{"id":306736,"date":"2019-01-06T22:01:31","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T21:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/fontems-present-and-future\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:38:49","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:38:49","slug":"fontems-present-and-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/fontems-present-and-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Fontem\u2019s present and future"},"content":{"rendered":"

For months we\u2019ve been following apprehensively as the situation evolves at Fontem, the first of the Focolare\u2019s little towns in Africa. We were able to reach Margaret Long and Etienne Kenfack, who speak for the community there and let us know the latest.<\/em> \u201cFor Fontem, 2018 was a difficult year,\u201d explains Margaret Long, \u201cbecause the conflict that is still ongoing in the northwest and southwest regions of the country shows no signs of calming. Many residents have been forced to leave their houses and take shelter in the forest or in nearby cities. The college has been closed for some time, and the hospital is running on a skeleton staff. \u201cEver since we focolarini left Fontem last October \u2013 a difficult decision, but taken together, we were certain it was the right thing to do \u2013 many others left as well, especially families who wanted to give their own children the chance to go to school, which was no longer possible in the little town. \u201cUnfortunately we can\u2019t say when life will be able to get back to the way it was. We are in daily contact with those who have stayed: Aracelis Nkeza and Mbe Tasong Charles are carrying on the life of the Focolare community there. \u201cAs far as the hospital is concerned,\u201d continues Etienne Kenfack, \u201cthe current level of danger does not allow us to guarantee the security and protection of those who work there. We therefore turned to the health authorities to try to understand how to proceed. \u201cBased on their advice, we communicated the situation with employees and concluded our working relationship according to the legal norms there in Cameroon. Those who chose to continue working did so freely under their own personal responsibility. This is why the hospital continues to maintain a minimal level of service for the population.\u201d To the question of what the future holds for the little town, Margaret responds that everyone greatly hopes that people can begin again and life can return to normal. \u201cThe closeness of many people around the world who are praying or write to us gives us a lot of strength.\u201d Doubts may arise as to whether the conflict, other than destroying human lives, material goods and even dreams, is compromising Fontem\u2019s mission as Chiara Lubich saw it \u2014 to be a beacon of unity and intercultural dialogue for the African continent. Etienne explains that since the early 1960s Chiara compared the little town to a light that originated from the reciprocal love lived by everyone. \u201cToday, 50 years later, it seems that this love and solidarity between everyone has grown. You could even say that the more precarious and dangerous the situation becomes, the more it increases.\u201d Margaret adds that many things have changed in Africa since the beginnings. \u201cIn those days the spirituality of unity had only reached Fontem, while today it is in every country on the continent. There is the little town of Man (Mariapolis Vittoria) on the Ivory Coast, which gives witness to intercultural dialogue, and there is also Mariapolis Piero in Kenya, which is a training center for all of Africa in the spirituality of unity. In addition, many focolarini who were at Fontem have now gone to support other focolares on the continent. Despite continual challenges, the uncertainties of each day, and not knowing how it will all end, we are sure that God\u2019s plan for Fontem has not been interrupted. As Pope Francis says, we are only at the beginning, and the Holy Spirit, who renews all things, will surely also remake Fontem. <\/p>\n

Stefania Tanesini<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For months we\u2019ve been following apprehensively as the situation evolves at Fontem, the first of the Focolare\u2019s little towns in Africa. We were able to reach Margaret Long and Etienne Kenfack, who speak for the community there and let us know the latest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}