Indonesia : A chapel for the village of Golo Popa
A little while ago we received an appeal for help from Indonesia. The Catholic faithful in the village of Golo Popa on the island of Flores had no church of their own and were forced to gather in the village school on Sundays for Holy Mass. But although this was only a makeshift solution, many faithful came nevertheless. However, on weekdays, when the school was in use for teaching, they had nowhere to gather to pray and worship, for baptisms, weddings or other Church activities.
Parish priest Father Ferdinand Tahul told us at the time that the Catholic faithful, though very poor themselves, had made great efforts to raise money for a village chapel. In fact they had been collecting money and materials for several years, but it was still nowhere near enough. Yet it was important to them to have a fitting chapel where they could honour God appropriately. “The people live their Catholic faith with great joy, and theirs is a very living faith“, he told us, when asking for our help.
His appeal met with our benefactors’ usual generous response, thanks to which the new chapel has already been built and consecrated. Now Father Ferdinand has written back joyfully to thank us. “Thanks to the commitment of the faithful and the generous help we received from ACN, the work is now complete. The faithful all worked very hard and even the women helped with the building work. Now our community can celebrate Holy Mass in the new chapel and we were also able to celebrate Christmas there for the first time. We can see how the people are becoming still more involved in the life of the Church and how more and more people are coming to church. Our heartfelt thanks for your generous help and may God grant you all his richest blessings!“