On 20 August, in Lubumbashi, at the ceremony opening the three-year period of preparation for the Centenary of foundation of the Pauline Family, one of our sisters’ collaborators, Gabriel Ilunga, offered the following testimony in gratitude to the Daughters of St. Paul:
“My name is Gabriel Ilunga. I am a writer, sociologist and communications consultant. I am Congolese by birth and I live and work here in Lubumbashi. I met the Daughters of St. Paul when I was a teenager and from the outset of our acquaintance, which then developed into friendship, they placed a lot of trust in me. I used to visit their free reading room often and I would spend hours there. The two sisters who supervised the reading room passed on to me their passion for the written word, and all the reading and reflection I did in those years helped my growth. ‘Those who have learned the value of reading will be readers all their lives,’ the sisters used to say.
“Later, the Daughters of St. Paul helped me to get into the University of Lubumbashi, which opened the doors of the future to me. Today I am a writer and very happy with my work. Grafted onto the mighty ‘tree’ of the Pauline Family, I have written many articles and several books, all of which are the fruit of my membership in this Family.
“I am deeply grateful to the Daughters of St. Paul, who kindled in my heart the flame of love for God, for my neighbor and for the Blessed Virgin Mary. I would like to end this brief testimony with words of Blessed James Alberione that are especially significant to me because they are so true. He said: ‘Pauline writers, the fruit of your work depends more on your bended knees than on your pen!’”