An intangible and infinite force that unites their hearts.

In the month of gratitude, we will share six short stories written by volunteers from "Ricci Social Services" and by residents living in the leprosy rehabilitation center. The theme is about growth within "Ricci Social Services," an intangible and infinite force that brings their hearts together. We invite everyone to experience the stories of growth in this RSS family!

Learning Without Knowing

Author: Volunteer from Ricci Social Services, currently serving at the Qiubei Rehabilitation Center in Yunnan.

On August 9, 1999, the president asked me if I wanted to serve people with leprosy. He told me that "Ricci Social Services" invited our group to help these patients. It was the first time I heard the name Ricci, and I agreed to the president's invitation to serve at the Dajindao Rehabilitation Center in Guangzhou. This was also my first contact with the staff of Ricci Social Services, and we received a call from Grandpa Lu Yi! It was my first encounter with the founder of the organization.

However, at that time, I still didn’t fully understand what Ricci Social Services did. It wasn’t until the days of service went by that I truly began to understand the mission of the organization. Gradually, I started to serve without much knowledge, and starting from Dajindao, I learned the true meaning of Mateo Ricci Social Services.

Volunteer from Services Social Matteo Ricci, currently serving at the Qiubei Rehabilitation Center in Yunnan Province

In the month of gratitude, we will share short stories written by volunteers serving in "Services Social Mateo Ricci" and by residents of the leprosy rehabilitation center. The theme is about growth within "Services Social Matteo Ricci" — an intangible and limitless force that brings their hearts together.

Everyone is welcome to feel the stories of growth within the RSS family.

💫💕💪😂💖🙌

Ten Years Later

Companionship is the Best Wisdom

Author: A volunteer from Services Social Matteo Ricci, currently serving at the Qiubei Rehabilitation Center in Yunnan Province.

On July 9, 2011, I first arrived at the leprosy rehabilitation center. The scenery here is beautiful, but seeing the large ulcers of the residents, with blood-red wounds exposing bone, is truly chilling.

However, their ability to survive is particularly strong. There is an elderly man without hands who ties a spoon to his arm to eat, and another elderly man with a leg amputation who kneels on the ground to till the soil and plant vegetables.

In the book Suffering is Not in the World written by Yuan Zhimin, it mentions that he contracted leprosy at the age of seven. His life and the experiences of the leprosy patients he met have deeply pained him.

Later, receiving love through charitable organizations like Services Social Matteo Ricci, and with the help of benefactors, caregivers, and volunteers, their lives have been transformed, giving them dignity and the courage to continue living. It is hoped that this love will accompany them to the other side of life.

Heartfelt message from the volunteers to the leprosy survivors.

Pray and thank the volunteers for their skillful hands and ingenuity to take care of what is needed, and warm the body and mind of the survivors.🪴🪴🪴

Accompany you every day

Hello, Mr. Wang:

Since you were admitted to the hospital, we have had the most opportunities to meet. The injuries on your hands, feet and body are washed and bandaged once a day. One side heals and the other side rots, over and over again; your hands and feet disabled by leprosy infection make you unable to take care of yourself. We all help you. Although it is only a year, we do all this to make you get better quickly and live like a normal person.

But in the past few days, your healed foot has become inflamed and rotten again, and worms have grown in the wound. Although the medication has not improved, you don't eat or drink and miss home. We are very anxious. We asked you what you wanted to eat and made you something, but you still didn't want to eat. We contacted your family and hoped that they could come to see you, but they said they were busy. What should we do? You said you want to die, so you die. This is easy to say, but no one can replace the pain of your wound. I don't know what to say to comfort you.

Daddy Wang, please treat us as your daughters. When you need us, we will come to accompany you at any time and accompany you through every day.

Happy Mid-Autum Festiv

Limadou Social Service wishes everyone a happy Mid-Autumn Festival 😊good health🍀🍀🍀

Thanks to the benefactors for sending moon cakes and fruits, um, the volunteers also made buns😊 and shared them with leprosy survivors, feeling the warm atmosphere of the festival together😋

Welcome to meet Matteo Ricci Social Services

Peeling corn leaves

Volunteers and leprosy survivors at the leprosy rehabilitation center are peeling corn husks 🌽🌽🌽Plant together 👴👴👴, and share the joy and happiness of the harvest together.

 

Social Service Volunteer, currently serving at Dechang Rehabilitation Hospital

I was moved

Cai San is 75 years old this year.

Perhaps because he suffered too much in his early years, in that era of scarcity, Cai Sansan was infected with leprosy when he was young. After going through hardships , embarrassment and sadness, he was transferred to a leprosy hospital and was forced to separate from his family, making his life even more miserable. He is dumb, but very smart. His instinct for survival taught him to survive in the cracks. Hunger made him afraid, and scarcity made him afraid. He became a grass carp that only took in but not out. He would not refuse anything you gave him. You gave him food, even if he didn't eat it and it would be spoiled, he would not say no. Even if his clothes were torn and could not be worn anymore, he was reluctant to throw them away. Everything was a treasure in his eyes. Don't even think about giving his things to others or giving them to others.

The sun rose from the west today!

Although he was disabled, he still tried hard to grow some corn. I found him outside the gate to feed him medicine. He actually gestured to me and asked me to break the green corn in his field. I was afraid that I might have made a mistake, so I just perfunctorily did it (gesture) and then went to weed the vegetable field. I didn't expect him to be so persistent and waited for me at the intersection. When I came back, he asked me to break the corn in his field again🌽. At that moment, I was so moved that I sincerely gestured to him to thank him and gave him a thumbs up👍, and he also smiled happily. He gestured to me that if a thief came to steal his corn, he would watch. (In fact, no one in the yard would steal his corn, and no outsiders would steal it. This is an isolated yard, but there would be pigs that would steal it).

This small change, although it took a long time, did make a difference. The change in behavior starts with the change in the heart, and the change in the heart is the melting of the ice layer in the heart. The hard protective shell of the human heart is formed in the desert without love, and it can only be pried open and melted in the warmth of love.

Twenty-four years of companionship finally exchanged for Cai Sansan's sincere "willingness to give" today. This moment of generosity is really not easy!

Like for God's love💗💖

Like for Cai Sansan💖💗

Like for our perseverance for more than 20 year.

The editor thanks the volunteers for telling everyone about the loving life and service in the rehabilitation center.

Physicians went to the Rehabilitation Hospital

Yesterday, doctors from hospitals in the town came to the Coronation Rehabilitation Home to treat leprosy survivors 🍀

🌈Note: Rehabilitation Home Service.

Accompanying elderly people in rehabilitation centers

Holistic care is provided in four provinces (Yunnan, Sichuan, etc.) to provide "big family" living companionship to the elderly leprosy survivors in nine rehabilitation centers, so that these leprosy-affected widows and orphans can enjoy a dignified life and end-of-life care.

In June, office teams visited the Meigu Rehabilitation Hospital, Sichuan Province

In late June, the service teams of the Macau office, the Kunming office and the Sichuan office retraced the path Father Lu Yi took to the Meigu Rehabilitation Hospital in Sichuan Province. In the past, volunteers often passed through this mountain road to buy medical supplies, medicines and daily necessities for leprosy survivors.

The service team also visited Leibo Rehabilitation Hospital in Sichuan Province. They encountered falling rocks on the way, and the service team had to get off the car and clear a path before the car could continue moving forward. This passage, which often has rockfalls and landslides, is also the road to the rehabilitation home. Countless volunteers walked back and forth with perseverance.

Visit to leprosy survivors

 

Several volunteers from Xichang came to Dechang Rehabilitation Center to visit leprosy survivors💕 and presented them with summer fruits and snacks

Volunteers and leprosy survivors visited "Yilong Lake" on Father's Day.

The volunteer said: In fact, the Father’s Day 👨program that day was very simple! Just take a car, drink a bottle of mineral water, and eat bread; then sing in "Yilong Lake" and eat a bowl of rice noodles, and you will be very satisfied! 🍀

There are no gifts, only companionship and blessings on Father’s Day. 

Still happy and grateful! 💖

With much love and care, volunteers care for villagers and leprosy survivors

Volunteers took the initiative to care for the villagers living near the leprosy village, and this love moved them to care for the leprosy survivors - opening the gap between everyone with love. 

Below are the stories shared by the volunteers:

On August 5, 2023, we visited Majia Village (New Village), a village close to the leprosy rehabilitation center.

Shangchong Village and Majia Village are located near the Leprosy Rehabilitation Home and the villagers are living in poverty; they are not infected by leprosy and although they are not residents of the Home, Ricci Social Service has helped them.

So we visit the villagers from time to time, and they are now mingling with the leprosy survivors in the rehabilitation center (before, they didn't know anything about leprosy and were afraid to come here for fear of being infected).

ELMAC VISITED THE RESIDENCE OF THE COMPANY OF JESUS Celebrate the Earth with a focus on the “common home”

Around 25 elements of the Lusophone Scout Group of Macau, including leaders, explorers and pioneers, marked World Earth Day last Saturday, with a visit to the Residence of Our Lady of Fátima, home of the priests of the Company of Jesus in Macau.

The trip had a very specific purpose: to provide the young participants with a deeper knowledge of the circumstances behind the current environmental crisis, as well as to familiarize them with the composting techniques adopted by the local mission of the Society of Jesus.

The celebrations of World Earth Day, celebrated annually on April 22, were this year subordinated to the theme “Planet vs Plastic” and it was about plastic pollution that Father Fernando Azpiroz, SJ, spoke to an attentive audience, before proposing to give a new life to some of the waste that is most common in the kitchens of homes in the territory.

“The objective of this two-hour activity was, first of all, to help these boys and girls understand what is behind the current environmental crisis, and that it is a culture and a lifestyle dominated by production and consumption , often based on resources and cheap labor. Unrestrained production and consumption generate large amounts of waste, which is responsible for the pollution of soil, water and air. Plastic pollution is one of the most significant,” argued the Superior of the Jesuits in Macau.

After explaining to the GELMac elements the risks and implications associated with plastic pollution, Father Azpiroz tried to demonstrate that even the most harmful waste can have a second use after being recycled. “What would have been, at first, organic waste thrown into the trash has become compost, full of beneficial bacteria and nutrients. And what was a plastic box, which would also be thrown into the trash and would become toxic waste, became a very simple, but very effective, self-irrigation system," explained the priest, adding: "The explorers worked Together, they combined these two components to create a mini-garden of vegetables, which they brought home and which can be irrigated with the droplets released from the air conditioning.”

The initiative also served to make young people aware of the foundations of the Church's environmental doctrine, as defined by Pope Francis in the encyclical Laudato Si'. “In his encyclical letter Laudato Si', Pope Francis defends that the Earth is not something we use and throw away. It is, however, a living system that serves as our common home. It is the place from where God created each and every one of us, along with other organisms. He is the brother who protects us and keeps us alive. This communion with the Earth and with the rest of Creation is a fundamental part of our human identity and, although children are not necessarily aware of the Pope's teachings, they absolutely understand that in each of the decisions they make throughout “Throughout their lives they are deciding if they want to be part of the solution or if, instead, they want to become enemies of the Earth,” defended Father Azpiroz.

In Zhaojue County, Sichuan Province

On April 27, 2024 In Zhaojue County, Sichuan Province, hail and heavy rain fell between 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m., and the water in the rehabilitation center was cut off! 

The courtyard was flooded with mud and rocks; the only access road (mountain road) from the rehabilitation center to the city was also flooded by mud and rocks.

It took two days for the rain to stop and for the volunteers and rehabilitators to clear the mud from the yard and the rocks and silt from the main road.

The theme of this year's World Earth Day is "Planet vs. Plastics" April 22

World Earth Day

The theme of this year's World Earth Day is "Planet vs. Plastics", calling on everyone to respond to global plastic reduction, stop plastic pollution of the earth through daily life and the use of plastics that harm all living things, and increase public awareness of environmental protection. awareness and improve the global environment.

Common home, common protection, and common guardians of the earth

Women's Day Celebration at Yilong Lake

 

Shiping Rehabilitation Center (Yunnan Province) volunteers and Leprosy survivors celebrated "Women's Day" and visited Yilong Lake to experience and appreciate the wonders of the Creator's creation.

Guangdong Provincial Institute of Ethnic and Religious Studies traveled to Macao Special Administrative Region to conduct research.

Religion and society are important cultural properties of Macao society, showing the characteristics of social and cultural diversity, harmony in Macao society having high research value. 

Guangdong Institute of Ethnic Religion has long been engaged in research on the basic religious theory, history, culture and present situation of religions in Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao Greater Bay Area. Conducted a thematic study on the situation of cultural and social services organized by Macao societies in Henqin, aiming to better serve the construction of the Greater Bay Area research on cultural and social service activities carried out by Macao social organizations and cultural and social service activities carried out by Macao social organizations in Hengqin, aiming to better contribute to the construction of the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong,, Hong Kong and Macao and the construction of Hengqin deep cooperation. 

In order to promote the development of research, the director of Guangdong Institute of Ethnic and Religious Studies Luo Long and his team of 7 people went to Lima social service on March 1, 2024.