First time visitors to Santa Cruz de la Sierra are met by an unexpected scene: the exuberant and inviting natural environment, an unfamiliar language, the quite diverse local culture, the poverty, simplicity and endless generosity of the people.

One group of young people and families from the Focolare decided to spend Holy Week in Santa Cruz with their friends from the Nahua. Due to the great pastoral need, the local Church gave permission to certain prepared laypeople to act as extraordinary ministers at the discretion of the pastors. They share what happened:

“The sun has just appeared over the horizon and the bus clambers along the mountain roads of east Sierra Madre, carrying 43 young people and families from the Focolare. The journey promises to be long and exciting; the tiredness goes unnoticed because of the great joy. At the road’s end there are brothers and sisters from 33 families of the Nahuas community ready to celebrate Holy Week with us.

Eight hours away from the City of Mexico we are welcomed into Santa Cruz by a generous and humble folk living in the heart of the huasteca hidalgeuense (unfading flower): a humid region with high temperatures, covered with cedar, ebony and mahogany wood trees.

At one of the mission parishes we split up into seven groups and go out to be with the people, to help with the liturgical services in seven communities where the seed of the spirituality of the Focolare has been growing for several years.

The encounter is overwhelming as the life, faith and bread begin to be shared. Several testimonies of Gospel life are shared, as well as small gift items. After the celebration of the washing of the feet, one of the young people exclaims: “It’s so fantastic to feel like a Christian!” One teenager said she had attended many missions, but “with Jesus among us it’s different; indeed, He’s the one who draws people and that’s why we wanted to attend the meetings and the liturgical celebrations.”

Amongst the many personal encounters, one particularly touched us: We visit an alone and elderly man, who has been immobile for a long time. The state of his hygiene is extremely poor. We bathe him and clean his tiny room; help him to prepare for receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, and give him Holy Communion. The next day, he dies.

Following a Holy Week of intense living and after having experienced mutual giving and receiving in simplicity and generosity, the moment arrives when we must return to Mexico City. During the return trip, many of us remember the words spoken by Chiara Lubich in the Basilica of Guadalupe in 1997: “Inculturation requires an exchange of gifts.”

Seeing the enthusiasm of the young misioneros and the members of the communities we visited, there is new hope that the Misión in Santa Cruz will not remain an isolated event, but the sign of a new beginning of a process of increased giving by the Focolare in Mexico.”