Our Congregation, founded in Spain in 1885 and spread in some European countries, but especially in Latin America, since the year 1905 when we arrived in Colombia, was not yet present in Africa until 1971 when, the former «Immaculate» Province, received two insistent requests to go to the black continent. One of them was from Mons. Eugenio Kabanga, Archbishop of Lubumbashi in Congo and the other from a White Father (Missionary of Africa) inviting the sisters to Rwanda. The Provincial Superior at that time, Sr. María Pilar Burillo, accompanied by Sr. Margarita Ros, travelled to visit both places and finally they opted to go to Congo (whose name, from 1971 to 1997 was Zaire).
On August 20th, 1971, just 50 years ago, the first five Capuchin Tertiary Sisters who were going to settle in the Democratic Republic of Congo, arrived in Lubumbashi (capital town of the province of Katanga). Their final destination was the Mission of Kansenia, where the Benedictine Monks of Saint André (Belgians), were present since 1912; the Benedictine Sisters withdrew from the place because of lack of sisters and remained there only Sr. Marie Gregoire and another religious, a Saint Augustine’s Canoness, that were carrying on pastoral work in the small villages.
Five days before our departure from Spain to the African continent, during the missionary sending ceremony in our chapel in Burlada (Navarra – Spain), full of people to overflowing, we told our sisters, family members and the Christian community accompanying us, that we were happy with their presence because, like us, they were eager to communicate to the others the joy of knowing Jesus and they were feeling encouraged by the Spirit of God. In a community, each one has his mission and our mission was to express the Church universality, being a sign of communion, friendship and collaboration with the still young Church of the Congo. On August 21st we arrived at our mission, Kansenia, about 300 km far from Lubumbashi that was attending 35 villages spread over an area of about 2,700 km2 where we would deal with the Hospital (which was in an indescribable situation) and the boarding for the Secondary school girls, we would open a home for girls who had given up the school and we would give classes of religion in Primary and Secondary schools.
When in our community we became six sisters, two sisters, from Monday to Friday, were going to the villages of the Mission to live and share with the people, especially at night, around the bonfire.
In 1981 another community was opened in the provincial capital, Lubumbashi, since the Archbishop asked the collaboration of one sister in the diocesan store that was providing services to the poor and missionaries At the beginning the Diocese accommodated us in a part of the building of the Diocesan Offices and later in a house near the Cathedral. The other three sisters were performing different tasks: one in a clinic, another in a suburban neighborhood and another coordinating the religion classes in the Primary schools.
When our work in the diocesan store ended, we the sisters preferred to live in a suburban neighborhood and the Salesians offered us to go to Kasungami, a parish they were pastorally attending but where they were not living. And we settled there on January 20th, 1989, taking care of education, health, abandoned elderly, street children, mentally ill people wandering aimlessly, students without means to continue their studies and undernourished people, especially children … And it was there the where we began to receive the first postulants and novices.
It was the moment to think about the formation of the young women who were starting their journey with us and we considered convenient to open a new house, a formation house, in the city, where it was easier to attend courses and seminars organized by the Union of Major Superiors, at an intercongregational level.
The opportunity was provided us by a Belgian priest, parish priest in the Ruashi neighborhood. The formation community settled there on August 19th 1993. They were the last days of President Mobutu and the political situation was complex, reining everywhere a great disorder and insecurity. On three occasions our house was looted and robbed and, due to the seriousness of the situation, we discerned about the convenience of leaving that place. The novices and their Mistress traveled to Benin and joined the Novitiate in that country, at that time belonging to a General Delegation, to complete the canonical year. Meanwhile, we began the construction of a new formation house located near the Lubumbashi university campus and it was inaugurated in October 1998. And on the 30th of that same month, when our first Congolese sister made her Perpetual Profession, the four novices who had already come back from Benin, made their First Profession.
Open to the arising needs and welcoming the signs that God’s Providence placed on our way, we opened a new community to attend, at first, street children. Later, in 2009, the mission of this community expanded and we inaugurated a dormitory for young girls studying in the university: subsequently, due to various circumstances, the girls at risk that were living in this house, were transferred to Kasungami, and welcomed in the home operating there for this mission and managed by the sisters of that community. And in Lubumbashi, instead of the girls’ home, we opened a nursery school whose educational service we are at present completing with Primary School.
Since 2014, as a result of the process of congregational restructuring, the four existing communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo became part of the General Delegation «Our Lady of Africa»: Kansenia, in the heart of the savannah; Kasungami, in the suburbs of Lubumbashi; the formation house and the school complex with the student Dormitory in the city of Lubumbashi.
Personally, my life in Congo has been a great gift. I was feeling in my place. The people were simple and very welcoming; young people eager to learn… it was a joy! I was also happy to see that many people without means could be welcomed and cared with interest and affection in the Hospital …, in fact, nobody had health insurance, except those who, were working in the mining centers for a company. Our life was a life of full insertion in the mission.
I never cease to be grateful for everything I have experienced and for all the love received and offered by all the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters who had the grace to work and serve in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Hna. María Carmen Sanz Lorente, Tc
(Sr. María Carmen, author of this article, was a member of the founding group of the Congo in 1971; she remained in this country during 46 years and she returned to Spain in 2017).
