Grateful for a variety of international ministries
Sr Anna Kudakwashe Manyonga, Holy Land Community
I am the sixth child of Fatima Shonhiwa and Albert Manyonga, born into a big family of nine children in Zimbabwe.
I give credit to my mother for who I am today; a woman who said very little in words but spoke volumes through the example of her own life. She continues to be my best friend and mentor.
Growing up in my village, I always felt an admiration for the sisters of the Little Children of our Blessed Lady (LCBL) - who were in my home parish and worked closely with us in the youth group. With my sisters, we would take my mother’s head scarfs and put them on our heads as veils and say I am sister so and so, then start imitating how the particular sisters walked and spoke. For my secondary education, I attended a Catholic boarding school. I was appointed church prefect, so I worked very closely with the LCBL sisters there and had access to their convent which was considered out of bounds for the rest of the students. This close relationship with the sisters deepened my admiration for them and opened me to feel and hear my own call to this way of life.
Nano said, ‘if I could be of service in any part of the world, I would willingly do all in my power.’ I was introduced to this saying in 1989 when I attended a ‘come and see workshop’ of the Presentation Sisters. It spoke to me deeply back then, and it continues to inspire me to go one step beyond. At that same workshop, the sisters showed us a very touching video of Nano and the work she did in Cork. I was also attracted by the young Zimbabwean sisters who were giving us the workshop. It gave me hope that if they could follow Nano, so can I. So, on 2nd April 1991, filled with the zeal and passion to be of service to God’s people in any part of the world, I left my family and my home to join the Presentation Sisters.
One of the highlights of my journey as a Presentation sister is the love, support, and care I experience in community – we journey together, we are there for each other, we listen to each other, we encourage each other and we stand together in moments of blessedness and brokenness. The diverse reality of our multicultural, multilingual and multigenerational communities is in itself a great prophetic witness in today’s society. And yet it is also in community where I experience the most challenges of religious life.
I am grateful for the blessings of the variety of ministries that I have been involved in. Some of the highlights are my work with the youth in Guruve where I was youth coordinator of the parish. I really enjoyed journeying with the youth and forming them in their faith. I still am in touch with some of them through a WhatsApp group. For five years, I was IPA justice contact for the Zimbabwean Unit – it was a very fulfilling ministry as it stoked my passion for justice and peace. In my first 4 years in the Holy Land, I volunteered in an NGO called Kids for Peace - where we taught peace education to Israeli and Palestinian children (Muslims, Jews and Christians) together. This ministry was the best orientation for my time in the Holy Land - it stretched, expanded and enriched me in many ways. From it I learnt more than I gave. It challenged some of my prejudices and biases and took me to a space where I embrace both Israelis and Palestinians as my sisters and brothers and engage both peoples on the path to peace.
My current ministry with migrants and asylum seekers draws me to the periphery of today’s society where these vulnerable groups are relegated. By journeying closely with them, we continue to heed the call of Pope Francis to welcome, to protect, to promote and to integrate them in the new society where they find themselves.
I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to experience the missionary reality of our congregation – being of service to God’s people in any part of the world. Being in the Holy Land is a very special and enriching experience; being in the Land of Jesus, the land of the scriptures, the land which holds the origins of Christianity, with proximity to the Holy places and sites that Jesus frequented, the richness of different cultures, languages, faiths, - ‘Two peoples, one land, three faiths, one root….’Rabbi Sheila Weinburg.
Yes, I have these blessings and challenges too. I continue to live in hope for the Lord of the Universe beckons me.