María de Lourdes López Munguía is a Franciscan Missionary of Mary from Mexico who now lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She is a professional psychologist, trained in accompaniment. She received novitiate formation in Managua, Nicaragua, and ministered in Chile, the United States, Tunisia and Congo. She has shared her life with: people recuperating from drug addiction; at-risk children; indigenous people in Mexico; inmates and with women who have suffered domestic violence; immigrant children in the United States; immigrants in Tunisia; women survivors of sexual violence and vulnerable children in Congo.
How has this experience in Congo transformed me? My first response is silence, a silence full of lives, names, stories; a silence that is a stubborn hope that does not allow death and war to win in the heart.
