Adoptions in Missions Vercellesi

Perhaps few people know that Don Luigi Longhi was, together with the late lamented Professor Sunday Scoreboard, the initiator of the particular form of the Vercelli Missionary Volunteer modern which goes under the name of Operation Mato Grosso. It was the 1968 and youth & ugrave; Italian and European was in another matter affacendata but Don Luigi, I think with the consent of his superiors of Seminar, made contact with Don Ugo de Censi, the visionary and charismatic Salesian priest initiator of the movement. The writer well remembers the visit made to Don Ugo in juvenile prison in Arese where he worked as a chaplain and educator. Don Luigi (but then for the group of friends that we were was simply Luigino) I had involved because & egrave; the previous summer I had been to the labor camps of the Abb & eacute; Pierre, who had been held for the first time in Italy and I had made, in that of Turin, a discrete Practise allestiva and ran a & quot; working range & quot;. For a whole year we have put together collections of paper rags and old crap for putting up the money for the expedition in which Don Luigi wanted to participate. It was the second year of shipments Operation Mato Grosso. Sunday was going to Poxoreu in Brazil between the Indians and Xavantes Luigino in Sucua in Ecuador between the Indians Shuara or Jivaros. But as often happens, men do projects but then someone decides over and l & agrave; of them. For school year ended and a few days of departure Luigino has an attack of peritonitis. You need to go to the hospital immediately and leave for the time every dream transoceanic… I remember that from the bed where he had just been hospitalized (then admissions had the consistency of a stay not as the current hit and run), I grab my hand and says bluntly, & Quot; Space, since I am stuck in this bed Sucua there you have to go & quot;. In truth & agrave; I dreamed labor camps in France, where I would see friends and girlfriends met the year before in Turin. But Luigino gi & agrave; then he could be convincing and in a few moments later in the, I can rip a s & Igrave; at home and prepare documents in record time. For me Sucua sar & agrave; the beginning of a good and long-lived romance coll'America Latin. Luigino accept this undeniable disappointment and prepares for subsequent years. Dovr & agrave; wait 2 years but his participation in the expedition to the leprosarium of Mato Grosso in Brazil to Campogrande & agrave; him the & quot; of the last priest" we all remember.

Mission and gospel will always be his daily inspiration. E, as recounted in other pages of this blog, after scoring the works that today our Association seeks to continue in his memory and in his friendship, Don Luigi does not hesitate to leave for the Far East in order to collaborate in the founding of several foster homes for abandoned children in the suburbs of Bangkok.

On the trail blazed by Don Luigi come the small initiatives that we want to document here. It is the little things that still want to be placed in that faith that a better world is possible and even evangelical imperative that Don Luigi with his whole life has taught us:

The beginning were the sponsorships (or adoptions) proposals from the Diocesan Missionary Centre in favor of the children of the Diocesan Missions in Africa to Isiolo and Merti.

Then c '& egrave; .

So still a family home in Latin America in support of girls in trouble & agrave;.