As always in Timor-Leste, there was a prayer before the big event.
Minutes later, the bulldozers rolled in.
And in an instant, the homes of Tasitolu were gone.
"I'm very sad," local resident Ana Bela da Cruz told the ABC as her home was demolished in the background.
"They gave us such short notice, and now they've come in and destroyed our homes."
The area of Tasitolu sits about a 15-minute drive from Timor-Leste's capital, Dili.
The vast open space in the middle of the village area will soon play host to a huge outdoor mass conducted by Pope Francis — his final stop in a three-country tour after visiting Indonesia and Papua New Guinea next week.
Timor-Leste has a population of 1.3 million, with about 95 per cent identifying as Catholic — the largest proportion of any population outside the Vatican.
The pope's three-day visit to Timor-Leste is being described as the biggest event since its 2002 independence.
But there's a problem — and it's a big one.
Estimates suggest as many as 700,000 people will descend on the area of Tasitolu for the mass.
Privately, government officials fear there's not enough room for everyone, so the houses in the area — which the government says have been illegally built — are making way.
"We are devastated we have to leave," Andre Bere, whose home was also bulldozed, told the ABC.
"Our children are still at the local school. What impact will this have on our children?"
'He will see our suffering'
Across Timor's capital Dili, excitement about the pope's three-day visit is building.
"Welcome Pope Francis" billboards are everywhere, pope shirts are being sold on the side of the street, and it is the topic of conversation everywhere you go.
"I'm so excited, I'm counting down the days," Dili-based market vendor Bendita de Jesus told the ABC.
"I'm just so happy he's coming," Angelina Pereira Soares, another market vendor, said.
"But it's good that the pope comes to visit Timor. He will see our suffering and our struggles in daily life."
For the people of Tasitolu, this is the core issue at play.
When Timor-Leste officially gained independence in 2002 after decades of brutal Indonesian occupation, areas like Tasitolu were handed back to the people.
Tasitolu was declared a park and protected wetland.
Later, poorer Timorese moving to the capital in search of work set up homes there — in Australia they would be known as squatters, or locally rai estadu people.
They built a community in the outskirts of the wetland area. Children go to school nearby.
But now, the government wants it gone.
"They must leave this area," Timor-Leste's secretary of urban planning, Germano Dias, said on the first day of the government's forced evictions.
"It is part of a protected area. They have to go back to their home villages."
About 185 families have been flagged for eviction and their homes for demolition.
The government has tried to play down any connection to the pope's visit.
But residents who have been living in the area for more than a decade say they were told of the forced evictions only after the pope's visit was announced.
Mr Dias said the government would offer the home owners compensation, however many families the ABC spoke to said they had not yet received anything.
'The pope visiting his flock'
Another bone of conjecture surrounding the pope's visit is money.
The government has allocated $18 million for the pontiff's three-day visit, including $1.5 million for a custom-built altar designed by a Vatican engineer.
Government departments are working frantically to beautify the city, with new roads and clean-up initiatives introduced.
And when the ABC visited the site of the purpose-built altar, workers were erecting a wall nearby to screen off parts of the Tasitolu community, with residents in the area still unsure if their homes would be demolished before the pope's arrival.
Though it is almost impossible to accurately measure public sentiment in the country, social media suggests that despite the evictions and $18 million budget, there appears to be widespread support for the measures.
There is a common saying in Dili right now, that they wished the pope would visit every year because the city has never looked so clean.
Yet, in a country where 40 per cent of people live below the poverty line, civil society groups are questioning the budget for the visit, as well as the forced evictions.
"It's not right," Valentim Pinto, director of nation-building group FONGTIL, told the ABC.
"The evictions ignore the people's basic rights to housing, and there was no forward planning to this.
"And [$18 million]? This is a lot of money. All this for three days?"
Yet, for Father Luzerio Martins Da Silva, the church's representative for the pope's visit, it is a time for celebration.
"People have been longing for the visit of the pope to come to visit his flock, to shepherd his flock," he said.
Timor last hosted a pontiff, Pope John Paul II, in 1989, and Father Da Silva said many Timorese believe his visit put the international spotlight on the country's quest for independence from Indonesian occupation, which it officially achieved just over a decade later.
"So this visit of [Pope Francis] is one of the ways to thank the pope, to thank the church," he said.
Speaking about the Timor-Leste government's moves to demolish homes belonging to the people of Tasitolu, Father Da Silva said he sympathised with the families, but the government was simply "following the rule of law".
He said the church could not comment on the amount of money being spent on the pope's three-day visit as it was a decision made by the government.
Back at Tasitolu, the preparations — and evictions — continue.
Overlooking the pile of rubble that was her home, Ana Bela da Cruz has a simple question for her government.
"The children are traumatised," she said. "They just want to go to school. Where will they go?"
