A new start in Brooklyn! (Testimony of Sister Regine)

After many ups and downs we fi­nal­ly suc­ceed­ed in mov­ing to Brooklyn on April 12, thanks to the help of many friends!

Our new neigh­bor­hood is called Fort Greene after the name of the park just across the street. We are liv­ing in the rec­to­ry of St Michael/St Edwards’s church lo­cat­ed in the mid­dle of Projects in an Afro-American neigh­bor­hood. We re­ceived a very warm wel­come from all the parish­ioners who had been wait­ing for us for a long time. Many were ea­ger to in­tro­duce us to their friends or to help us in any way they could. We are al­so very proud to be part of the Volley team of the parish, en­cour­aged by Father Bob our pas­tor!

We are close to dif­fer­ent Universities, Hospitals and Care Centers. We are al­so not far from Dumbo, known for its artis­tic life as well as the well-known Brooklyn Academy of Music. All the­se dif­fer­ent re­al­i­ties are true chal­lenges for our mis­sion here and give us many new op­por­tu­ni­ties to spread the Charism of Compassion.

We start­ed to vis­it two Care Centers host­ing around 400 res­i­dents each; where the need of a sim­ple Presence is wel­comed. “Please come back!” is what we keep hear­ing dur­ing our vis­its. Praying the Rosary in the streets, we al­so found out about a shel­ter for wom­en where we like to stop and talk with some of the res­i­dents sit­ting out­side the build­ing. One of them likes to say a decade of the Rosary with us and has an amaz­ing faith.

Some other res­i­dents are very bro­ken and don’t see the mean­ing of their lives any more. I re­mem­ber one of my first en­coun­ters with a 40 year old wom­an who was defin­ing her­self as a “f… home­less piece of s..!" It was so painful to re­ceive the­se words in my heart and to re­al­ize how much she was se­ri­ous about it. At the end of our talk, she fi­nal­ly ac­cept­ed to be looked at and smiled. I told her that from now on her life was im­por­tant to at least one per­son in the world and that I will keep her in my prayers.

We are al­so vis­it­ing some peo­ple in the neigh­bor­hood who are very lone­ly. We start­ed to bring Holy Communion to a few home­bound peo­ple liv­ing in the pro­jects close to the Cathedral of St James.

We thank you for keep­ing us in your prayers so that we can al­ways be more faith­ful to the call­ing of the Holy Spirit in our new mis­sion in Brooklyn."