The Communities of Sant'Egidio of Jawa Island, Indonesia, gathered in Jakarta on 24 and 25 February. They shared the services of the Jakarta Community - at the soup kitchen, the old people's home and the School of Peace - and spent Sunday in a large assembly to reflect together on the message of Lent and to celebrate the Community's 56th anniversary.
Some 230 people from the communities of Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Semarang - including many university students - participated in the assembly, along with a delegation from Padang.
More friends joined them in the afternoon: ecumenical delegations - from the Ethiopian and Greek Coptic churches - and from other religions, and representatives of the elderly, friends of the soup kitchen, and a group of refugees from Sri Lanka, Somalia and Ethiopia, who have found welcome and friendship in the Community for some years now.
They all attended the liturgy, presided over by the Bishop of Padang, Bishop Vitus Rubianto, to give thanks for the Community's 56 years of life.
During the liturgy, a new icon of the Face of Jesus was introduced. It was painted by a Ukrainian iconographer and donated by the Community of Rome.
