We continue our journey around the world, discovering different facets of our global mission. Today we are going to Bolivia, a country of great contrasts and cultural diversity to discover what the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters of the Bolivia Region do and what spirit animates them.
Our Mission
Immersed in the Life of the Trinity, we feel called to be present in “border situations “where life is more fragile, threatened and excluded from our world”.
We carry out this mission in a community that is composed of Sisters from different countries and cultures. We seek communion in diversity, to experience dialogue between diverse cultures, and between generations: intercultural and intergenerational communities.
We recognize that in recent years our mission in the Region of Bolivia has been enriched by the testimony and contribution of our lay collaborators.
SSpS Main apostolates in Bolivia
School Support
Together with lay collaborators, the Sisters support and accompany school support centers, where the aim is to help with schoolwork, offer pedagogical reinforcement for girls, boys, and low-income adolescents, promoting the participation of recreational moments, a coexistence that promotes various aspects of integration, inclusion, empathy, reflection and prayer.
Prison Pastoral Ministry
In our prison ministry, we have a number of different activities to accompany people deprived of liberty. Assistance is provided with a daycare center, responding to the needs of minors from zero to three years old who live with their mothers inside the penitentiary center.
Pastoral of Older Adults
Service to the elderly brings us to the concern for the pastoral care of grandmothers and grandfathers. This is becoming more urgent and necessary in recent times due to the abandonment suffered by the elderly, by society, even from their own families.
Human Mobility Pastoral
CARITAS offers humanitarian aid to migrants, especially those from Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia, who travel thousands of kilometers in the hope of finding a place of refuge where they can live with dignity. Venezuela has had the greatest impact in recent years. This work is done in in collaboration with institutions and organizations of the Church, society in general, as well as at the departmental, national and international level.
Food Project
We offer food assistance in order to help older adults, soup kitchens, homes for boys, girls, adolescents, young people, homeless people, penitentiary centers, among others, to benefit many people who are in situations of vulnerability and in some cases of exclusion.
Parish Pastoral – Catechesis
Together with lay people we collaborate in the training of parish catechists and in the accompaniment for those who wish to receive the Sacraments of Christian initiation.
Visits to Neighbors, Families and Communities.
The experience of accompanying families and neighbors means sharing moments of listening, joys, concerns, and of solidarity help.
Vocational Ministry
We offer meetings, workshops, retreats, get-togethers for all young people who are discerning their future, their life project.
Communications Ministry
As a communication team, we want to promote communication of the life and evangelizing mission of the Congregation and especially of the Region of Bolivia.
Where we are
“Espíritu Santo” Community – Central House – Cochabamba – (1986)
The Central House “Espíritu Santo” is the house that has welcomed us from the beginning. Currently, it is the Central House of the SSpS in Bolivia. We come here for our visa and other government procedures in the city of Cochabamba. And this is where the Sisters meet to hold our meetings and meetings. It is a welcoming place for meetings with our lay people and lay collaborators of our mission in Bolivia, as well.
Starting this year, our community in Cochibamba has accompanied the pastoral care of the October 20 Neighborhood, assisting girls and boys in vulnerable situations with pedagogical reinforcement, catechesis and with Masses in the local chapel.
“Holy Trinity” Community – Santa Cruz de la Sierra (2011)
The SSpS Sisters have been collaborating in Santa Cruz since September 3, 2011, the date on which the “Holy Trinity” Missionary Community was inaugurated. From the beginning, it was intended, from a daycare center, to respond to the reality of minors from zero to three years old who live with their mothers inside the local penitentiary center.
In the parish, leaders are accompanied with training in the catechesis ministry, visits to families and senior adult ministry.
“San Arnoldo Janssen” Missionary Community – Oruro (2020)
On January 15, 2020, the “San Arnoldo Janssen” Missionary Community began in the city of Oruro. Its ministry is to collaborate with the Caritas Diocesan pastoral work, accompany young people from the countryside who arrive at the University, as well as to serve pastorally in neighborhoods, and assisting and helping with the needs of the population in situations of human mobility, as Oruro is one of the access points where people enter Bolivian territory.
Current Joys and Challenges
We are happy to be consecrated women, Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit, called to be rooted in the life of the Trinity, called to be part of its mission in Bolivia, particularly in a border situation, bringing compassionate love, the hope and peace of God wherever we are.
We are glad to be able do it together with lay people and from our intercultural, intergenerational and international community, seeking the holistic growth and development of the people around us, serving the poorest and most marginalized, moved by the passion of our consecration.
We Feel Challenged
• To redesign personal and community aspects based on our current reality as a Region, so that the new emerges.
• To live inculturation, internationality and intergenerationality.
• To use technology wisely, as a necessary and useful instrument; and to prioritize real contact with people, so that there is enough time for prayer, community, deepening our missionary vocation.
Future Vision
For the present, as SSpS in Bolivia, we want to see ourselves as a Region which:
- integrates being immersed in the Trinity to embrace the world with compassion;
- radically lives our missionary consecration in communities of sisterly love, trust and constant transformation,
- cultivate a spirit of discernment, that responds to the needs that arise,
- can redesign structures at all levels;
- crosses multiple borders to accompany people excluded by our world,
- cares for mother earth, in collaboration with lay people, the SVD, NGOs, and others,
- experiences openness to receiving and giving Sisters for the global mission.
Prepared by Sisters Raquel Zanuttini, SSpS and Maria Santisima, SSpS
Communication Team of the Bolivia Region
