by Laura Gómez RuizRome – A missionary experience can begin with a concrete gesture: building something, offering help, sharing daily life with a community. But the questions that arise during that time can open up other paths. Who am I? What can embrace the desire I carry in my heart? What can truly make me happy?For young people who take part in Wecare experiences, service is accompanied by a process of reflection designed precisely to make room for these questions.As recounted in the first part of this story , some encounters with others can change the way we look at our own lives. There are also gestures of closeness and words that can accompany the questions that emerge during the journey.The roots of Wecare go back to the first volunteer experiences launched in Peru in 2005, while the association in its current form was established in 2023, bringing together the various initiatives that had developed over the years. “We do not want it to be simply a volunteering experience,” explains Fernando Lozada Baldoceda, who initiated the overseas volunteer experiences and is now director of Wecare.Preparing the groundAlongside concrete work, the organization offers a journey of reflection inspired by Gospel values, without presenting them explicitly as such. For this reason, it describes the program as a path of “pre-evangelization.”The initiative begins with questions rooted in the heart of every person about identity, suffering, love, friendship, happiness, mission and vocation. “These are questions that can also lead people to reflect on the supernatural,” Fernando observes. The aim, therefore, is not to provide ready-made answers, but to create a space in which each young person can engage with what he or she is experiencing and with the questions that run through their lives.The program alternates between moments of communal reflection and meetings in small groups. “They are conferences,” Fernando explains, “but then the young people have the opportunity to share and discuss their experiences with one another.” The reflection, moreover, does not remain confined to what happened during the trip: the questions also touch on one’s personal history, choices, relationships and way of looking at life.A travel diary is also part of the journey. Each theme is accompanied by texts, including works from Christian literature, and by questions that help turn reading into personal reflection. The material is linked to what the young people are experiencing: “The idea is that the theme should not remain disconnected from the experience,” Fernando explains.A discreet accompanimentThis is where the presence of a priest takes on a particular role. Father Gonzalo Len Alvarez, Vice-Rector of the Church of San Paolo alla Regola in Rome, accompanies the young people during their missionary experiences and shares with them the journey, daily life and moments of reflection. For him, one of the fundamental elements of the program is to enable young people to “encounter Christ through two fundamental experiences: an encounter with others and an encounter with oneself.”The first, Father Gonzalo explains, arises from drawing close to people and communities whose circumstances are different from one’s own. Young people encounter stories that are not part of their everyday lives and “learn to live service, selflessness, charity and the gift of self,” the priest explains.From this can emerge the second encounter: that of the young person with himself or herself. Father Gonzalo explains that “there is also a genuine interior journey that invites each person to confront the great questions of life: Who am I? What truly makes me happy? Why is there suffering? What does to love mean?” Not all young people follow the same path or reach the same conclusions. Each responds according to his or her own story and in freedom.For some, Father Gonzalo says, the experience can mean “rediscovering a faith that had drifted away from their lives; for others, finding light when faced with an important decision, or rediscovering the beauty of prayer and Christian life.” In some cases, and there are many such instances, the encounter with Christ takes on a new meaning: “Christ is not simply a religious proposal, but the deepest answer to the desires of the human heart.”In this journey, the presence of a priest who shares the missionary experience with the young people takes on particular significance. Accompaniment does not come only afterwards, to interpret what has been experienced, but is part of the journey from within. The priest takes part in the concrete experience and can accompany the questions that arise from it. The spiritual dimension, therefore, does not appear as an element added at the end of a volunteer project; rather, it is woven into the encounter with people, the work carried out and the way each young person looks at his or her own life.No ready-made answersFor Lozada Baldoceda, this is also why the program does not present itself simply as a formative activity. The experience seeks to connect what young people see outside themselves with what they carry within. The texts and questions in the diary, group conversations and experience of service are all part of a single journey. The aim is not to provide ready-made answers. The questions can open up a process that each person will follow differently and that may continue even after returning home.Father Gonzalo concludes by explaining that “it is precisely in these small and great changes that I discover the missionary spirit of the Church: young people who, after experiencing the love of Christ and allowing themselves to be transformed by the Gospel, naturally feel the desire to share with others what they themselves have received.” This is not an obligation to be added at the end of the experience, but the consequence of an encounter that has left its mark: those who have received something good naturally desire to share it.The story of Wecare itself offers an example of how service can continue by taking different forms.During the pandemic, when planned trips had to be suspended, some young people who had taken part in previous experiences looked for another way to help. This led to Sosteniamoci, a project that began by collecting food and preparing packages for families in need in Rome and, subsequently, in Milan. Over time, this experience and the international initiatives came together in the organization that is now Wecare.Twenty years after those first experiences in Peru, the challenge remains the same: to ensure that mission does not become merely doing something for someone, but becomes an encounter capable of transforming the way we see. Concrete help matters. But what also matters is what happens when a young person asks what it means for him or her to have met that person, witnessed that reality and shared time with them.From an encounter with others to an encounter with oneself; and from there, for some, to an encounter with Christ. From what one has received, finally, the desire to go out once again to meet others may arise.Link correlati :Wecare website
