Success Stories
A Car for Pastoral Work in Iraq
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Today, Christians are only a small minority in Iraq. Until 2002, there were more than 1.2 million of them, but war, persecution, and poverty have led to a mass exodus by the country’s Christian population. Estimates now put the number of Christians in Iraq at only around 150,000. The city of Basra has a population of about 1.4 million, the third-largest in Iraq. Lying on the Persian Gulf, it is the country’s major port city. It was established as early as ...
10 Motorcycles for Pastoral Work in the Congo
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The Diocese of Boma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo includes 47 parishes, 35 of which are in remote, rural areas. The priests minister to the faithful with joy and great zeal, but the distances are daunting, the roads are poor, and some priests walk up to 25 miles to reach the people who need them. And so the bishop of Boma asked for our help, to provide 10 small motorcycles for the priests who work in the most ...
A New Chapel for a Village in India
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The parish of Christ the King is in eastern India. The parish is very active, especially in its work with children and young adults. There is a Sunday school, as well as numerous youth groups and a particular effort to foster love for Mary and the Mass. There are many altar servers, and the liturgies are celebrated in song, with traditional musical instruments. The women organize themselves in prayer groups, Bible readings, and visits to the sick and needy; the men ...
A New Chapel for a Village in Peru
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The Parish of the Sacred Heart in Peru includes 34 rural communities, scattered along the banks of the Rio Mayo. The village of Los Angeles is one of the biggest in the parish, with around 700 residents; it is 70 percent Catholic. It takes the parish priest about 75 minutes to get from the parish center to the village, and the roads are unmade. As part of this trip, he even uses a raft. The village once had its own ...
Liturgical and Theological Literature for Seminarians in the Congo
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Twenty young men from the Diocese of Bokungu-Ikela are training for the priesthood in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This diocese, which covers an area of over 15,000 square miles, is almost as big as Switzerland or the Netherlands, but with barely a million inhabitants; it lies in a tropical rainforest, in a poor region of the country that has sadly seen many armed conflicts. And since the diocese does not have a seminary, the seminarians must travel several miles, ...
A Pastoral Center for a Diocese in India
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The Diocese of Diphu lies in the state of Assam in northern India. This is a region of great poverty and home to many indigenous tribes. In fact, most of them still adhere to their traditional tribal religions. There are about 70,000 Catholics in the diocese. They are a minority in the country, at just over five percent of the total population. And most Catholics have only embraced Christianity in recent decades, so there is still a great need to ...