Yesterday, September 15, Sr. Nicole Mayinga, General Councillor, celebrated 25 years since her first religious profession. It was a very significant date that led her to look back with deep gratitude for the journey she has travelled and, at the same time, to renew her availability to continue writing, together with the Lord, the story of her vocation.
As she herself says: “From my earliest childhood, the Lord was gently drawing my heart towards Him.”
As a child, she loved reading, and one day she discovered the novel about Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite Nengapeta. Her vocation, courage and, above all, her total self-giving to the Lord deeply touched her, and she became a role model for her.
Little by little, her “Yes” began to take shape within a youth group, the K.A., which helped her deepen her faith, until she discovered the Congregation of the Hospitaller Sisters thanks to a lay member of the Hospitaller family who visited her parish in Kinshasa. The welcome she received from the Sisters deeply moved her. It was then that she came to know the charism more closely, a charism that captivated her and in which she discovered a path to follow.
The journey was not without difficulties. She even had to face opposition from her family. Nevertheless, her calling continued to mature and, after being admitted, she began her formation in Kinshasa and later in Cameroon. There, on September 15, 2001, she made her first religious profession.
Over the years, she also became increasingly open to the missionary dimension of her vocation, serving in places such as Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Togo and, currently, Rome. In each place, she has been able to bear witness to God’s mercy.
These 25 years of religious life have not always been easy. There have been difficulties and moments of doubt, but she has always experienced the Lord sustaining and guiding her. Mary, Our Mother, has also accompanied her on her vocational journey, teaching her, as she did, to treasure and ponder everything in her heart and to always trust in God.
Nor has she been alone on this journey… For this she gives thanks: for her family, who have never ceased to love her, and for the formators and the other Sisters who have accompanied her throughout these years.
After 25 years on this journey, she looks to the future with the same availability with which her story began. She is ready to continue writing this beautiful story with the Lord, renewing her “yes” every morning, in both the small and the great things.
On this anniversary, she also makes her own the words of Psalm 8, which has accompanied her throughout her journey: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”
After 25 years, she says: “THANK YOU!” And for the years to come, on this journey of revitalization that we are living: HERE I AM, LORD!
