The last chapter
By Sr. Clarice Garvey, O.L.M.
May/June 2010
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(Credit Luizinha of CPT)Members of a large group of displaced families whom Sr. Clarice Garvey has accompanied over the years in their struggle for land. Ceara, Brazil.
For some years, Scarboro Missions magazine’s special issues on Our Lady’s Missionaries have carried the ongoing story of a large number of families in Brazil who lived on a roadside for two years in plastic tents. They endured tropical heat and deluge rains while the sector of the Federal government responsible for agrarian reform was negotiating with a landowner for the sale of his property.
While the talks were going on, the leaders among the group of families were busy designing a work structure to facilitate the organization of this very large number of people who hoped to eventually own this land together. They divided themselves into three groups according to the three regions from which they came.
Last year’s magazine article contained the heartbreaking news that the negotiations had broken down when the landowner refused to sell and the people were forced to look for other areas to live.
With the faith and courage of the poor who know that God hears their cry, each group continued to meet, work, and pray together, as well as to support other groups.
Sr. Clarice Garvey, O.L.M.
It is with great delight and gratitude to our Creator that I can now announce that they have all since been settled on lands which they own together as groups. Now they are in the process of building homes, planting and fishing to provide their own food, as well as growing as a community and becoming certified entities with the right to financial assistance from the government.
These people know that they are among those to whom God spoke in the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “I will build a New Heaven and a New Earth.”
They also know that they are among those who are helping to bring about the fulfillment of that promise.
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