AMERICA/COLOMBIA - 5th National Congress for the Holy Childhood Association, for children to listen, learn, and announce from their missionary experience that they are Christ’s witnesses among other children

Manizales (Agenzia Fides) - “Missionary Children: listen, learn, and announce,” is the theme for the National Holy Childhood Association Day, which will be celebrated in May and will serve as a preparation for the 5th National Congress for the Holy Childhood Association 2008, which will take place June 27-29 in Manizales, “uniting the hearts of boys and girls, assistants and teachers, religious, priests, bishops, and missionaries of Colombia for the entire world,” as a report sent to Fides from Fr. Héctor Fabio Agudelo B., National Secretary for the Holy Childhood Association in Colombia.
“This beautiful opportunity is meant to invigorate the missionary zeal of children throughout the country,” said Fr. Hector. “It is an effort to make them listen, learn, and announce the love of God to all the ends of the earth. As young missionaries, they should learn to listen to the words of Jesus, take up his message in their minds and hearts, in order to later announce it with the testimony of what they have seen, heard, learned, and made their own.”
For this 5th Congress, there is an expected attendance of nearly 1,000 children between the ages of 9 and 14, as well as 300 group leaders from all over the country, along with the representatives from the PMS. The main objective is to encourage the children of the Holy Childhood Association, so that from their missionary experience, they may listen, learn, and announce they are Christ’s witnesses among other children.
The previous National Congresses of the Holy Childhood Association have been held in Bogota (1979), Medellin (1984), Barranquilla (1988), and Cali (1993). (RG) (Agenzia Fides 26/5/2008; righe 22, parole 266)