Lavalla200> Tabatinga

Tabatinga is a Brazilian city on the border with Peru and Colombia. This is where the LaValla200> community of the Region ‘América Sur’ is located. The community currently has 3 members: Mario Araya (Santa María de los Andes), Brothers Luke Fong (Pacific) and Nilvo Favretto (Brasil Sul-Amazônia). Mayra Gutierrez Marquez (Mexico), assigned to the community, will arrive as soon as possible.

In the area the Marists live, there are twin towns – Tabatinga (Brazil) and Leticia (Colombia) – that are 1000 km to the nearest cities in their respective countries, with no roads.  So, it is quite isolated. The area is home to many indigenous rainforest groups, town-dwellers, mixed-race river people, those trying to exploit the resources of the Amazon and those defending against this.

In the bulletin of the District of the Pacific of 30 July, Br Luke shared the testimony which we reproduce below.

Coming to the second half of the year 2021, I would like to thank God for the different blessings I encountered so far. This year I dedicated my Saturdays taking catechism lessons with the youth of   Xingu together with Ms. Magdelis, a Lasalle Lay woman from Venezuela. Xingu is a community that is starting to grow as an ecclesial family. It’s only been three years since the Catholic church was built. When we started going to this community, there were only about ten people who gathered on Sundays for Mass, little by little the number of faithful has been increasing and now we have a full church on Sundays. Three lay missionaries (Congregation Obra de  Maria) joined us in May.

With the arrival of these Missionaries, we started visiting families and inviting them for Mass on Sundays, we supported the evangelization of the community, and also to get to know the reality of each of them regarding to their sacramental experience and together with them we plan and pre- pare for the sacraments

Also, I played the guitar during Mass, and it was not easy as I have to play Spanish and Portuguese hymns. The best thing was that the people enjoyed it and it helped them to sing and to participate during Mass.

Here in the community, we are going to open a new Marist Centre next month to help the indigenous students that are studying here in Tabatinga. The centre will offer computers and internet for research and academic work. It will also offer other formation courses as well as retreat and a space for prayer.

In Tabatinga everything is normal but recently they announced that we have more than 20 new cases of Covid 19. The surrounding places in Leticia (Colombia) and Santa Rosa (Peru) have lots of cases. We continued to use masks and alcohol gel and observed social distancing.

Thank you for all your support, prayers and encouragement.