During last Summer (2007) seven young women , Clare Herbert, Marie Scally, Susan Madden, Maria Scanlon, Nichola Spokes, Mags Nohilly and Bernadette Fitzgerald volunteered to take part in an immersion experience. For a month, they visited destinations in Zimbabwe, Zambia and The Philippines where they joined with Presentation Sisters in mission. They had prepared throughout the Winter and Spring of 2007.  

Sisters from the Northern Province who had walked the journey with them met them again recently to give them an opportunity to reflect together on their experience. We were keen to listen, to learn and to evaluate their experience with them. In this brief news item we can only give a flavour of what we heard.

We heard about the supports that carried them through their new experiences:

• The sunshine
• The friendliness and interest of the people
• The infectious passion and company of the Sisters

Some of the challenges came from: 

• Coping with the heat and the time difference and working within those conditions
• Monotony in the rural areas and boredom during the long evenings after sundown.
• These young women were disturbed by:
• The levels of poverty and the struggle for education. They were told “All we need is a little money to get started”.
• Lack of infrastructure/ schools/ hospitals
• The neglect and uncaring attitude of world powers
• Emigration levels and dependence on the Western World

Two important Commitments from the Congregational Gathering of Presentation Sisters, 2006 were easily identified by the Volunteers in the work done by the Sisters in all of the countries visited:

• “A spirituality of being in communion that seeks God in the inter-connectedness of the whole of creation and empowers active love for self, others and all of nature”
  
• The challenging of  “values, systems and structures that perpetuate poverty and injustice…and standing “with people in their struggle…”

We, Presentation Sisters, thank the volunteers for their great generosity and we pray that their experiences will benefit them in their own work and in their personal lives.