George<\/b>: Good morning. My name is George Karpi\u0144ski and this is my wife \u2013 Monica. We are married for over 30 years. We have four children: three daughters and one son. They are adults. We live in Wojnicz, Poland, near Tuch\u00f3w.<\/span><\/p>\n Monica<\/b>: Because we live near Tuch\u00f3w, we used to go on pilgrimage there, in our youth. We were connected with Girls\u2019 Marian Ministry and every meeting of that group took place in Tuch\u00f3w. Our relationship with this town is quite long. I think that we\u00a0 have been visiting Tuch\u00f3w for over 40 years \u2013 going there on foot or driving there for a trip or pilgrimage.<\/span><\/p>\n George<\/b>: There were our first meetings with the redemptorists, without any obligations. Only because we live nearby and redemptorists have their monastery there.<\/span><\/p>\n Monica<\/b>: Our stronger relationship with the redemptorists has begun when our children went there for Redemptorists\u2019 Youth Days. They found out about the Missionary Association \u201cWsch\u00f3d\u201d (the East) and they went for their very first mission trip with the Association. Our daughter was adult and she could go on her own, but our son wasn\u2019t of age…<\/span><\/p>\n George<\/b>: He was 16\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n Monica<\/b>: Exactly\u2026 Therefore, a problem has arisen if he could go without guardian. Father Witold, moderator of the Missionary Association \u201cWsch\u00f3d\u201d, proposed my husband to go with our son. Even if he weren\u2019t a member of the Association.<\/span><\/p>\n George<\/b>: In fact, father Witold wanted to have a car rather than guardian (laugh), but let\u2019s say, it was the Holy Spirit working. I\u2019m very glad, that all it happened. Because of that, together with my wife, we joined the Missionary Association. I went there very first time, without my wife, because they needed only one person, both guardian and driver. My wife was, let\u2019s say, to the side. It was our first contact with the Missonary Association. What is that group? We are talking about it, but it can be unknown. The Missionary Association \u201cWsch\u00f3d\u201d is a association of redemptorists and lay people created in 90\u2019 in redemptorists\u2019 seminary in Tuch\u00f3w. The main aim of that group is evangelization in the Eastern Europe.\u00a0 Of course, it is not a constant religious service. Our goal was to be an assistance, because during that time, there were lack of priests and the Church was getting back her buildings. The opportunity to go there arose, to do there something, but there weren\u2019t enough people for such work \u2013 there were no priests and every help was quite important. Father Grzegorz Rukszte\u0142\u0142o took the initiative to create a group which could provide such aid. And this is how the existence of Missionary Association \u201cWsch\u00f3d\u201d begun and continues to this day. During that time more than 150 lay people, dozens of fathers and clerics went through the Association. \u201cWsch\u00f3d\u201d conducted more than 200 series of retreats. We count the number of participants in thousands. I have some data from 2 or 3 years ago showing that we already had more than 7000 participants. By then, we conducted several series of retreats more. Every retreat has about 50 or 60 participants. So, the total number has increased.<\/span><\/p>\n George<\/b>: There was an episode in our life. Many years ago, when we were young, living in the same town, we were members of youth parish group called \u201cKometa\u201d. I believe this occurrence was crucial, because the priest, who was a leader \u2013 late Stanislaw Marek \u2013 has instilled a need in us to share our enthusiasm, joy and faith with others. Our membership in Missionary Association \u201cWsch\u00f3d\u201d is just a natural extension of that fact. What can I tell about my feelings connected with evangelization the most poor and abandoned? I\u2019m not a great missionary, of course; our task is totally different. However, taking part in such mission trips you can experience the same what, I suppose, experience priests who are working in the East among the most abandoned people. We\u00a0 encountered there totally different reality. In Poland, we often complain about our economic status. Maybe is better today but still you can hear complaining that we don\u2019t have everything. But you have to pass Polish-Ukrainian border to find yourself in different reality. Our mission trips have shown us that there are still people who need, or better, who are craving for other reality, I mean \u2013 religious regard at their life. I remember that during my second mission trip, we went to Ukraine, to very small village called Mi\u017cyniec: old church, very polite parish priest and children who came from surrounding villages. Very, very poor children. It was material poverty: they were meagrely worn, badly equipped, and what is more, they didn\u2019t now even basic prayers. What is interesting, those children were from Roman-catholic Church, orthodox Church and Greek-catholic Church. I remember that we organised a prayer service connected with an adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with candles. I won\u2019t forget that deep silence which was there. The children were kneeling. I don\u2019t know what was happening in their hearts, but they weren\u2019t frisky, they weren\u2019t noisy but focused. You could feel how strong experience they felt. You could feel that they saw something more.\u00a0 I have no idea, if they had such a prayer before in their parishes, but that was so authentic that I will never forget it. I was so strongly impressed by piety of those children who now are still seeking, still going forward. They were very young that time \u2013 from six, seven years to fourteen, fifteen. It was very moving.<\/span><\/p>\n Monica<\/b>: I won\u2019t forget my first mission trip. It was my first contact with the East, with former Soviet republics, I\u2019ve never been beyond the eastern border. I felt resistance to crossing the border. In Strzelczyska, where we conducted the retreats, children knew more than in Mi\u017cyniec. It was polish village. So that, they knew polish prayers, had information about polish culture and about the Church. Very important event, which has shown how it was before and how people was longing for faith was meeting with one old lady, telling her story to children. Years ago, when there was no church in Strzelczyska people were going to hear the Mass in Mo\u015bcice, where redemptorists were working. Unfortunately, they haven\u2019t any monastery which was taken by government. Father Ziober was the last redemptorist serving in that church after war. He wasn\u2019t allowed to celebrate the Holy Mass with people, but they wanted to participate so much, that they were gathering from surrounding villages in Mo\u015bciska and praying at closed door of the church, when he was celebrating the Mass inside. Telling this story that lady was touched. Children\u2019s faces showed up astonishment. This story was for them unbelievable \u2013 how couldn\u2019t you go to church and pray?<\/span><\/p>\n Monica<\/b>: In my opinion the best evidence that we \u2013 as the Association, as people talking about Christ \u2013 are needed in eastern part of Europe is that parish priests working in Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Russia are calling to our moderator 6 months before holiday to ask for retreats. To ask for us, to talk about Christ, to lead them the way of faith as we are doing according to redemptorists\u2019 preferences. To the most poor and abandoned.<\/span><\/p>\n George<\/b>:\u00a0 From the perspective of years of our participating in Association and in general from the perspective of the Association\u2019s years of existence I can say, that there is still huge need to preach the word of God, the Gospel, the Plentiful Redemption to the most abandoned, as st. Alphonsus would say. They are really abandoned. It has changed nowadays, but those people lived many, many years in darkness. We go to them, they can meet us. But in fact, it\u2019s not about things we say or do there. Very often our presence, being with them, going out to them is the most important. It\u2019s not about doing marvellous deeds or admirable actions. I think that\u2019s not the point. Our simple presence there, among those people is the most important.<\/span><\/p>\n Authors:<\/strong> George and Monica Karpi\u0144scy Mission of the Congregation \u2013 Disciple: Different reality George: Good morning. My name is George Karpi\u0144ski and this is my wife \u2013 Monica. We are married for over 30 years. We have four children: three daughters and one son. They are adults. We live in Wojnicz, Poland, near Tuch\u00f3w. Monica: Because we live near Tuch\u00f3w, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1421,"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/1421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forworld.redemptor.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTranslation:\u00a0<\/strong>br. Dariusz Dudek CSsR<\/p>\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"