EUROPE/PORTUGAL - Youth without Frontiers (JSF) backs Summer mission: departures for Latin America and Africa, Mission Weeks in Portugal
Lisbon (Agenzia Fides) - In Portugal many young Catholics, members of JSF Youth Without Frontiers, plan their Summer in a missionary key with a foreign mission experience or taking part in one of Portugal's Mission Weeks at home. One local group is going to Latin America for August. Another is departing for Mozambique in Africa to share mission experience in three different places Itoculo, Nacala and Nacuxa, says JSF national coordinator Tony Neves.
Another hundred JSF members will organise mission animation in Portugal. In this second half of July one group is in St. Brás di Alportel working on a programme of pastoral and cultural animation and promotion of respect for human rights. In the first half of August other groups will go to St. Luzia and to Aljustrel, in the diocese of Beja. Another group will go from 12 - 22 August to Penajóia, in the diocese of Lamego, in northern Portugal. The last two weeks of August JSF groups will be in the dioceses of Guarda and Bragança-Miranda.
The organisers say this experience is beneficial for the young people because it teaches them to give their time to help others. It is an opportunity to meet people, to see new ecclesial and social situations, to learn to live and pray as a community and gradually prepare for more important commitments. The hosting communities also benefit from the youngsters' presence, energy and witness of faith and dedication. Every year an increasing number of young people live this kind of experience and the national JSF coordinator underlines: “We are demanding of them so they will strive for the best ".