2016-10-07
LEBANON
Youth from a Lebanese Marist School volunteer with the Fratelli Project
A three day camp was held in Rmeileh with the participation of 25 youth and teachers from one of the Marist schools in Lebanon to help teach 150 displaced children and visit their homes.
The‘Mission and Service Camp is an annual activity of the Marist Youth Ministry of the Collège des Frères Maristes Champville.
“This year, we decided it had to be in association with the Fratelli Project and at the service of refugee children,” Edouard Jabre, officer of pastoral youth ministry at Champville, told the general house press office on Sept. 15. “We wanted to step out of our comfort zone and go towards refugees, despite all the social and political tensions created by and around their presence.”
The camp, held from Aug. 30 – Sept. 2, involved organizing activities, games and lessons with two daily shifts. In the morning, they visited children and their families at refugee shelters, and in the afternoon they received other groups of refugee children at the Fratelli Project centre.
“I guess the most important thing is that we tried to live as a Marian Church, showing mercy, tenderness, affection, and that we got to know these people beyond the fact that they’re Syrians and Muslims,” stated Edouard.
“We lived an experience of community, and witnessed what (superior general) Brother Emili said in his letter about Fourvière, that the dream of communion is the dream of every human being,” he affirmed.
A final ceremony on Sept. 2 with the members of Champville as well as the refugee children and their families brought the camp to an end.
Currently, the Fratelli Project is led by a Marist Brother, Brother Miquel Cubeles, and a Lasallian Brother, Brother Andrés Porras, as an initiative of inter-congregational collaboration and is opened to other congregations to take part.
Another Marist Brother joined the community this year on Oct. 6 from the Iberica Province. Brother Isaac Alonso Arribas had taken part in the first group to receive formation of the project LaValla200> International Communities for a New Beginning earlier this year.
