This is the second edition of our Advent missionary campaign. This year, we invite you to support three missionary stations in Bolivia, Chad, and Congo.
Olsztyn, November 7, 2025
Praised be Jesus Christ!
An empty place at the table is a tradition. It is also a challenge when a stranger knocks on the door on Christmas Eve. Sometimes we feel regret that someone close to us is not with us at the Christmas dinner… Our missionary campaign, “An Empty Place at the Table,” is an invitation to fill this symbolic empty plate with Christian love, turning it into a gift for the poor who, right now, need our very concrete help.
This year, we invite you to support three missionary institutions: the Girls’ Home in Cochabamba, Bolivia, the new mission in Lai, Chad, and the orphanage in Mikalayi, Congo.
Teenage mothers, victims of rape, are unable to cope emotionally and ask us to take care of their children because they cannot bear to look at a child who reminds them of their trauma. One of them tried to poison her daughter, little Sofia. The girl was miraculously saved. Today she is six years old - small but happy - she has friends and goes to school. After four years of absence, her mother returned. Seeing Sofia alive and happy became, for her, a sign of blessing and forgiveness for the harm she had once done,” says Sister Anna Kurysz, a member of the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart and director of the shelter in Cochabamba. She adds: “At our altitude of over 2,500 meters above sea level, the temperature changes are drastic. We have no heating in the house, so we sleep in sweaters and hats because it is difficult to fall asleep when you are shivering from the cold.” We want to complete the replacement of windows in the St. Francis Girls’ Home - work begun thanks to the “Give Warmth” campaign - and to paint the children’s rooms, which have not been renovated for many years. To achieve these goals, we need PLN 61,500.
“I am literally building the parish of Saint Maximilian Kolbe in Lai, Chad, from scratch. When, in 2021, the bishop entrusted me with organizing its material structures, I was terrified! I had only four hectares of bare land. Since then, thanks also to the help of the Dehonian Missionary Family, a chapel, a primary school, a health center, and the shell of a church have been built. Since September 2024, sisters from Burkina Faso have been helping me in the parish. Both they and I live on diocesan property. The parish is three kilometers away, so every day we commute there as if we were going to work. We would very much like to live on the mission grounds so we can be close to the people and so the sisters can live their religious life according to their congregation’s charism. I am requesting your help in the amount of PLN 268,100 for the construction of a convent for the sisters. My parishioners are mostly poor farmers who cultivate up to two hectares of land by hand. Their main concern is what they will feed their children today. Raising such an amount is far beyond our reach,” says Father Jakub Szałek, a missionary from the Diocese of Bydgoszcz.
The third institution we want to support is the orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary in Mikalayi, Congo. The children there live in very modest conditions, as shown by the facility’s budget: PLN 29,500 per year. We want to provide the children with new mattresses, because they currently sleep on metal bunk beds with “mattresses” made of just a few centimeters of foam. The cost of purchasing new mattresses is PLN 14,250. “I was brought to the orphanage after my mother died when I was one month old. Since I came here, no one from my family has visited me. I don’t know my father. In 2015, a woman from Kananga adopted me and my brother. However, after a few years she began treating us badly. She said we were a burden on her family and wanted to throw us out onto the street. When the sisters found out, they brought us back to the orphanage in Mikalayi in 2022. Thank you very much for all your help. With gratitude, July Kalala.”
I wish you many blessings on the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ! During Midnight Mass, I will surround every member of the Sacred Heart Missionary Family with fervent prayer. I am also sending you a symbolic gift - a bag of tea that I personally brought from Bolivia. May this warm drink remind us of those who lack warmth and need our help.
With the gift of prayer +
Deputy Secretary of for Foreign Missions
of the Priests of the Sacred Heart in Poland
Fr. Piotr Chmielecki SCJ
