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system and will never again get any help at all
from the Government. Those who have done
so are left on the street, and can be seen
working as prostitutes or pedalling drugs,
which are about their only options in an econ-
omy which is so weak anyway. Happiness says
they have been fed only white rice and water
for weeks. So the women plait braided hair for
each other, and sit and talk. The total bore-
dom with nothing to do is enough to send
anyone into deep depression and psycho prob-
lems. But from a spiritual perspective, they
have time - and Happiness has shared the
Truth with another woman, and it was a joy to
baptize Happiness and Faith in a huge lake
situated a further 15km along tracks from the
camp. The manager of the camp accompanied
us. We left significant
welfare for our sisters,
not least to buy food. The
NGO claims the mafia
control the camp fi-
nances and the funds
given to run them suffer
major leakage. And cen-
tral Sicily is indeed in
mafia control. The sisters
were so happy, it was in-
deed their happiest day
since arriving in Sicily
from the indescribable
traumas they suffered
from the traffickers in
Libya.
Carelinks | Sicily ... continued
So please pray for them. They have one phone
which the women share and there is internet
there, so they get some limited access to
email. Let us know if you’d like to contact
them, or better still, go to Sicily and visit them
and spend some quality time with them,
teaching further and breaking bread. Central
Sicily is very beautiful and untouched by
tourism, the large lake we found was not men-
tioned on the internet much at all, and was a
breathtakingly beautiful setting for the bap-
tisms. But please do not encourage the sisters
to leave the camp system, because otherwise
they will be on the street and without any pos-
sibility at all of even basic state involvement
in their lives. There is huge cause for prayer
in all these things.
The ruins of the commune of Poggioreale
where Happiness and Faith and the other
female migrants live. The village was
destroyed by earthquakes in 1968
Sis Faith, left, with Sis Happiness after their baptisms