ASIA/INDONESIA – Capuchin Friars in Sumatra welcome displaced people after flooding

Sibolga – “The worst is over, but the emergency continues. Floods and landslides have swept away entire villages. Many people are homeless. Rescue teams are now trying to reach the displaced: for some it is possible, for others it is not, because the areas remain isolated,” Friar Yoseph Norbert Sinaga, Provincial Superior of the Capuchin Friars Province in Sibolga, in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, told Fides.
In the region, Tropical Cyclone Senyar brought torrential rains, floods, and landslides, leaving numerous dead and missing, 1.5 million people affected, and more than 570,000 displaced.
The Capuchin Friars of Sibolga have mobilized, helping to evacuate people, providing aid, and accompanying the displaced throughout the territory of the Diocese of Sibolga. Friar Sinaga explains: “Now we are suffering from the lack of water and electricity, but above all, the lack of drinking water is a serious problem. Even we, in the monasteries, don’t have water and must collect it from springs in the forest.” “There are thousands of people in the Sibolga territory who have lost everything; they are homeless. Soon we will have to help them resume a normal life, starting with rebuilding their homes,” the friar points out.
The Capuchins are an important presence in the area: the Franciscan fraternity established itself there more than 100 years ago. Today, with some 65 professed friars and more than 30 novices, nearly a hundred Franciscan friars bear witness to and carry on the charism of St. Francis of Assisi in a territory where, out of 3 million inhabitants, mostly Muslim, there are 200,000 Catholics.
In this spirit, the friars have opened the doors of the monastery and are welcoming more than 200 displaced people to the Novitiate: “They are families, children, and the elderly; they live with us, and the friars try to offer not only food for their bodies, but also moral and spiritual comfort. The young friars, for example, play with the children, creating an atmosphere of fraternity and joy even in this situation of hardship and suffering. We don’t know how long they will stay with us, but we trust in Providence,” he explains.
“Now our brothers and sisters need immediate help. Later, we will also try to help rebuild their homes,” he concludes. The friars of Sibolga have launched an appeal for solidarity to all Franciscan communities in Indonesia—religious men and women and lay people—who are responding with compassion and promptness.

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