society

Two Truly Original Stories… on the Edge of the World
One of them lived the first fifteen years of his life in Kazakhstan wandering from one orphanage to the other, and then in the streets. The other was captured by rebels and escaped, personally experiencing the horrors of war in Sierra Leone. For both of them, the encounter with Christianity saved their lives. The fulfillment of a mysterious and good destiny

By Dimitri Kurya Chenko and Ernest P. Sesay

DIMITRI
I grew up without a family. After giving birth to me, my mother left me with her mother who left me with her own mother in turn. Or rather, first she put me in an orphanage where I fell seriously ill, and at that point my great-grandmother took me in. When I was three years old, before taking me back to the orphanage, she had me baptized according to the Orthodox rite. Until the age of fifteen, I went from one orphanage to the other, until I left the orphanage and got busy trying to learn something in life. I studied to become an electrician in the mines, a stonemason, and finally earned a diploma as an auto mechanic. All this took place in the space of three years. In the end, they did not give me either a job or a home, and I ended up in the streets doing all kinds of things: stealing, robbing, and pimping, even for Russian girls. I did not enjoy this, but I had to live and so did they, because these girls also came from orphanages and had nothing to live on. Four years went by in this mess. I thank God for saving me, when I think that four of my friends are dead–one hung himself, one threw himself under a train, one died of drugs, and the other one drowned himself. Most of my friends are in prison, and the girls are prostitutes. At a certain point, God made it clear to me that I couldn’t go on like this, because I would have ended up like all of them. I began looking for someplace to live, working so I could eat, and studying for the college entrance exams. I found a lady who helped me and I found a place to live; I worked in the fields planting potatoes and carrots. They fed me, and in the meantime I studied for the college entrance exams.
In the end, I made it, and enrolled in the university. During my third year, I took a private course in the Italian language in an apartment of friends–now they are “my friends”–where I met Fr Livio and another girl who knew Italian already and was teaching. I studied Italian, and they would invite me to play or to watch movies with them, but I was going there to learn Italian, not to play! One day I went to School of Community, not knowing what it was, not even knowing the others who were there. They gave me the book they were reading: The Religious Sense. When I read the part where Giussani talks about man’s fundamental needs, I felt like he was talking about my needs. I need to love the truth, to be happy; I needed it, and I need it now, too. So I started saying that we cannot look at these experiences abstractly, because every person can say what he is living in these experiences.
I asked everybody for explanations; I didn’t leave anybody alone. When I began to relate to some of them, they became my friends too. After three or four months, something great happened: my mentality and that newness started to clash. The newness claimed everything, all my life, totally, and my mentality separated me from this newness. At a certain point, among the doubts, the criticisms, this thought came to me: I had encountered something, I was happy, but right then I was in doubt, and I wasn’t happy. I was losing the life I had encountered–the newness–because it was passing me by; it was not inside me and I was not inside it, inside this life. So I let go of my doubts and started living this experience. I finished the university and became a magistrate, working also in the Caritas (A Christian charity organization active in many countries throughout the world) of Kazakhstan; many beautiful relationships with friends were initiated. I have a great passion for this friendship, and I am happy to be able to rediscover this truth every day; otherwise, what would be left is a past that doesn’t make anybody happy.
At the end of August, I met Fr Giussani. What struck me? While I was looking him in the eye, I asked myself how it was possible that such an old and weak man had been able to change, to unite, the world, all the while sitting in an apartment. This impressed me greatly, and, looking at him, I said to myself, “I too want a gaze like this. I too want to be educated to the Infinite, here and now, that is happening now and asks to be recognized also in our faces.” This is why I am here, in this friendship. I am here for this very reason, because here, I feel I am truly myself, Dima. Before, there was nothing, no family, no home, no friends; I was alone. Now, I have everything. This is a miracle that happens every day, if you succeed in staying with this fact. I was deeply impressed by the Meeting, because I felt that there is nowhere else in the world where they educate a person to love beauty, the reality we live every day, going so deeply into looking at reality, as I saw, for instance, the kids who were guiding and talking at the exhibitions doing. This really strikes me, touches me, and moves me to live like this.
The other thing that impressed me about Fr Giussani was that he took my hand and held it tightly; this struck me, and made me think–he was not letting go of my hand. This made me think that this is what God does with us, He holds us but does not let us go–you are the only one who can let go, but He continues to hold you even when you let go; it is you who don’t realize it.

Ernest
Dear Fr Giussani: I am one of your great friend Fr Bepi Berton’s boys. I lived in Italy for a year, where I got to know the movement of Communion and Liberation through AVSI [Association of Volunteers for International Service].
I decided to speak out through Traces, to tell the story of my experience and the life I am living now after having lived a reality that made me a different person. I sent a fax to my great friend Alberto Piatti (Executive Officer of AVSI), to confirm to him that after working with him, with the AVSI President Arturo Alberti, with Franco Nembrini and other Movement friends, I have gone from being a boy to being a man.
No matter what, each of us has a road to follow that is destined by the good Lord–not the road we choose, but the one He shows us, because we live only for Him and we shall die for Him. I say this on the basis of the experience I lived personally during the war in my country, the trip I took to Italy, and now, finally, the fulfillment of my dream: to live with my people.
Why did I go to Italy to stay with these people from Communion and Liberation, when the good luck had come to me out of nowhere to go to Canada with a four-year scholarship? Only a month before time for me to leave, Fr Bepi Berton said to me, “Look, Ernest, I know this change will be hard for you to accept, but my idea is to send you to see the reality of this CL community in Italy…” I tell you sincerely that this was almost impossible to accept but, thinking it over later, I said to myself, “Why not accept? Through Fr Berton, I have encountered Christ, and only thanks to the example of his good will to bring relief to the suffering, am I what I am today…” In the end, I told him, “Father, you know why I have to go to Italy. I’ll do what you say and try to follow your path.” Then I got married, and three days later I left for Italy.
The encounter with the people of the Movement began in Franco Nembrini’s school in Calcinate. Last December, Franco had spent some time in Sierra Leone, getting to know the reality here first-hand. Through Lorena, a teacher at the school, I met the Gaini family of Calcinate, with whom I lived a Christian life. Mama Carmen, a member of the Movement, taught me the importance of the Rosary. In any case, what struck me greatly from the beginning about the Fraternity of CL was the sense of charity toward the needy. One day, I discovered something I would never have believed existed among European Christians. Mama Carmen invited me to Nembrini’s School of Community for the first time. When I entered the room, I saw prominent people who sat down in front of the Responsible of the community. At first, I expected some high-level talk about the political situation and about education, but in the end I found out that they were there only to read, learn, and share what our teacher, “Fr Gius,” had written in a book on the pedagogy of Christ, our Savior. Things came to an end with a simple prayer, the Hail Mary.
Coming out of the room, I asked Carmen if we had come together just to understand the life of Christ and how to approach reality. Her answer was, “Yes.” On the way home, the thought came to me that the Christian community that existed two thousand years ago is still alive.
After spending six months in Bergamo, I went on to Crema, spending time with the Fraternity of Fr Mauro Inzoli, where I encountered a reality similar to that of Fr Berton. My experience in the AVSI office in Milan impressed me deeply. Besides this, I lived another three months in the Piatti house; Mrs Piatti is an amazing woman. Fr Giussani, I will never tire of telling you about the fruits that have been born and matured thanks to your charism.
After Milan, the President of AVSI, Arturo Alberti, asked me if I could go to Cesena to learn how to manage long-distance adoptions. I worked with Dania and, above all, I shared the life of the Movement. It was truly a wonderful experience to be with them.
Fr Giussani, it is impossible to tell you in this letter about everything I encountered in the Movement.
On my return to Sierra Leone, in the midst of my poor people, I always pray to the good Lord to help me spread the witness of your charism and that of Fr Berton. Our only chance for salvation and development in Sierra Leone is to educate our people so that everyone may have the freedom that all the world is seeking. On Good Friday, I took about thirty of Fr Berton’s kids to do our first “raggio” [meaning “ray,” which is a CL youth meeting]. Since it was the first experience for our kids, we prayed to Our Lady, reciting the Rosary, and discussed how we can give meaning to our life. The kids were very happy and asked me if we could organize other “raggios” in the months to come. Now we are preparing a field trip for the fourth- and fifth-grade children in our hut-school, which will be rebuilt by AVSI with the collaboration of La Traccia, the school in Calcinate where I stayed.
Fr Giussani, I ask you to remember me in your prayers, as I always remember you in mine.
May we all go forward together–even if we are far away, we are in a communion of souls and thoughts. Good luck to everyone in your work.Ernest
Dear Fr Giussani: I am one of your great friend Fr Bepi Berton’s boys. I lived in Italy for a year, where I got to know the movement of Communion and Liberation through AVSI [Association of Volunteers for International Service].
I decided to speak out through Traces, to tell the story of my experience and the life I am living now after having lived a reality that made me a different person. I sent a fax to my great friend Alberto Piatti (Executive Officer of AVSI), to confirm to him that after working with him, with the AVSI President Arturo Alberti, with Franco Nembrini and other Movement friends, I have gone from being a boy to being a man.
No matter what, each of us has a road to follow that is destined by the good Lord–not the road we choose, but the one He shows us, because we live only for Him and we shall die for Him. I say this on the basis of the experience I lived personally during the war in my country, the trip I took to Italy, and now, finally, the fulfillment of my dream: to live with my people.
Why did I go to Italy to stay with these people from Communion and Liberation, when the good luck had come to me out of nowhere to go to Canada with a four-year scholarship? Only a month before time for me to leave, Fr Bepi Berton said to me, “Look, Ernest, I know this change will be hard for you to accept, but my idea is to send you to see the reality of this CL community in Italy…” I tell you sincerely that this was almost impossible to accept but, thinking it over later, I said to myself, “Why not accept? Through Fr Berton, I have encountered Christ, and only thanks to the example of his good will to bring relief to the suffering, am I what I am today…” In the end, I told him, “Father, you know why I have to go to Italy. I’ll do what you say and try to follow your path.” Then I got married, and three days later I left for Italy.
The encounter with the people of the Movement began in Franco Nembrini’s school in Calcinate. Last December, Franco had spent some time in Sierra Leone, getting to know the reality here first-hand. Through Lorena, a teacher at the school, I met the Gaini family of Calcinate, with whom I lived a Christian life. Mama Carmen, a member of the Movement, taught me the importance of the Rosary. In any case, what struck me greatly from the beginning about the Fraternity of CL was the sense of charity toward the needy. One day, I discovered something I would never have believed existed among European Christians. Mama Carmen invited me to Nembrini’s School of Community for the first time. When I entered the room, I saw prominent people who sat down in front of the Responsible of the community. At first, I expected some high-level talk about the political situation and about education, but in the end I found out that they were there only to read, learn, and share what our teacher, “Fr Gius,” had written in a book on the pedagogy of Christ, our Savior. Things came to an end with a simple prayer, the Hail Mary.
Coming out of the room, I asked Carmen if we had come together just to understand the life of Christ and how to approach reality. Her answer was, “Yes.” On the way home, the thought came to me that the Christian community that existed two thousand years ago is still alive.
After spending six months in Bergamo, I went on to Crema, spending time with the Fraternity of Fr Mauro Inzoli, where I encountered a reality similar to that of Fr Berton. My experience in the AVSI office in Milan impressed me deeply. Besides this, I lived another three months in the Piatti house; Mrs Piatti is an amazing woman. Fr Giussani, I will never tire of telling you about the fruits that have been born and matured thanks to your charism.
After Milan, the President of AVSI, Arturo Alberti, asked me if I could go to Cesena to learn how to manage long-distance adoptions. I worked with Dania and, above all, I shared the life of the Movement. It was truly a wonderful experience to be with them.
Fr Giussani, it is impossible to tell you in this letter about everything I encountered in the Movement.
On my return to Sierra Leone, in the midst of my poor people, I always pray to the good Lord to help me spread the witness of your charism and that of Fr Berton. Our only chance for salvation and development in Sierra Leone is to educate our people so that everyone may have the freedom that all the world is seeking. On Good Friday, I took about thirty of Fr Berton’s kids to do our first “raggio” [meaning “ray,” which is a CL youth meeting]. Since it was the first experience for our kids, we prayed to Our Lady, reciting the Rosary, and discussed how we can give meaning to our life. The kids were very happy and asked me if we could organize other “raggios” in the months to come. Now we are preparing a field trip for the fourth- and fifth-grade children in our hut-school, which will be rebuilt by AVSI with the collaboration of La Traccia, the school in Calcinate where I stayed.
Fr Giussani, I ask you to remember me in your prayers, as I always remember you in mine.
May we all go forward together–even if we are far away, we are in a communion of souls and thoughts. Good luck to everyone in your work.