A LETTER

How can I write a letter if I don’t know to read an write?
Well, I will send you a paper, completely white, and you will understand that it is my letter to you. Of course you will think of many others who cannot write.
It doesn’t matter we are all one family……a letter of God to you.

Soon, this site will get into the hearts of those who listen to God. Hashi. Elena. 26/3/00

Dear Rev. Father:
I was visiting your website again today after a long time. There's a marked improvement and additions. Please keep up the good work.
May God bless you.

Jerome D'Costa

Srimangal, January 6, 2002

DHAKA, Bangladesh - April 16,  2000

 Suzie and Jim: Thank you for your invitation to contribute to your web-page. We logged on to it, to see that it was still under construction...

 Achille: ...still under construction, yet you didn't wait to see, straight away you came to help! Thank you so much, you caught the meaning of this page: a workshop open to all...

 Jim: Here is my contribution to the Atma o Jibon web page.

When I found myself in 1996 based in Bogra in north west Bangladesh, I wondered what the next three years would hold. I did not anticipate that Father Achille would one day come to our office, having heard that there were some new foreigners in town. (We were the only Europeans in town!) Thus began a valued friendship with Father Achille, through which I and my wife Suzie were introduced to the PIME retreat and study centre of Emmaus established by Father Achille in Bogra. We saw it in first building and we saw the construction of the new building that now houses Emmaus - and we could only watch it grow and sympathise with Father Achille as he carried the burden of responsibility for it. We were sorry to miss its dedication ceremony. Through him also, we visited during the next few years many of the PIME missions throughout the northern and western districts of the country and we saw there and admired the extensive work of PIME - of its dedicated fathers and sisters who have left Italy to make Bangladesh their adopted country. We saw the churches, clinics, leprosy hospital, primary schools, vocational workshops and embroidery centres of twenty-five different mission centres and returned to some of them again and again.

We had the great advantage of a good 4x4 vehicle and our good driver Awal to help us to cover the long journeys that we made to some of the remotest parts of the country. We met and learned about many of the tribes among whom the PIME work is largely based - Oraon, Munda, Santal, Mahali, Mal-Paharia and others. No telephone communications, no electricity and very often no made-up road meant that we might take three hours to get to our destination, fording rivers and bumping along trails which came to an abrupt end after some kilometers. Awal, a Muslim and a Bogra man, was enthusiastic in finding roads he had never previously seen. We knew we were close when we were greeted with "Good morning, Father" and wide grins from those on the road who gave us the closed palm greeting of Namashkar - not a Muslim salutation. Then the never-failing welcome from the surprised residents of the mission, the invitation to eat, to rest, to witness an impromptu dance. One of the moving moments was to see a place laid for Awal, and to eat together, especially on the day after Christmas Day in 1997.

We were told by one of the PIME sisters who had been in the country for thirty years that when she left her mother and her village in Italy at the age of twenty one, she knew she was leaving for ever. Happily, the rules changed and she and all others now see their families at least once every four years. The memory of the love and dedication of these men and women of PIME for the communities among which they work will live with us for the rest of our lives.

I am happy and proud to contribute to the new Atma o Jibon web page and to welcome its arrival as another demonstration of PIME's remarkable work.     

                                                                                                Jim Thorne