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From Congo to Belgium, the journey of Belamy

From Congo to Belgium, the journey of Belamy

18 Dec 2013 | Cultura, Focolare Worldwide, Focolari nel Mondo, Nuove Generazioni

Clip video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymXHLfOal4U

Belamy Paluku comes from Goma, but is in Belgium for three month. In his Country, Congo, he is a member of the group Gen Fuoco, a band whose message draws its inspiration from the spirituality of unity, and is responsible for the “Foyer culturel”, a cultural centre in his city. Thanks to his musical talent, the Wallonie-Bruxelles Centre offered him a scholarship to study singing at Verviers, in Belgium. Belamy is a songwriter, whose songs highlight the search for peace, dialogue, the value of suffering. His most popular song is entitled “Nos couleurs et nos saveurs” (Our colours and our flavours),  which is an invitation to appreciate the different colours and tastes of the different peoples, because “a world with just one colour and with just one kind of food would be a very poor world”. In the video  which we are presenting to you, there is the interview of this young Congolese musician and that of a young Belgian girl.

Belamy Paluku

Belamy, you are from Goma, in Congo. In this moment you are in Belgium for an intercultural exchange for your specialization as a musician. How do you feel in such a different world? «I discover many people of different origins and I realize that each one always has something to give and to receive from others. The diversities of cultures and languages cannot stop us from living together and communicating.» And you Elisabeth, you were born in Belgium, what do you think about this welcoming people who come from all over the world? «It’s true that in Europe, and especially here in Brussels, there is an immense richness of nationalities and different cultures. Personally I have met some young people of the Focolare Movement from Syria, Slovakia, Italy etc. And what always helped me is also the art of loving which concretely makes you take the step towards the other. But I think that living one next to the other is not enough, we can take an extra step. The challenge for us Europeans, who perhaps are rather reserved, is precisely to go and meet the other person and to build bridges until we all become one family, until we truly recognize one another as brothers and sisters.» Belamy, is it from this exchange of riches that you wrote a song? «I come from a region with a constant danger of war sparking off between ethnic groups. This exchange of human and cultural riches seems to me a way to be followed towards the fulfillment of a world of sharing and tolerance. I began from our differences so as to cry out to the world that remaining together, united, we can unfold the puzzle of humanity.» Belamy Paluku is on facebook as Belamusik (the cultural centre of Goma) (more…)

From Congo to Belgium, the journey of Belamy

Like the Sunshine

22 Nov 2013 | Cultura

Lieta (Blanca) Betoño (1951 -2002) is considered a pioneer of the Focolare Movement in Ireland. As a twenty year old, she wrote “I only want to give joy to others” – a quality confirmed by the name by which she then became known – Lieta – meaning happy or joyful. “I live so as to be a cause of joy for the people I meet,” she wrote years later, just weeks before her death.
Lieta said a radical, definitive ‘yes’ to God as a teenager which never wavered even in the face of great suffering. A divine adventure brought her from Argentina to Ireland, where she lived for thirty years, sowing love, peace and joy among the people she met. This is her story.
Author: Susan Gately

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From Congo to Belgium, the journey of Belamy

15 Days of Prayer with Dorothy Day

9 Oct 2013 | Cultura

Coming soon (Publication Date – November 2013)

Dorothy Day connected radical faith with doing radical deeds. Beginning from her discovery of God in the Word when she was eight years old, Michael Boover shares Dorothy’s reflections about her pilgrimage to the daily discipline of readiness and openness to God in her life, especially to God in her neighbor. He shares her words on why and how she prays, on her preference for frequent confession, on her intentional choice of suffering and poverty, and on her desire to imitate the saints and to make sanctity the norm of everyone’s life. Read more

To pre-order book: New City Press (NY)

Also available as an e-Book

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From Congo to Belgium, the journey of Belamy

One in the Lord

20 Aug 2013 | Cultura

By Susan Muto What’s in it for me? What’s the takeaway? Susan Muto challenges us to turn away from the cultural impulse toward me-centeredness. By word and deed, Jesus teaches us not to place ourselves at the center of anything. Muto maps out the factors that work against our being one in the Lord – both egotism and self-criticism, the demands of modern worklife, technology’s propensity to isolate us from one another, our preconceptions about the right way to proceed, and the difficulty of forgiveness. Read more Orders New City Press (NY): http://www.newcitypress.com/one-in-the-lord.html Soon available as an eBook (more…)