In this country in crisis, re-launching the CANA mission with a “real” face-to-face session is a priority. G. CORMIER travelled to Lebanon to train them in the “Fraternal Life” session.
In the midst of a crisis
Lebanon is in the midst of a crisis as everyone knows: after the October 2019 Revolution, the health crisis and now an unprecedented economic crisis! This has obviously had negative effects on the CANA mission: couples are suffering a lot financially and are putting the priority on this issue. Very few sessions have been organised for at least two years and face-to-face meetings have become very expensive. Finally, complex marital situations have multiplied.
Because of all this, the leaders felt it was important to relaunch the CANA mission with a “real” session at the community house in Chnannïr. And since the Community took over the responsibility of the association for the disabled, the house has hardly ever received a large group. It was a good opportunity to test it.
CANA Fraternal Life
This large house, which is already operational and where there is still a lot to be done, welcomed a group of 77 people (11 couples and 29 children!), who managed to attend despite all their constraints.
Because of all the above, it was decided to run the session over 3 full days instead of 5, while keeping a maximum of exercises! This resulted in a very, very dense programme! This pushed us to innovate by proposing, for example, a time for a “clay modelling” workshop at the beginning of the time of reconciliation.
It is fair to say that everyone was involved in the proposals, which were sometimes surprising for the couples, but they were very eager to move forward. We also managed to offer some real relaxation time to simply allow them to be with each other again. I had never seen couples go on so long after the evening… The time of fellowship proposed at the end brought many questions about the Community, CANA and Communion.
At the end, the couples were able to express how much good these three days had done them, especially after these difficult years and in the midst of the economic crisis. If the programme worked so well, it was because of three factors:
- an excellent preparation beforehand by the national leaders
- a team of well-trained sharing group leaders and
- a great desire of the couples who followed the programme with confidence.
CANA Welcome
The meeting with the leaders was very rich. After many years, Lebanon decided to embark on the adventure and to focus on young couples. Thus 20 couples in 4 fraternities are following the programme and have just attended the CANA Welcome weekend in the community house. All of them are young and eager to undertake the adventure faithfully throughout the 9 meetings.
Conclusion
A beautiful mission which allowed us to help the brothers and sisters in the service of this well-tried and tested mission and to understand them better.