«The people who come here will encounter the love of God»
Olga María María Fernández de Soto de Chamat, Director of La Casa de San José.
Recently the Solidaridad en Marcha Association in Cali, Colombia, launched a video about the home for the elderly ‘La Casa de San José’, in which they summarize their work and help to their most needy beneficiaries.
On this occasion we talked to Olga María Fernández de Soto de Chamat, Director of La Casa de San José, who tells us about the history and experience of this shelter.
How was La Casa de San José born?
The idea of having a permanent home for the elderly arose when we began to attend in our solidarity center to a population of older adults, whom we got to know in their different realities, noting that most of them live in material and spiritual need.
That is where God begins to speak to you, he shows you that there is a horizon ahead and that it is always possible to do more, and at a given moment comes that blessed inspiration that made us start thinking about having a home, a project that took a year and a half of planning before its opening in 2014.
Grandparents making handicrafts at La Casa de San José in Cali, Colombia.
What is the purpose of this home?
First of all, that the people who arrive here encounter God’s love, not only the elderly but also those of us who are in charge of caring for them.
What we seek is to restore joy to these elderly people, to alleviate their loneliness, to give them the company that has been denied to them due to different circumstances, to attend to their health problems, to make them feel loved and valued and that they can spend their last years in serenity and calm.
What is the importance of this help and evangelization for the needy elderly?
It becomes important simply because the other is important to us, the task of helping becomes peremptory, almost urgent, a duty of brothers and sisters. And this becomes a priority in cities like ours where the state is not able to satisfy so many needs and to cover the helplessness in which many abandoned elderly people live.
An afternoon of games with the grandparents of La Casa de San José.
What reflection can you share with us about your experience of working at La Casa de San José?
I always see it as a gift from God. It is a blessing this assignment that the Lord has placed in our hands by entrusting us with the lives of these homeless so that, with our best effort, we try to serve them the way He would. It is a very rewarding experience that revolves around love, a love that is diffusive, that comes and goes, that grows and spreads.
After these years, we are left with the satisfaction of duty fulfilled as we remember some of these grandparents who have already left St. Joseph House and found at the end of their lives so much love and rest for their weary humanity.
How can we help with this work?
We always ask for prayer that the Lord will continue to send workers to his harvest, that the benefactors and volunteers will remain and help us to continue and spread this work that everyday needs more and more people to join in to help.