Alma Sisters care for disabled children in Dili, East Timor

On his second day in East Timor, Pope Francis held an emotional meeting with disabled children at a school run by a Congregation of nuns known as the “ALMA” Sisters.

The ALMA Sisters — acronym for “Asosiasi Lembaga Misionari Awam”, Association of Lay Missionaries — have been working in the country since 2004 and in addition to the school they also run an orphanage.

This Congregation was founded in the 1960s by Fr. PH Janssen in Malang, East Java. It is a secular institute that works in the fields of education, preaching in remote places and environments, care for disabled children, family ministry and the promotion of the lay apostolate.

The “Irmãs Alma” School (Sisters Alma, in Portuguese), which the Holy Father visited today, takes care of the most disadvantaged children with serious physical and mental disabilities.

In addition, it provides young people with therapy sessions several times a week, better nutrition and medication to improve their condition and enable them to participate in activities in the local community.

It also helps families be better prepared to accept the condition of a disabled child.

The sick children, together with the nuns and volunteers of this center located in the capital of Dili, witnessed today a visit that they will remember forever.

For about an hour, the Holy Father greeted them one by one, hugged them, and also offered them some advice: “Learn to let God take care of us.”

Especially endearing was the moment when, holding the hand of Silvano, a child with paralysis, the Pontiff excitedly indicated that he teaches us to “let ourselves be cared for by God, who loves us so much” and also let ourselves be cared for by the Virgin, “who She is our mother.”

Arcangelo, a 24-year-old young man with a disability, asked the Pope to sign his diary, where he usually writes down his thoughts and reflections. “To Arcangelo, with my blessing,” the Holy Father wrote in Portuguese on one of his pages.