I am Elisa Marfut Creea, an Italian psychomotor therapist. I am not a religious, I did not receive a Catholic education… in fact, I grew up around protests and social centers, and I had a partial view of the ecclesiastical world, a closed and prudish one, always ready to judge. It is clear, at this point, that the judgment was my own!
It was April 28, 2023, when I received a message from a certain Francesca Centorame, who introduced herself as my intern. She asked me what she should wear, and I thought to myself, “This is off to a terrible start!” Then she added, “Because you know… I am a sister!” Disaster! “How am I supposed to survive a semester?” I thought to myself, “I, who am the least formal person in the world!”
I replied tersely that she should wear whatever would make her feel most comfortable, and the next day, “Fra” arrived, wearing a tracksuit and sneakers… and with one of the most beautiful smiles, I have ever seen. After just five minutes, we started addressing each other informally, and by the end of the day, I already loved her.
It is important for me to share this encounter during a random dinner, because without it, and without overcoming that prejudice of mine, I would never have received the offer to undertake a missionary experience in Guinea Bissau,
As usual, I immediately said “yes,” completely irrationally but with great enthusiasm, and in less than three months we did everything necessary to leave.
They were months of intense work, but I was also overwhelmed by a wave of love so strong that left me astonished and stunned. Many people made this journey possible by donating materials, helping me write protocols and caring for me in every way possible… so on October 13, 2025, I left!
I immediately promised myself I would teach what I could and learn as much as I could, starting with an open heart; and so it was!
Now that I am back in Italy, I feel a sense of gratitude that is hard to describe in words. Above all, I am grateful for the profound change in perspective with which this experience has left me.
When I left, I had the feeling that there was something wrong with trying to help the same people, systematically massacred for centuries, by the people with your same skin, with your same face.
Once I reached there, I realized that everyone could be a minority, “the different,” regardless of their skin color… Moreover, you can be scary, and not understood, regardless of your effort, your smile, and your willingness to dialogue and connect with others. However, I understood that real change could only come from encounters between people who decide to try to understand each other in their differences; that respect is based on suspending judgment, and that in most situations, we can learn more than we can teach.
I discovered that you could communicate by mixing four languages, making lot of faces and laughing; that you can experience completely contrasting and all-encompassing emotions, and joke good-naturedly about it.
…That commitment, willpower, and dignity often overcome material difficulties.
It is not true that those people are “always happy.” They know the truth and the situation, but they are resilient and respectable.
Speaking with them, I was told that the problem of the West is that we have lost God… and this, in these extreme conditions, made me reflect, even though I have never believed in a God like this. In a situation where survival is put to the test, we rediscover ourselves as human, and brothers and sisters, children of the same heaven, united by the same sea, entitled to the same love.
They shared time, hugs, and bowls of rice with me; they call God three different names, yet they coexist peacefully… and never before have I felt such a sense of true fraternity.
With this experience, I tried to tiptoe into a larger, more widespread project, the one carried out by the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate, and I learned what it means to try to do one’s own tiny part… Because, while it is true that I have the same skin and the same face as those who massacred these people for centuries, it is also true that I do not have the same heart.
I know I am not ready to change drastically my daily life; I am not yet able to give up the superfluous, but now I feel an enormous sense of gratitude for what I have. I know I am just lucky, not better or more dignified.
Elisa Marfut Creea
