The Boarding School of the Daughters of Jesus in Buen Retiro, Bolivia, has once again become a space where young people who participate in the MAG+S Finding Joy experience MAG+S Sentido Sur, created and accompanied by the Daughters of Jesus since 2018 discover that true joy is born from Jesus, from what is shared in community and with the little ones and from living what is essential.
The MAGIS SENTIDO SUR experiences are those that are organized to have an experience of EXIT from oneself, from what is known, and to have an experience of faith and encounter in another country, with another reality, with the people and the culture. Also to live experiences of community, service, spirituality.
This year 2025, for five weeks, four young women participated in the Sentido Sur volunteer experience in Bolivia, accompanied by Ana Zubiri FI . They were welcomed by the community of Daughters of Jesus of Bolivia in the different places where they were and we want to share some echoes of the experience.
A welcoming experience
Romy, Daughter of Jesus in the Bolivian community shares how they prepared to welcome the experience and how it also transformed the community that welcomed the group of young people:
“As Daughters of Jesus, we are preparing the way from the moment we are told about the group that is coming. The contact and preparation before their arrival helps us a lot. The group arrived at our home on July 16 and we received them with great affection.
For us it has been a time of welcome, openness, readiness and putting the apostolic mission at the service of the group. We have perceived a very joyful, committed and flexible group in the face of daily reality.
We feel confirmation that the Lord continues to invite young people to place themselves at the service of others. We are grateful that Buen Retiro was chosen as the place for the MAG+S experience and that a Daughter of Jesus accompanies the experience, thus we share our being Daughters of Jesus where the Lord invites us to follow in the footsteps of Mother Candida”.
Looking with different eyes
Two young people who participated in the experience also shared their experiences with us. Irene Mon, from Oviedo, left for Bolivia with many questions and with the certainty that God would let Himself be found along the way. Her words reflect the depth of her experience:
“I cannot know with conviction what awaits me on this journey, but I do know with certainty that I will see God in all things, with other eyes and in another way very different from what I have visualized right now, here, from my comfort zone.”
In Bolivia he faced his own frailties, but he also discovered God in the dignity of the workers, in the generosity of the families and in the simple joy of playing with the youngsters at the boarding school.
“I saw God in the unwavering dignity of the laundry workers….
I saw God in the immensity of the mountain, at 4,000 meters above sea level, when I was short of breath and my strength was weakening. I saw Him in the strength of the little girl who was guiding us…
I also found it in the eyes of the school children. …Helping them, offering them a respite of calm and joy in their school day, allowed me to experience a joy, the joy that comes from knowing one is useful in the life of another, even if only for a moment.
And finally, I found it in the simplicity of an unexpected gesture. Playing barefoot with the youngsters at the boarding school. As I took off my shoes, I felt an invisible barrier vanish. I was no longer the visitor, but simply one of them. In that moment of genuine connection, free of roles and appearances, I felt so much peace.”
Irene also shares with us something of her return to her daily reality:
“I return with fewer certainties and more questions, but with an all-consuming gratitude. I learned that the real journey is not outward, but inward. In Bolivia I discovered that my cracks are not a sign of weakness, but the place where God’s light entered to stay forever”.
Gratitude and commitment
Claudia Verdesoto Llamazares from Madrid, summarizes her experience in three words: gratitude, recognition and reflection.
“It is difficult to express in words what we have lived during this month and a half in Bolivia. What comes to me most is gratitude for the warm welcome in each community of the Daughters of Jesus, recognition for their persevering work and reflection on all that we have experienced, which we will gradually incorporate into our daily lives, our faith and our social commitment”.
The most valuable things for Claudia were the simple encounters and the life shared with the young people at the boarding school:
“This experience has taught me profound lessons: the gratuitousness of our actions, the importance of welcoming others with sincerity, the beauty of giving oneself generously to others and the certainty that God allows himself to be found in everyday life.
An experience that continues to bear fruit
The Encontrar Alegria-Bolivia experience, as well as the other MAG+S Sentido Sur experiences, does not end with the return home. It becomes an inner journey that continues to transform the lives of those who participated and those who accompanied the process. It is, undoubtedly, one of those experiences that mark life and continue to leave fruits. For example, Andrea, who participated with Borja in EA19, returned from the experience with the question “And what is my place among the poor?” and that question has led her to create “VIA”, an educational consultancy for those who need it most, together with a colleague and friend. Andrea and many other young people are witnesses of how this experience has helped them to let God act in those who live it.
The meaning of the name: Finding Joy
We want to remember that the experience has this name; Finding Joy because it is the “accent” that surrounds and we want to put in it. And it is that:
- JOY is proper to the Christian. In the Gospels we can see it as the fruit of the personal encounter with Jesus “they were filled with joy when they saw the Lord”.
- With the more common expression “consolation”, “true joy” is a pillar in the Ignatian spirituality we share.
- JOY is a charismatic note in the spirituality of the Daughters of Jesus: “I want you to be joyful in the Lord” (St. Candida Maria de Jesus); in being ready to do the will of God always and in everything we find JOY”. Joy is, therefore, a characteristic note of the educational style of the Daughters of Jesus, which is contained in the document NMPE (Our Proper Way of Educating).
- JOY is also a pillar of the identity of the Schools of Fe y Alegría, which are the schools in which the Daughters of Jesus in Bolivia are involved.
The Finding Joy experience has, therefore, a special emphasis on the search and desire to “find true joy”. The word “joy” is expressed in capital letters to signify this “true joy” and to help others to find it, from the encounter with God incarnated in the life of each person, that which moves us and fills us with meaning from the concrete reality of our wounded world.
To let this resonate in our lives, we invite you to ask yourself: Where do you find Joy … How do you share it?
