On June 5th, we had a get together to finish the first stage of eWay, at our missionary centre in Espinosa de Henares. I`m sure many of you have asked yourselves: How can I continue to be close to people and accompany them so they can grow in faith during this pandemic. How can I offer them an experience of community when we are limited by so many restrictions and it`s difficult to meet?
The eWay experience came about as an attempt to respond to this need. We wanted to offer a pedagogical process to the people who had participated in the Alpha dinners in Guadalajara, which would help them continue to grow in faith. In addition, it provided easy-to-use evangelization material for the laity of the community to accompany a group. They themselves participated in creating this material, which consists of a written guide to lead a meeting, prayers, dynamics and a video-recorded talk. The material is very adaptable which means it can be used for both face-to-face meetings and online groups.
Why did we give it the name of eWay? As it was originally designed to be an online activity we put the letter “E” in front of Way to express our electronic spiritual journey. The eWay material is based on the Itinerary of the Servants of the Gospel community, a process which generates a missionary spirit as we grow in faith.
We have used a wave in the eWay logo which refers to a quote from Lk 5. Jesus approaches Peter and asks him permission to get into his boat to preach to the people. Once in the boat Jesus invites him to sail out to sea and cast the nets. It reflects our own experience. We felt that Jesus had entered the boat of the Guadalajara community and invited us to put out into deep waters in times of pandemic. We trusted his Word and our catch has truly been abundant: we have been able to form five groups in Guadalajara, three online and two where people were physically present. Each group was accompanied by two lay people from the community. Other boats also joined and brothers and sisters from Madrid, Seville and Murcia also cast their nets.
I invite you to read Ana Pino’s testimony. She is one of the people that accompanied an eWay group with Margaret. Let us always trust Jesus when he chooses our boat and wants to take it out to sea!
Ula Doniecka
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