Song, dance, music is a universal language that creates equals. This brings us so much closer to these little children and their families in poor remote communities outside Railaco. Every time we do it a barrier comes down.
The key observation I made during our visits to the villages and schools in Timor Leste was that the people have great need, but they are NOT needy. The people are filled with faith, hope and love. They dance and smile like they are the happiest people on earth.
This video is about Elijah travelling with his mother Lynda with Fr Bong’s Mobile Medical Clinic outside Railaco, East Timor – a short video.
Lynda Slavinskis, Elijah’s mum writes: You can click here to get a handy copy of Lynda’s words.
When preparing for our visit to Timor Leste, I often wondered ‘what can I do to help? What can I give?’
Today on our visit to the remote mountain village of Fatu Besi, I realised that the greatest gift I could give was just to be me, a mother. I experienced the simple yet extraordinary power a smile and a gentle touch can have, in the absence of a shared language. It is the silent ‘knowing’, especially between mothers, that can engender trust and cement even the most unlikely of friendships.
Travelling into a remote sub-district, Khoda meets and shares a meal with children of the village. The Railaco Jesuit Mission in Railaco has been driving out to this village for fifteen years now. Khoda got busy chopping onions and garlic to help make the meal, before climbing aboard the stormtrooper to drive up the mountain to the village and help serve the kids. Imagine how big and round their eyes were when Khoda alighted from the back of the stormtrooper he was travelling in with his mum, Odelia Potts, and started marching up to the gathered kids playing his bagpipes.
On the very first day on our Railaco ‘immersion’ experience for my group of six, we leave the sealed road from the coast up to the mountains and at an appointed junction, we fall-in behind Fr Bong in his carbon-belching old 4WD.We jolt over almost impossible dirt tracks, hewn through thick bush by local villagers with pick and shovel to permit access to the outside world. And us! There we are, bones rattling, holding-on for grim death, but so excited, nonetheless. Our confident Timorese driver, Edu, manoeuvres around huge pot holes, deftly avoiding cave-ins, and using his gears to escape wheels spinning in slippery muddy patches.
The word neighbour derives from those near-by. When the neighbour is drawn into the exchange of kindnesses, our human-ness is enhanced by the enabling of goodness.
This is what the relationship between St Canice Elizabeth Bay parish and the Jesuit Mission in Railaco is all about – simply being neighbourly, the mutual comfort each of us derive from having good neighbours.
Timor–Leste is one of the developing countries that is still food insecure. Many people in the rural areas of Timor are still living in poverty and around seventy percent of the population rely on subsistence farming for their livelihoods.
While the wider Jesuit community is ‘nation-building’, we at St Canice’s have been making what is seen by the people in Railaco as a monumental commitment to their welfare, healthcare, nutrition, and educational needs of their children since 2004, and we are committed to continue.
We would like you, our St Canice’s Community, to better understand the activities in Railaco that are supported by your generosity.
The story of the Jesuit Mission in Railaco can be tracked in the series of “Letters from Railaco” and other posts in our earlier Railaco Blogger site from 2009.
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Mobile medical clinic is a healthcare program run by Jesuit mission in Timor-Leste. It covers eleven areas in the districts of Ermera and Liquica. It’s primarily managed by Filipino Jesuit Father Antonio Martins Abad-Santos. Every year it offers medical care to more than 5000 people.
