Missionary Childhood Association

Country of the Month Archive

 

As members of the Missionary Childhood Association, students have a direct impact on the lives of their brothers and sisters in over 1,100 mission territories around the world. These lesson plans give a brief overview of the featured country (including country and continental maps) as well as an example, with pictures, of the work that missionaries accomplish with your students’ help. Country facts and statistics come from a variety of sources: CIA World Factbook, World Atlas, Wikipedia, and various (Arch)diocesan websites, among many others.

Africa

  • MCA in Angola
    The country of Angola is still plagued by the problem of land mines left from their civil war. Cheap to plant and expensive to dig up, children continue to be maimed by inadvertently triggering one. The Missionary Childhood Association funds project to provide prosthetic limbs to children who are maimed in explosions. MCA is also helping support children who suffer from another effect of the war – the loss of their parents. Divine Word Missionaries, founded by Saint Arnold Janssen, run a Welcome Center that provides, education, vocational skills, and of course, the knowledge that God loves them. Read about the other project provided by these MCA supported missionaries.

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  • MCA in Burundi
    In Burundi, the Missionary Childhood Association is helping is children who are at high risk of exploitation. Promised an education, they instead find themselves in slave labor in mining, farming, or construction. Read how MCA is helping missionaries create a safe haven for these children as well as those orphaned by ethnic violence in the country.

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  • MCA in Cameroon
    Indoor plumbing should be a given in any school and Missionary Childhood is helping to make that a reality in Cameroon. Improved sanitation means cleaner, healthier children and less missed school time due to illness. Children are living up to the school motto of Pray, Work, and Play thanks to Missionary Childhood!

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  • MCA in Egypt
    Sometimes the best work of the Missionary Childhood Association is helping children have fun! Read about our former National Director bringing gifts, fun, and face painting at Christmas time to children in Egypt on behalf of Missionary Childhood members here in the United States. What better way to celebrate the holidays then with family – our One Family in Mission!

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  • MCA in Ghana
    Sarah is a twelve-year-old Ghanaian girl who says a missionary named Sister Stan “saved my life.” Read how Sister’s Nazareth Home has become a haven for children abandoned by their families, thanks to help from the Missionary Childhood Association.

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  • MCA in Thika, Kenya
    Hear from Eunice, a twelve-year-old girl, who lives in one room with her mom, sister, and two young nephews. The Assumption Sisters are impacting her life with help from the Missionary Childhood Association. Eunice has dreams of being a doctor – read her story as she overcomes the challenges of poverty, with the help of many, including our members.

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  • MCA and Two Sundays in Kenya
    Read the stories of two different Sunday Masses in Kenya – one celebrated in a large, city slum with a Maryknoll Missionary priest and the other in a large agricultural, country community with a native priest. What are the commonalities? Joy, music, and celebration of faith are some. The presence of Missionary Childhood members is another! Read how they told, “We do not only receive, we also give.”  Their bishop encourages everyone to celebrate World Mission Sunday – a day when the whole world rejoices in the missionary work of the Church!

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  • MCA in Lesotho
    At Sacred Heart Parish in a small, rural village in Lesotho, Mission Childhood is partnering with the Salesian Fathers to provide a place of rest, relaxation, and fun for children who don’t have much opportunity for it. MCA supports a Community Center where children can play soccer and learn the skills needed for chess and checkers – discipline and concentration. They may also be trained as altar servers so they can pray as hard as they play!

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  • MCA in Madagascar
    Sister Rose of the Daughters of Wisdom has dedicated her life to teaching the children of Madagascar how much God loves them. Luckily, she has support from the Missionary Childhood Association so that she has the faith formation supplies that she needs to help the children grown spiritually!

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  • MCA in Chikwawa, Malawi
    Because malnutrition is such a problem for children in Malawi, Missionary Childhood members in that country decided to do an outreach program to children in their own country. Read about the “Blanket Drive” that MCA held to help children with little body fat stay warm at night. This reflects our motto of “Children Helping Children!”

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  • MCA and Health Care in Malawi
    The Missionary Childhood Association is supporting the Rosarian Sisters who work to provide health care to children. MCA funding has allowed the Sisters to purchase infant-sized respirators, helping infants born in respiratory distress. The Sisters also run 42 different projects for children who have been orphaned by the local HIV/AIDS crisis. The children are given a loving home in which to thrive. They also become MCA members themselves, praying daily and sacrificing what little they can.

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  • MCA in Mzuzu, Malawi
    Membership in Missionary Childhood is not just for students in the better-funded parts of the world – it’s for all Catholic students, no matter where they live! Read how some students in Malawi benefit from a mobile health unit while others meet for a Diocesan MCA Mission Education Day with their bishop, just like Boston’s students do with Cardinal Seán!

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  • MCA in Niger
    Missionary Childhood is helping to meet a great challenge in Niger, where many families still live as nomads and travel seasonally to farm. In order to achieve a higher literacy rate, children must be met where they are in order to improve the likelihood that they will become educated.

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  • MCA in Nigeria
    In some countries, Missionary Childhood is known as Holy Childhood. Nigeria is one of them! Read ho their Holy Childhood members came together recently to hold a music festival to benefit the missions. Perhaps it will inspire you to do the same for the missions!

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  • MCA in Rwanda
    In the small village of Kibeho, Rwanda, the Blessed Mother appeared to three young people and asked them to tell people to pray to ward off coming violence. The message went unheeded and the Rwandan Genocide took place, in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed. 5,000 of them were in the village of Kibeho, including one of the young people to whom the Blessed Mother appeared. Read how Missionary Childhood is promoting healing and justice by supporting “Peace Training” for children. Older students may be encouraged to read the book Left to Tell – Discovering God in the Rwandan Holocaust by Imaculée Ilibagiza.

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  • MCA in Senegal
    Siter Rosalind writes of her ability to spread the Joy of Jesus because of her partnership with the Missionary Childhood Association. Her work is with little ones in a day care as well as mother/baby care – helping new mothers learn to care for their newborns.

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  • MCA in Dundee, South Africa
    The Missionary Childhood Association is hard at work in Dundee, South Africa. Learn how our members are helping to provide basic infrastructure in schools, churches and clinics, some of which have access to running water, electricity, or improved sanitation, but often enough, not all three.

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  • MCA in Sasolburg, South Africa
    Missionary Childhood Association is helping to support Church schools, clinics, and orphanages in Sasolburg. We’ve been doing this work since long before one of our more famous National Directors, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, visited the area. Read more about the work of Missionary Childhood in Sasolburg and pray for the children there on the green beads of the World Mission Rosary that Archbishop Sheen created!

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  • MCA in South Sudan
    Even in the worst of situations like the civil war in South Sudan, the Missionary Childhood Association is there, working to help keep the hope of Christ alive. Children gather under a tree outside an abandoned thread factory for faith formation class; the factory itself serves as the makeshift church. We continue to support the rebuilding of the Church in places were the need is so great.

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  • MCA in Tanzania
    With support from the Missionary Childhood Association, the Sisters of Saint Charles Borromeo run a Health Center in a rural area of Tanzania. Many children there suffer from marasmus, a severe malnutrition that stunts the growth of children. The Sisters provide medical and nutritional care as well as help for new mothers so that babies get a healthy start. Read about the other good works of the Sisters that are supported by MCA members worldwide!

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  • MCA in Jinja, Uganda
    There is nothing like some healthy competition to motivate children, even if they live an ocean apart! Read how MCA members in Plymouth, Massachusetts were inspired to have a lemonade stand to benefit the missions by a visitor from Jinja, Uganda to their Faith Formation program. That visitor, Father Alex, was also the MCA Director for his home diocese and took the story back to his MCA members who were then motivated to do the same. Are your students up to the challenge to Pay It Forward with MCA?

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  • MCA in Kabale, Uganda
    In the Diocese of Kabale, Uganda, learn how the Missionary Childhood Association is helping children learn to be self-sufficient. At the Saint Maria Goretti Boarding School, children are responsible for the maintenance and cleaning of their crowded dormitories and bathrooms. Even the youngest are taught to do their own laundry! Life skills are all a part of MCA’s work to support the growth of children.

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  • MCA in Tororo Uganda
    A motto of Saint Maria Goretti School in the Archdiocese of Tororo, Uganda is “When you educate a girl-child, you educate a nation.” Learn how Missionary Childhood is helping to form the next generation of women leaders in Uganda!

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  • MCA and Education in Zambia
    Most schools in Zambia are run by the government and families must pay fees for uniforms and books. Many cannot afford them, and their children remain uneducated. Private schools run by the Catholic Church are now becoming more common and are considered educationally superior. Students learn math, reading, and personal hygiene – for some, it is their first experience with a toothbrush! These schools are free, thanks to help from the Missionary Childhood Association. 

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  • MCA Christmas in Zimbabwe
    Children in the country of Zimbabwe are receive regular help from Missionary Childhood; they offer it to their brothers and sisters as well! Amidst a minority Catholic population in the country, MCA supports Sisters who teach children who are differently abled and orphaned. They are also teaching generosity to other students. Read about the Christmas gifts made possible by Zimbabwean MCA members for the Sisters’ students!

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The Americas

  • MCA in Bolivia
    Many children in rural Bolivia spend their days on the street, in the marketplace while their parents work as vendors or tradespeople. This leaves the older children to care for their younger siblings in less than safe surroundings. With help from the Missionary Childhood Association, the Sisters of the Beatitudes are running a school for these children while running a cottage industry of their own – producing textbooks. This business supports local workers and provides income for the school, too.

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  • MCA in Brazil
    We hear directly from many of the recipients of the generosity of our Missionary Childhood members. Read how a pastor in the slums of Rio de Janeiro is able to provide weekly food baskets to parishioners as he brings the Sacraments of our faith to them as well. 

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  • MCA in Colombia
    In Columbia, Missionary Childhood is known by these initials: IAM, for Infancia y Adolescencia Misionera. Read about how IAM members kept their meetings up during the COVID shutdown and managed to help fund a comedor, or feeding program, too. 

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  • MCA in Cuba
    Read how a group of US missionaries went to Cuba and gathered children together under a common language – baseball! Through a love of the game, learn how the missionaries were able to teach some basics of our faith to children who has yet to hear of it, all the while encouraging the growth of Cuba’s own MCA program!

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  • MCA in Canelos, Ecuador
    Padre Patricio runs a Missionary Childhood funded boarding school and day school in Canelos in the Vicariate of Puyo, Ecuador. Younger students walk to the day school, some treading many miles to do so. Older children learn vocational skills at the boarding school. All learn the Gospel values of Jesus Christ, thanks to MCA members. Read more about their Amazonian home here.

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  • MCA in Esmeraldas, Ecuador
    In times of natural disasters, Missionary Childhood is called upon to help! After the 2016 earthquake that left 30,000 people homeless, MCA was in direct contact with the local priest, a Divine Word Missionary, who helped channel our support to where it was needed most. We created the #AidForEcuador campaign and sent help to feed children in shelters. Learn more here about the work missionaries are called to do in every situation imaginable!

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  • MCA in Haiti
    Missionary Childhood members have made it possible for children in northern Haiti to have access to clean drinking water! Read about the results of this project and the impact it has had on the lives of the village children in healthcare, education, and employment for the parents!

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  • MCA in Jamaica
    Pre-school can be a lively place no matter what country it’s in! Thanks to MCA members from around the world, there is a lot going on at Christ the Savior Pre-School in Kingston, Jamaica! Little ones in the nearby slums get a hot meal and have access to a free medical clinic at school while they learn how much God loves them.

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  • MCA in Peru
    Outside the city of Lima Peru are mountains made of sand. Little by little, they are being taken over by shacks built by people who come from the mountains in search of jobs and education. Read about the missionaries, who, with help from the Missionary Childhood Association, are bringing Jesus Christ into the shanty towns, while giving children a chance at a better life.

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  • MCA in Venezuela
    Missionary Childhood members showed off their own “mission-minded” sprit during the Congreso Americano Misionera – a Pan-American Mission Congress held every 5 years in The Americas. MCA members opened their homes and parishes to delegates to the Congreso from every country of North and South America, even though they were enduring a rationing of their own food!

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Oceania

  • MCA in Australia
    Missionary Childhood is alive and well in Australia under a different name – Catholic Mission. Students in Catholic schools there were recently introduced to the World Mission Rosary and learned that other children in the world were already praying for them on the blue beads! Learn about a great fundraiser the schools run for the missions in October – Socktober – when they Sock it to Poverty! Your students can get on board by making their own soccer balls as kids do in the missions – find out how!

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  • MCA in Kiribati
    In the South Pacific country of Kiribati, life is built around the local community. That’s because the country itself is spread across islands, atolls and reefs that cover 1,351,000 miles! Missionary Childhood is reaching out one place at a time to help improve the life of the citizens, who live a mostly subsistence lifestyle. Recently, our members built a maneaba – a community meeting house – that can be used for faith formation!

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  • MCA in Papua New Guinea
    There are many missionary orders in Papua New Guinea – each can speak about the support they get from the Missionary Childhood Association for schools, orphanages, feeding programs and faith formation. Read how MCA’s Director from Trenton NJ traveled to this beautiful country to witness the work – and saw examples of a people embracing the faith while holding on to their local culture!

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  • MCA in Samoa
    Imagine having to find a new home because yours was destroyed by a volcano eruption! If you lived in Samoa, you would count on Missionary Childhood to help rebuild your schools and support the Salesian Sister there who staff it. Read about a local tradition that continues in Samoa called White Sunday, too!

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Asia

  • MCA in Bangladesh
    The next time you have a cup of tea, think about the children that Missionary Childhood supports on the tea estates of Nepal. Most live in hilly rural areas and are not near a Catholic church. The priest must come to them, sometimes only five times a year. Hear from the local bishop who is grateful for the Mass Stipends he receives from our Mission office. His priests can travel more and bring the Catholic faith to more children.

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  • MCA in Cambodia
    Sister Eulie is a Filipina Sister on mission to Cambodia. Read how she uses a taxi, a three-wheeled vehicle called a Tuk-tuk to bring education to children whose families cannot afford to send them to school. Sister is making a difference for Cambodian children thanks to Missionary Childhood – and your students!

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  • MCA in East Timor
    In the island country of East Timor, Dominican Sister Fatima works in a school outside the capital city of Dili. Learn how the schools is supported by our members as it educates and feeds the little ones. It is also transformed into the local Catholic church on weekends, making the most of the help we send.

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  • MCA in Agartala, India
    The children who attend the boarding schools run by the Sisters of Charity in rural Agartala, India are very grateful to all Missionary Childhood Association members for the clean, safe water they now enjoy! A series of pipes that connect to the schools’ gutters fill a water tank with rainwater which the children can drink. MCA has done this and more for the Sisters’ schools. Read more in this lesson plan!

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  • MCA in Chennai, India
    In Chennai, India, Salesian Sister Clara has become a “mother” to many rescued girls, with help from the Missionary Childhood Association. Read how Sister runs a shelter and school and has started a “Help Line” for street children in danger of being trafficked. Two of Sister’s girls tell there story in this important lesson.

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  • MCA in Indonesia
    Membership in the Missionary Childhood Association inspires children everywhere! In Indonesia, where MCA is known by its local acronym, SEKAMI, students organized a pilgrimage and carried the Holy Cross from parish to parish. The cross stayed 10 days or so at each place and then the children from the host parish carried it on to its next stop – even in the pouring rain! See what Missionary Childhood can inspire YOUR students to do in faith!

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  • MCA in Jordan
    Sandra and her fellow students are refugees from war and violence in their home country of Iraq. Read how Missionary Childhood is helping a Jordanian priest open a center were the children are fed and educated in a safe, calm environment. Their daily prayer reminds them of God’s great love for them as they have hope for a brighter future.

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  • MCA in Kazakhstan
    Polish missionaries are ministering to children in the steppe areas of Kazakhstan thanks to help from Missionary Childhood. Their work in a local parish brings the children regular education and health care. They are also being taught religious tolerance so they can peacefully coexist with their neighbors of many faiths.

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  • MCA in Lebanon
    The refugee situation in Lebanon is at a crisis point, yet the Sisters of Our Lady of the Good Shepherd continue to help anyone who comes to their door, thanks to support from Missionary Childhood members. Read an interview with Sister Antionette Assaf, who describes her work, it’s challenges, and what inspires her to continue in this vital ministry in Beirut.

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  • MCA in Mongolia
    Imagine being sent as a missionary to a place where there were NO Catholics! That was the situation that then-Father Wens Padilla found himself in 1994. Over 25 years later, Bishop Wens’ dream of a growing Church is a reality. With the help of Missionary Childhood, street children in the newest Catholic community in the world in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar are taken in at the Verbist Care Center. They are fed, educated, and given medical care and will grow into the people God meant them to be, thanks to help from MCA.

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  • MCA in Myanmar
    Read what Pope Francis said about the difference that YOU make when you join the efforts of missionaries, supported by our Societies, Myanmar. This lesson highlights Saint John’s School in the Diocese of Hakha. The area has one of the lowest literacy rates in the country. MCA is changing the educational status of the children of the diocese.

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  • MCA in Nepal
    The late Bishop Anthony Sharma could tell great stories! He shared a few with Missionary Childhood, especially how our members helped differently abled children in Nepal’s capital city learn life skills. Families are also counseled by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth about overcoming the cultural taboo of having a child with a disability, thanks to MCA’s support.

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  • MCA in Hyderabad, Pakistan
    The children of Holy Family Parish in Hyderabad are attending their parish Catholic school thanks to scholarships from the Missionary Childhood Association. Along with their faith, they are learning all sorts of skills – including the science of pollination. How do you like their bumblebee hats?

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  • MCA in Karachi, Pakistan
    Pakistan is not a country where it is easy to be a Christian. Imagine, then, the bravery of our Missionary Childhood members who gather at the Cathedral every year on the Feast of the Epiphany – which is International Missionary Childhood Day – to sing, pray, and celebrate their faith. Read more in this lesson plan.

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  • MCA in San Jose, Philippines
    Even back to back typhoons don’t keep the missionary spirit down in San Jose, in the Philippines! Read how, while still recovering from major storms, Missionary Childhood members and the MCA adult team, made time to host a Campout for our members there to encourage them to keep the faith and remember that God is always with them!

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  • MCA in Quezon City, Philippines
    The shelter of Saint Vincent de Paul is a place where girls who have been abandoned or live in unsafe conditions can find safety with the Sisters who run the home. The same Sisters also run a day care center. Thanks to Missionary Childhood, the Sisters of the Handmaids of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul receive help to run both ministries.

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  • MCA in Sri Lanka
    The Diocese of Galle is located at the very tip of the island country of Sri Lanka and was devastated by the tsunami of 2004. They are still rebuilding and count on Missionary Childhood as a partner in that work. The children at the Cathedral Parish are able to have faith formation classes and receive their First Holy Communion! Read more from Bishop Raymond Wickramasinghe about how he counts on MCA in his ministry!

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  • MCA in Thailand
    Sister Jancy Selvaraj is a missionary nurse in a remote village in Thailand serving tribal children. Read how Sister stepped up healthcare efforts to respond to the COVID19 pandemic and what she says she likes most about being a part of the Missionary Childhood Association.

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