Report Monday, 14 October 2019.

This day was the first day of the Congregational Conference. On the agenda were the provincial reports of the different FIC provinces and of the Religious House of the Netherlands (RHN).

Each province / RHN gave his report about the following topics:

-        The developments in the province / RHN during the last year (2018 – 2019),

-        The important themes / challenges,

-        The joys and worries,

-        Recommendations / decisions of the provincial chapter or RH conference and the general chapter 2018,

-        The focus points for 2019 -2020.

Among other things, Ghana gave more information about the new private Senior High School Louis Rutten in Sombo. Chile talked about how the schools are trying to implement the values of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and of the FIC Founders. Indonesia highlighted their good cooperation with a number of other congregations of sisters and priests and how they try to handle the decreasing numbers of new student in their schools. Malawi emphasized the difficulty to maintain  a large number of buildings properly. The Netherlands gave great attention to the main task of the council: being close to fellow brothers and having attention for their needs.

The general council reported about the work they had done in implementing the general chapter decisions. They provided a scheme of visitations and congregational gatherings during the years 2019 – 2024, which was discussed by the members of the provincial councils / council RHN. The last subject for deliberation was clarification about a recommendation on gift policy.

The Chilean delegation led our group in the morning prayer and in the other prayers during the day. We finished this full day of meetings with a eucharistic celebration, presided by father Koos Janssen SMA.

Prepared by Frans School (Religious House Hetherlands)