The first-ever intercultural living workshop of the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit (SSpS) and the Divine Word Missionaries (SVD) was held at the St. Arnold Janssen Spirituality Centre in Accra, Ghana, from the July 23 to August 6, 2026.
The two international Congregations (SSpS and SVD) were founded by St. Arnold Janssen together with a third contemplative order named Missionaries Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration (SSpSAp). These three Congregations are known as the “Arnold’s Family”.
According to Sr. Adriana Ma. Magdalena Sri Supadmi, SSpS, the Coordinator for SSpS worldwide, the “Intercultural Living” was started in 2015 in Nemi, Italy, which was organised by the SVDs and five SSpS took part in the first meeting, with over twenty SVDs participating.
In 2026, we have over 2000 SSpS across the world who are being trained in intercultural living, of which Sr. Mercy Benson, a Ghanaian SSpS, was part of the trainees.
This training was for only Africa Continent to form a network among themselves and to prepare others at their various places of work and formation houses. Some of the topics treated were: Intercultural realities in Africa, Entering someone’s garden, Formation, Different Dimensions of resolving Issues and many more.
The joint workshop marked a significant collaborative milestone as one of the first of its kind on the African continent. This gathering brought together members of both congregations to share, plan, and deepen their understanding of the intercultural challenges of missionary life in Africa, while exploring ways to help trainees improve cultural integration.
The workshop aimed at moving from a simple “multicultural” baseline to intentional “intercultural” living. This meant actively interacting, learning, celebrating diversity, and transforming friction into a prophetic witness. Coming from different nations and languages is a living symbol of the unity and diversity of the Church. The workshop also addressed cultural biases, everyday conflicts, and the virtues needed to adapt to diverse missionary environments safely and effectively.
A total of 17 participants attended, consisting of nine SVD and eight SSpS members. Among them were Sr. Adriana Ma. Magdalena Sri Supadmi and Fr. Roger Schroeder, Co-president of RCI and Fr. Hugo Kalis, the SVD Zonal Coordinator for Africa and Madagascar, whose presence underscored the importance of the workshop for the region.
The workshop began with Holy Mass, which was attended by the two hosting provincials of the SVD and SSpS in the persons of Rev. Fr. Andrews Aboagye Obeng, SVD and Sr. Theresa Abena Tawiah, SSpS, who welcomed all the participants to Ghana and to AJSC.
Fr. Andrew Obeng, SVD invited the participants to reflect on the Gospel text using the tool of intercultural biblical hermeneutics. “We treat the text not as a fixed deposit of meaning, but as a dialogical event-where the Gospel encounters our multiple worlds and our multiple cultural worlds interrogate the Gospel”.Seeing or hearing are not fixed gifts. They are processes of cultural translation. The disciples see or hear because they translate the parables into their lived reality. The crowds do not because they refuse translation-they went to Jesus to speak their religious dialect without challenging it. The tragedy is not that God hid the truth from them. It is that their cultural certainty made truth untranslatable to them. They could not receive Jesus because Jesus spoke in a dialect they refused to learn.
The expression “Blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears because they hear”(Matt. 13:16) is not about cognitive superiority. It is about relational blessedness.
From the above, can draw two intercultural implications:• Your eyes see most when you can recognise Christ in the cultural stranger.• Your ears hear when you listen to Scripture through the accents, proverbs and struggles of other traditions-and let those traditions question your own.
Finally, to see and hear rightly is to become bilingual in the Spirit-fluent in your own culture, yet humble enough to learn the grammar of every culture where the Word is sown.
Fr. Obeng encouraged participants to go forth to translate all that they will see and hear during this training programme into every courtyard-knowing that Christ is still speaking and there are people out there willing to listen, often in ways we have not yet learned to hear.
The workshop taught participants that diverse backgrounds and personalities enrich communal life, reflecting the multifaceted Body of Christ. By listening with empathy, prioritising charity, and celebrating each member’s unique spiritual journey, we strengthen unity and foster mutual growth through group dynamics in storytelling, reconciliation rites and conflict resolution across different cultural settings.
Sr. Cynthia Addi Chanagea, SSpS (Catholic Sister Communicators Network, Ghana – CASCON-GH)
