Here is the testimony of a mother who participated with her family in an Acamp’s, an event of the Community. She told Comshalom about the spiritual and human experience they have lived together, with other families.
God wants opened families, strengthened in the unity of Christ and in the joy which is source of life, prayer and gratitude!
When I knew there was a Divine Inspiration about a Camp for families, I thought “this is crazy! It is not going to work: It can’t be a divine inspiration”.
I imagined my family there, my children (less than 3 years old), all the conditions which could arrive in my mind to justify that I would not be a part of it. I definitely was ready to refuse any possibility to get involved. The place is beautiful, but it is cold, there is a swimming pool, woods, visible and invisible bugs. I think it is visible I was not thrilled about the idea. Definitely.
But with time, this divine inspiration was well underway, people joined (to my great surprise!) and I have been !contaminated! by this joy, this enthusiasm, this will to do what must be done, with these families and by love for God. What has been crucial was to think that I could offer my children an experience that would mark their emotional memories.
When we have made our registration, I did not believe it. “Oh my God what am I doing?”
But we decided to entrust ourselves and to really open our hearts to this experience.
It happened in such a simplicity, it could only be a fruit of God’s will. Something extremely familiar.
Father, mothers, young people, teenagers and children. Some fathers and mothers a bit older, others a bit younger. Everybody, everybody together. The experience of prayer and leisure was common! We have seen families having fun without any technology, just without their smartphones – myself included – children playing, interacting, playing in the dirt, praying, dancing, praising God.
For me it was an experience of Kayrós! It was cold, it was not always comfortable, but nothing, nothing in this world could undo the Work of love, communion and cure that God was realized in us these days.
I had the impression that when we were all there, the families had the opportunity to look at themselves, to recognize each other as part of God’s family. And if I suffer, my brother suffers also. If I am living difficulties to cultivate my inner life, in the children’s education, in my marriage, I am not alone. I am a family, as many other families. And God, in His Mercy, gave us the grace to be there.
Today I can assure that the Family Camp in the mission of Brasilia was the fulfilment of a prophecy: God wants opened families, strengthened in the unity of Christ and in the joy which is source of life, prayer and gratitude!
Narlla Sales Bessoni,
missionary of Shalom Community in Brasilia,
married, mother of 2 children.