18 November 2011

The Association “Romano Gelmini for the people of the Holy Land”: a concrete aid in support of the Christian presence and the Holy Places.

In the summer of 2004 several friends from Rimini and the surrounding areas received a very special proposal: to go to Nazareth for a few weeks to help out, as volunteers, at the Holy Family Hospital, which had been established in 1882 by the friars of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God, commonly known as the Fatebenefratelli (literally, “do good, brothers”).

The response was immediate and positive, probably because a number of them already had experience working as volunteers for the founding and at subsequent editions of the Rimini Meeting. Accordingly, in November of that year ten individuals departed for the City where Christ passed his childhood, in order to help with maintenance works at the hospital: making use of their particular skills, several repainted the walls, others repaired the electrical panels, while still others helped out with carpentry and welding. Those without specific technical skills aided by organizing and installing equipment at the hospital. At the moment of their departure, each left with a wish: that this experience which had proved to be so meaningful would not remain simply as an isolated event, but would instead represent the beginning of a continuing collaboration over time.

And this is indeed how it turned out: in March of the following year the Association “Romano Gelmini for the people of the Holy Land” was established, which since 2008 has been inscribed in the provincial list of voluntary associations (treated essentially as a nonprofit organization). The choice of name was particularly significant: Romano Gelmini was an engineer from Verona who had been the first to come up with the idea of using his professional skills to help a friend working in the Holy Land, but died unexpectedly at the age of 42 before he was able to do so himself.

The Association’s aim is “to support relations and dialogue among the different ethnic groups and religious denominations present in the Holy Land, in order to facilitate peaceful coexistence and economic development, through both the practical activities and the examples set by the associates themselves, in accordance with the tasks and works that the Association will decide to carry out” (from Article 3 of the Statutes of the Association).

As of today, there are about 100 volunteers who have made at least one “mission” to the Holy Land, while by the end of 2011 a total of 37 trips will have been organized. In Italy as well, during these years a number of initiatives have been organized to disassemble and repair a wide range of materials which were then sent by container to the Holy Land and re-assembled in hospitals of various natures (religious, charitable and social).

Since 2006 the Association has collaborated on a continuous basis with the Custody of the Holy Land for maintaining sanctuaries and monasteries, participating in works in Jerusalem at St. Saviour’s Monastery, the Monastery of the Flagellation and the Convent of St. Clare, as well as in Bethlehem, Nazareth, Mount Tabor, Capernaum, Magdala and Tabgha.

Watching these individuals at work one can’t help asking oneself what it is that motivates them to travel from Italy to the Holy Land, paying their own transport, and to work so intensively and tirelessly, all the while maintaining a smiling disposition. If one asks them why they are so happy, they begin by recounting the people they have met, the new relationships they have established, things that occurred during their visits to the Holy Places. And also the certainty that they are contributing to something very important, working alongside those who, for centuries, have safeguarded the places where Christ lived and protected the presence of the Christian experience in these same places.