What awakens the hearts of our young people? This is the question of a small group of adults and I in Nairobi who accompany about thirty university students from Communion and Liberation. Looking back over the last two years, we noticed that the experience that fascinates young people most is charity. For this reason, during the month of August, we chose to take a slightly different kind of vacation. We went to Ol’ Moran, a village in the Kenyan savannah where a priest friend of ours welcomed us for five days of charitable activities. It was a missionary vacation to bring to those who do not know Jesus what we were fortunate enough to encounter in Nairobi.
Guided by the question, “What does it mean to truly love?”, we immersed ourselves in five days of living together. Five days of silence, assemblies, incredible starry skies, and above all, charity towards the children of the village. Every day, in fact, we prepared for the day by praying Lauds and reading a passage by Fr. Giussani on Christian charity. Then we went to play, sing, and pray with the children of the village or in the parish orphanage. To conclude the day, a play about the life of Jonah had been prepared to tell them that it is beautiful to follow God’s plans.
Some of the young people confessed that they had arrived at the holiday feeling a little tired and listless. Some imagined holidays as a place of rest, not work, even more tiring than university life. Others thought that going to a village was a step backwards compared to city life. Many of them had worked hard under the sun to earn the money to come on vacation, and now they wanted to enjoy it. A few hours with the nuns’ disabled and orphaned children were enough to change their whole perspective and open up a sea of questions.
They want to continue living like this, giving of themselves without asking for anything in return.
Many realized that at the end of a day under the African sun, even though they were tired, they were much happier than before. One girl confessed to us that one day, faced with so much beauty, she wanted to take out her cell phone and share a video on social media to get likes and be happier. Then she remembered what had been said that morning: “True love seeks the good of others, not our own gain.” So she put her cell phone back in her pocket and continued playing. Another girl wondered what it means to love if, after a few days, we would return to Nairobi, leaving the children in the village. Perhaps, some said, to love is to show the presence of God who loves us and knows the name of each of those poor children, who in turn will only know each other if we love them in this way, remembering their names. Another girl told us how a man from the village approached her and asked, “How much do they pay you to play and spend a whole day with the children?” She replied that there was no payment: “The free love of God that we have received is poured out on the children around us.”
At the end of the week, we found ourselves tired but happy. Most of the young people asked to stay in the village. They wanted to continue living like this, loving less fortunate children freely, together with their friends, giving themselves without asking for anything in return. Some think that perhaps it would be nice to live like this in Nairobi too. One girl shyly points out that it was the poor and disabled children who did charity for us city kids.
This is what touches our hearts and those of the children we meet: the happiness of being able to love and be loved, freely, without calculation, forever. Imitating God in his free and endless giving.
