Covenant Community
Covenant Community members are called to follow Jesus Christ in the midst of family life and professional activities, committing themselves to live them according to the Shalom vocation.
Missionary Covenant Community
Members of the Covenant Community offer a fixed time, one or three years of their life to go on a mission. During this period, members begin a daily routine of morning, afternoon and evening prayers and evangelization. Above all, they experience a more intense community life.
__________________________________________________________
Keully Guedes, Postulant,
São Paulo, Brazil
Keully is a postulant, a period of at least one year of experience of the candidate in the Community. Along this time the person and the competent authorities begin a journey of formation and discernment of their vocation, as well as the human and spiritual maturity necessary to live it. She has been a missionary now in Sao Paulo for one month but, as she explains, the process of discernment began in the personal formations some months before. After she had a difficult time dealing with the experience of many types of personal loss, in prayer, she began to understand that God was preparing her for a life of abandonment.
Keully shares with us that during the 2017 “Recycling” Retreat, an annual retreat of ten days, offered by the Community, the Lord told her that He wanted to send her on a mission. “Despite the fears, the questions, she says that today she knows she “is in the hands of God” and lives her “life for His will”. “I went on a mission without worldly expectations, completely abandoning myself to God”.
Being separated from her parents and other family relatives is the most painful sacrifice. However, she contemplates that the grace of God really reaches them. Keully testifies that her family have experienced Christ from the moment she said “Yes” to God’s calling. “Going on a mission is not just about leaving my family and friends, but knowing that I have a responsibility to take care of the people the Lord has chosen for me”, she says.
__________________________________________________________
Mayara Raulino, Disciple,
Asunción, Paraguay
Mayara is a Disciple, the Discipleship is the period in which the candidate is accepted into the Community Formation Path. This stage lasts, at least, two years and is marked by a deepening in the vocational and spiritual life.
She lives her missionary experience beyond the Brazilian borders:for four months, she has lived in Asuncion, the capital of
Paraguay. She left her family, friends and work in Fortaleza, Brazil, to serve a foreign people out of love for God. Adapting to a new people and culture is always a process and Mayara tells us that for her it is still evolving. But she adds that she has begun to live a profound life of work and (spiritual?) interaction, increasing her human professional knowledge.
Mayara finds the meaning of her mission in the Paraguayans. Through the gift of self, she has found rest in God’s will. “Before they needed me, I needed them”, she says. Contact with people is one of her joys. “The young people of Paraguay are very passionate eager for God’s will and this renews and gives meaning to my vocation. I want to give more!”, she ‘emphasizes’
__________________________________________________________
Viviane Vieira, member with Temporary Promise,
Teresina, Brazil
Viviane Vieira went to Teresina as a missionary when she was a disciple in 2017 and after the time of Discipleship she made her first Temporary Promises in the Community.
“I had never gone to a Missionary house in the Community- it was really extraordinary to live a daily routine of fraternal life and prayer and evangelization”, she shares. She has been filled with Joy from experiencing the life of intimacy with God in the Community of Life.
The time on the mission confirmed her call to the Covenant Community. “The Mission enhanced and strengthened my vocation and helped me to learn more about the Charism”, she testifies.
Viviane comments that self-knowledge has made her grow in many human and professional ways. Among these is a complete trust in God. Previously, Viviane was a young woman who planned everything but in Teresina, it has been God that has shaped all through a life of abandonment.
After a year on Mission, she returned home to continue her studies, but her missionary experience is something that continues to be very present in her life. “I am in Fortaleza, but if in a few years the Lord will ask me to go on a Mission again, I will do it”, she says.
__________________________________________________________
Marcela Leitão, Member with Definitive Promises,
Braga, Portugal
Six years ago, Marcela Leitao, traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to live in a Mission in the Portuguese city of Braga. Marcela, who previously lived in the Brazilian city Recife, tells us that God enabled her understand that people of Braga can have a experience with the Risen Lord thanks to her offered life to evangelize them. “Here in Braga, I have a very strong experience of what our founder, Moysés Azevedo, tells us about how poor is the one who does not know God”, she shares.
Based on what she has lived and prayed in the past 6 years, Marcela has decided to remain on this mission where she currently works, studies and lives the vocation as a disciple and minister of peace.
“I came to a city that does not know did not know the experience of living with the Risen. I am the bearer of this news and I am responsible for this people to whom God has sent me to witness.” For Marcela, remaining in Braga is to respond to the urgency of the evangelization of the Portuguese people. And living the Shalom vocation as a member of the Covenant Community in Braga means always to be on a Mission.
In 2017, after renewed annually her Temporary Promises for four years, Marcela made her Definitive Promises in the Community, which meant putting her heart in the land that God chose for her.