Marianne & Margaret

Praise be to Jesus!

 

Three years ago, I moved into a village called Pocopoco and began living there alone without any plan.

 

Father Markus, a Swiss priest, had been building three dormitories before he suddenly passed away in an accident in August 2011.

Only one dormitory had been completed and was housing students, while the remaining two had been left unfinished with construction halted.

Not wanting to sadden his son, a priest now in heaven, Father Markus's father traveled all the way from Switzerland to Pocopoco, Potosí, Bolivia, and stayed alone for a month in the house his late son had built — paying the full construction costs in person.

Yet despite receiving the full payment, the contractors took the money and did not resume construction.

 

 

After much difficulty, both dormitories were finally completed in 2013, and in 2014 I hired two dormitory staff members and began operating the Pocopoco dormitory with the money I had saved.

In 2015, together with five dormitory supervisors and two kitchen staff, I was running two dormitories — the Pocopoco dormitory and the Tirki Buco dormitory.

Until I went to Cochabamba in 2013 to study the Quechua language, I spent countless nights alone under the night sky of Pocopoco, praying the Rosary and fighting loneliness.

There were times when even the villagers mocked me on the street, calling me "Chino" (Chinese), looking down on me and discriminating against me.

Sometimes a wave of sorrow would wash over me and I would look up at the sky, wiping away tears.

I asked myself countless times, "What am I even doing here?" and there were moments when I wanted to give up everything and return to Korea.

At the time, I truly had no idea.

I could not have even dared to imagine that so many people would come to help me.

But now, a Bolivian elderly sister resides at the convent where a Swiss sister once lived, together with a Korean missionary affiliated with the Cecilia Prado Secular Franciscan Order, and they are helping with the work of the Pocopoco parish.

When I first came here alone in December 2012, I celebrated Christmas Mass with just three or four parishioners.

But this year, with the help of the sister and the missionary, we held two weeks of Christmas Sunday school for children, prepared First Communion classes, made a nativity scene and a Christmas tree, and placed an image of Divine Mercy along with the word misericordia (mercy) above the tabernacle, observing the Jubilee of Mercy.

Lay missionary Cecilia has been diligently carrying out her apostolic work while also studying Spanish in her spare time.

Everything that is happening here in Pocopoco now fills me with wonder and amazement.

Above all, I am receiving support for the Bolivia mission through the help of Father Kim Yeon-jun.

Truly, it is because of Father Kim Yeon-jun — and because of the trust so many of you have placed in him — that this support for the Bolivia mission has been made possible.

I am sincerely grateful for Father Kim Yeon-jun's prayers and love as well.

In this Jubilee of Mercy, I will entrust myself entirely to Jesus, as expressed in the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.

Honestly, there are many things here that I could never have experienced in Korea, but when I pray quietly, I find myself grateful to have gone through these very things.

I cannot dare to call myself a missionary — I am a sinner among sinners.

Yet Jesus, who bestows such wondrous and remarkable things even upon a sinner like me, is truly a God of mercy.

And so I cannot help but praise the love and providence of the Lord, who led me to Pocopoco and who, through the various pains and trials of life, guides me toward repentance and renewal.

 

 

 

For me, life in Pocopoco, Bolivia is truly a life of Exodus.

Just as the life the people of Israel experienced after escaping Egypt was anything but comfortable, I praise and glorify the providence and love of the Lord, who leads me away from comfort and complacency and guides me toward repentance and a new life.

Once again, I am deeply grateful for your love, prayers, and support.

— From Father Joseph —