Marianne Delieu, South Africa

Marianne is from St Joseph's parish, Queens Park and shares her mission experience:

Since I finished my degree in social work 2006, I desired to undertake missionary work with the Church. On December the 11th, 2008, Mum and I left for South Africa and stayed for six weeks over the Christmas period. We stayed in the Limpopo province in the north of South Africa and lived in a rural village called Nzhelele. We lived in an African bungalow next to the convent, the priest’s house and the chapel where they ran the AIDS clinic. The AIDS clinic was closed down over the time, so we spent our time helping Fr Bohas a French missionary priest with administration duties, and being part of the daily rhythm of life which included, daily mass, spending time with the children who would visit us on a regular basis, and driving sister to the places she needed to go.
When I first arrived I was taken away by the utter beauty of the country as we were surrounding by hills and valleys. Over the next couple of days of being there I became overwhelmed by the poverty in the area. One of the major highlights for me was to witness the tireless work undertaken by the Fr Bohas the parish priest and pastoral workers in the area to build up the faithful. Fr Bohas translated the bible to Venda, their language. The Catholic community is very small, but Fr Bohas and the pastoral workers are putting in so much work to catechize the community. One of the pastoral workers lives by himself in a region up the hills and is responsible for pastoring to the community, as resources are so scarce, he walks two hours each way on Sundays to go to Mass.
It was a great witness for me, to see how people humbly work for the Church in very simple conditions.
I had the privilege to get to know some of the people living in the village and had the opportunity to learn their language. I am very thankful for the short time I had over there as it gave me the opportunity to understand the culture and history, and when I go back I’m going to go for at least a year.