A holistic health retreat - Maryknoll Lay Missioners
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Lent 2021 newsletter

 

Kathy Bond and Flávio Rocha, Brazil

During the retreat, Flávio leads a guided meditation on reconnecting with ourselves, nature and the divine.

We send you our best wishes for health and peace in these uncertain times. The “Waters of March,” a famous song in Brazil by the Bossa Nova singer Tom Jobim, came early and hard this year. On the last Friday of February, João Pessoa was deluged with 6.5 inches of water in eight hours (more than the expected rainfall for the entire month).

This came two days after 65% of the cities in our state reinstated lock-down restrictions due to the dire and worsening situation with COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Maya had returned to in-person classes, and we were slowly beginning more ministries off-line and in-person when this occurred. So once again we adjust our activities, as so many around the world continue to do, to be safe in the current reality.

During a yoga exercise at the retreat, Kathy leads the chanting of the three Oms for healing — ourselves, COVID-19 and the planet.

In January we teamed up to facilitate a weekend retreat titled “Holistic Health in Times of Uncertainty” at AFYA Women’s Holistic Center here in João Pessoa. Through body work, respiration techniques, meditation, self-massage, Family Constellation therapy and dynamics to reconnect with ancestral lineage, 12 participants started 2021 off focused on integral health, self-healing and community building.

AFYA was co-founded by Maryknoll Sisters Efu Nyaki and the late Connie Pospisil in 2000. Numerous Maryknoll lay missioners have worked there over the years. Currently Kathy teaches a weekly bilingual chair yoga class there and assists with marketing and social media efforts. We hope to offer more of these retreat moments in the future when the situation with COVID-19 improves. For now, we continue doing workshops and individual sessions online during this traumatic moment in our planet.

As Easter approaches, may we all renew our journeys of salvation through healing and stretching to be our best selves in connection with God, nature, each other and ourselves.

As always, thank you for supporting our ministries with Maryknoll Lay Missioners!

With peace,
Flávio, Kathy and Maya

@flaviojoserocha  /  @katiambond (Instagram)
frocha@mklm.org  /  kbond@mklm.org
Flavio Rocha  /  Katia Bond (Facebook)


Please join us and invite family and friends for this event
that Kathy will be hosting on March 27:

Healing Beyond a Cure

With Efu Nyaki, MM, and Kathleen Bond, MKLM

An online interactive workshop in benefit of Maryknoll Sisters and Maryknoll Lay Missioners

Saturday, March 27, 4 pm (Eastern Time)

This month marks the one-year anniversary of many of our journeys with COVID-19. With the crisis extending into the future and no known end in sight, how can we heal beyond a cure in light of all of the loss and uncertainty of the pandemic? How can we forge a healing path, individually and collectively, with our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies? Healing Beyond a Cure is the title of Efu’s book, which will be released in early 2022.

Join us for an interactive, one-and-a-half-hour workshop that explores integral health techniques including Family Constellation, Somatic Experiencing and Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (movement, respiration exercises and meditation) with a focus on integral health and healing beyond a cure.

Efu Nyaki and Kathleen Bond have been Maryknoll missioners in Brazil for more than 25 years. They are social educators who focus their ministries on healing, body work and touch. Efu is the co-founder of AFYA: Holistic Center for Women in João Pessoa, Brazil, where she facilitates training courses, groups and individual sessions. She is also an internationally-known instructor of Family Constellation and Somatic Experiencing with a focus on trauma healing. Kathleen is a Hatha Yoga professor with a focus on trauma-sensitive yoga, yoga therapy, chakras and inclusion. She also teaches yoga for pregnant women, baby yoga (moms doing yoga with their babies), Thai podal reflexology and Shantala baby massage. She leads health circles for pregnant women and new moms at public health posts and teaches Yoga and other courses at AFYA in João Pessoa, Brazil.

The workshop is free. Goodwill donations can be made to support our ministries in the northeast of Brazil.
Proceeds will be split between the Maryknoll Sisters and Maryknoll Lay Missioners.

mklm.org/donation-efu-and-kathy/

Thank you in advance for your generosity that helps keep us and many other lay missioners and women religious in mission around the world.

For more information and to register, contact Kathy at:
kbond@mklm.org / @katiambond (Instagram) / Katia Bond (FB)/ +5583996716555 (WhatsApp)

 

Kathy Bond and Flávio José Rocha
Kathy Bond and Flávio José Rocha are Maryknoll lay missioners based in João Pessoa in northeastern Brazil.