them, the way I listen to them, the welcome I give them, and the smile I give them, also give me hope. Faced with these attitudes, they too, trustingly, open their hearts and share their experiences.

I reciprocate by offering them my prayers. This relationship inspires hope in me because it allows me to contemplate their perseverance, their struggles and their determination to make their dreams come true and find a better life for their families.

I often wonder why so many people have to leave their land, their customs and risk their lives to come to a new place where no one is looking after them and where they can find neither home nor job. Many people have been forced to leave everything in their countries in the hope of finding safety in another land and of being treated with dignity to live in peace and start a new life. And what do they find? Difficulty, misunderstandings, rejection. It is very difficult to feel treated this way!

I am African and many challenge me and tell me that it makes no sense to go as a missionary to Europe, America or Asia because they have everything there. Some even tell me that I am not on a mission, but that I am just travelling to the United States.

Unfortunately, we are often superficial without knowing the reality. True wealth is not limited to material things but is found in the person of Christ, who loves us and gave his life to save us, and here he is not fully known. It is not only the less developed countries that need to be evangelized. While I live through these misunderstandings, I try to find the strength to move forward in prayer and in accepting the teachings that others give me.

I have embraced the missionary life to serve Christ through others, wherever they are, including in this country. As an international congregation, we are willing to enter into the reality of the place where we are, to know its culture, habits and customs, including the language, to integrate better.

All this makes me feel happy and fulfilled and urges me to move forward. I am proud to contribute to evangelization wherever I have gone on mission, to share my family, cultural, diocesan and national wealth with other races, peoples and nations, but also to learn from them. I have discovered that the more you share with others, the more you learn and the more you become open to the world. My happiness lies in sharing with others the gifts and talents that God has given me.

Comboni Missionaries