AFRICA/DJIBOUTI - Sister Anna on her work in the mission in Djibouti

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Ali Sabieh (Agenzia Fides) - "I like to see how the Lord works in people; it is He who called me to be a missionary, in the mission among non-Christians, and I am here to give hope," says Consolata Missionary Sister Anna Bacchion, born in 1944, who works in Djibouti in a mission opened by her congregation in 2004.
Sister Anna has been involved in the mission in Djibouti since its foundation. On the eve of the World Day of Consecrated Life (which will be celebrated on Sunday 2 February), the nun tells Fides about the richness of a life among non-Christians.

"There is a sentence from the Gospel of John that has always impressed me: 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life (John 3:16-17)'", explains the nun, who works primarily in schools and in helping the disabled. "This means," adds Sister Anna, "that God loves all people, Muslims, Jews, every ethnicity and religion... To love everyone, everywhere. We missionaries are called to 'infect' with our testimony. We do not speak of Jesus, but Jesus is in their midst." Sister Anna Bacchion joined the Consolata Missionary Sisters in 1969 and came to Libya in 1976, where she worked with severely disabled children for seven years. She returned to Italy to serve her congregation for a while until she returned to Djibouti in 2004, a country on the border between Ethiopia and Somalia with a Muslim majority.
“In my two experiences, first in Libya and then in Djibouti,” says Sister Anna Bacchion, “I always saw the seed of Jesus among the people I met. In Libya, I met mothers who worked in schools and who, despite their many children and their precarious economic situation, opened the doors of their homes during school holidays to other children who attended school but lived far away from their families. In Djibouti, I saw the generosity and open hearts of the local people, and I still remember how the Prefect of Djibouti took to heart a mother and a little girl with a genetic disease that had the same consequences as leprosy, whom I had brought to him to ask him to take care of them.”

The "Read, write, count" (LEC) program educates children without papers or children who, for various reasons, have not been able to attend school, while the "École pour tous" school project opens its doors to disabled children who were previously placed in institutions. Sister Anna has seen these two educational initiatives grow and flourish. "It is fundamental that the child has the awareness that he can do great things. For these children, we have always tried to do our best. Thanks to the Church's commitment in this area, this type of project has now also been extended to the state level," she reports.
Today, five Consolata missionaries work in Djibouti. Three of them, including Sister Anna, are in Ali Sabieh, about 100 km from the capital, where the mission was originally founded. "The place He sends me to is my family," summarizes Sister Anna. "The disabled children I have been caring for since the first mission in Libya are my children. Their suffering is my suffering, their joy is my joy." (EG) (Agenzia Fides, 1/2/2025)