A year has passed since my arrival in Kazakhstan: my “first steps” in this land…
Through “professional deformation”, I dare to remember, that a child takes his first steps towards 11 months of life, or at least … stands up! Here, I am in yet another “phase” of the “first steps” taken in my missionary life, I say it with a smile! And if every day we take more or less 5000 steps… (almost 4 km) … I have already done many in Kazakhstan too!
Here many things “speak” to me of my homeland: people of Polish descent, food, some traditions, even trees, flowers! Like in the countryside, where I grew up, or like in the garden, near my grandfather’s hut. Walking in the village of Zhanashar, in the south of the country, I meet the simple, friendly people who greet you along the streets, invite you to go in and have tea.
But the crowning glory is a view of the beautiful Altai Mountains, which invites us to raise our gaze to Heaven, enlarge our hearts and “sing the glory of God”!
In any case, I feel small and grateful in this great and mysterious Kazakh land, “sanctified” by so many innocent lives, handed over at the time of deportations: men, women, children of various nationalities. I read, I listened to some descendants of the deportees, I saw what is left of the ‘gulags’ in the north of the country… Always little, compared to the reality of that time! Only the deep blue sky and the infinite steppe would be able to tell of the suffering, despair, desolation experienced, hidden!
Of fatigue, tiredness of their “first steps” as exhausted, hungry, abandoned… So many people have been able to live all this, with courageous faith, which can almost be “touched”! Just think of the miracle of the lake with fish in Oziornoie, where Our Lady comes to the aid of hungry people! The steppe soaked in tears and unshakable faith, generates life!
I am convinced, that only with great respect, “barefoot” and “in an attitude of listening (…) we are called to insert ourselves, to incarnate ourselves among the people”, experiencing our smallness, living a simple, humble, essential life…
Our presence as a Church is small, but this”is a beatitude (…), because littleness humbly gives us over to the power of God, and leads us not to base ecclesial action on our own abilities. And this is a grace! (…) We let ourselves be guided by the Lord and we humbly place ourselves next to people… bringing the joy of the Gospel into the situations of life” (cf. Pope Francis’ Address in Kazakhstan, 2022). At least, let’s try!
This requires from me, from us, that “more” that our Father Founder, Giuseppe Allamano, indicated. A longer time of prayer, Eucharistic adoration, reading of Sacred Scripture and contemplation… To feel the Heart of God and to feel with the Heart of God, what He is already doing in the hearts of the people to whom we are sent here and now.
“I abandon myself to God’s fidelity”, to His Love, even if I take only one step a day, I am in peace, in joy. And my heart is open to the graces that the Lord offers me, to His blessings, even in the smallest gestures of goodness and love in daily life!
Every day is an opportunity to grow in holiness and to be even closer to the Heart of God, to love this land, this multicultural people of Kazakhstan!
I thank with all my heart those who faithfully support us in various ways, in our “first steps”…
Sister Dorota, mc
