Promoting Missionary Parishes in Africa

The Missionary Parish as “A Place to Go Out From”

By Ed Hayes

When the first four Maryknollers arrived in Africa in 1946, they were assigned to work under, and learn from, the Missionaries of Africa (formerly called the White Fathers) in the Musoma area in Tanzania. Bill Collins and Lou Bayless were assigned to the Nyegina Mission and Bert Good and Joe Brannigan were sent to Kowak. These missionary parishes had been established by the Missionaries of Africa as centers of evangelization throughout the large territory of what is now Mara Region.

When Maryknoll was given responsibility to develop the church in Musoma and Shinyanga, we followed the example of the Missionaries of Africa and established new missionary parishes throughout the area. In the late 1950s and 1960s there was a rapid expansion of parishes in Musoma and Shinyanga under the direction of Bishops Rudin and McGurkin. The stress was on missionary parishes. The parish was seen, not as a place to settle down in, but rather as a place to go out from, a center for further evangelization. Each parish established outstations, many of which were future parishes. In the early days all the catechumens came to the parish center for the final instructions before Baptism. As more catechists were trained, the instructions and the Sacraments of Initiation took place in the outstations.

While this expansion was going on in the rural areas, the sociologists were saying, “Africa is moving to the cities.” In the mid 1960s, Joe Glynn, then Regional Superior, encouraged us to look at the challenges of the urban apostolate and missionary parishes were soon established in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. Having experienced the values of African culture in the villages, the urban Maryknollers were well prepared to relate to and welcome the newcomers to the cities.

During the 1970s and early 1980s some Maryknollers began to speak of what they called the “Choke Law.” The very success of our missionary parishes and the large number of new Christians requiring sacramental care and nourishment had some asking, “Am I now a ‘Pastor’ and not a ‘Missioner’?” This led, for example, the Maryknollers in North Mara to request Bishop Rudin to assign diocesan priests to Tarime Parish as it was seen to be self-supporting and self-propagating. We would work in the more needy “frontier” places. He agreed. Admittedly, a year later, after receiving an extremely large budget request from the new pastor of Tarime, Bishop Rudin was heard to say, “God preserve me from self-supporting parishes!”

In the rural areas our involvement in development, education, health care, agriculture and animal husbandry were outgrowths of our missionary parishes. In the city the growth of Montessori Education and Art Education was based in our missionary parishes meeting the felt needs of the people.

These days many of our members are involved in very important and effective specialized apostolates. As we continue to age and our numbers decline, the missionary parishes staffed by Maryknollers are few. But the Africa Region continues to see them as a very basic part of our missionary work in Africa. We staff parishes in Dunholm and Kenyatta University in Nairobi (with a presence also in Mukuru Ruben), Mtoni in Dar es Salaam, Mabatini in Mwanza, Kowak (including Komaswa) in Musoma, Old Maswa in Shinyanga (with a presence also in Ndoleleji, Mwanhuzi, and Buhangija), and the large missionary parish in Lichinga, Mozambique. Following the tradition of the missionary parish as “a place to go out from,” Dunholm is looking at another section where a large number of urban immigrants are settling, Old Maswa is expanding to new places, from Ndoleleji there is the outreach to the nomadic Wataturu, and Kowak is planning a new missionary presence in Bukenye.

It has always been a deep conviction of African Maryknollers that our parishes must be missionary. “Those who sincerely accept the Good News, through the power of this acceptance and of shared faith, therefore gather together in Jesus’ name in order to seek together the Kingdom, build it up and live it. They make up a community which is in its turn evangelizing… Those who have received the Good News and have been gathered by it into the community of salvation can and must communicate and spread it” (Evangelii Nuntiandi, No. 13). .

After God Isn’t Finished With Us Yet – Starting a New Missionary Parish

By Ed Hayes

What is a 72-year-old missioner doing trying to establish a new parish in North Mara in Musoma Diocese in Tanzania? Well, it’s a long story!

I arrived in Tarime Parish in late 1959 and began to struggle with learning the Gikuria language. Sometime in early spring of 1960 my pastor, Joe Reinhart, sent me off on my first overnight safari. He told me to take his Jeep along with a cot, a mosquito net, some drinking water and head off to a place called Bukenye. Those who knew Chacha Mwita will recognize his wit as he said, “You’re not a real missioner, Ed, until you’ve slept with the people!” I was scared! I followed Joe’s directions from Tarime to Gamasara and drove the Jeep down a very rocky footpath to the valley. As I started driving through the valley I noticed a lot of people coming out of their houses and running in the opposite direction. Then I spotted a Christian lady whom I recognized. She was laughing as she yelled out to the escaping crowds, “Come back, it’s not the Mzungu (European), it’s our Mogaka (priest).” It seems that the messengers of the Colonial authorities had been coming down to the valley trying to collect the taxes on the cattle and the people thought that I was one of them.

My task was to visit the Christian families, anoint the sick and elderly, hear confessions, write down the names of the new catechumens, and prepare for a morning Mass before returning home. The people were very kind and welcoming as they struggled to understand my poorly spoken language. I slept in a small chapel that had been built of rock by Jack Manning and the Christians. It was a bad night! There were hyenas sniffing around and “laughing” right outside the door. I was sure that there must be some snakes sneaking around inside! And even for my vertically challenged, and (in those days) skinny frame, the cot was too small and my feet went through the net resulting in a mosquito bite on each of my ten toes! Until I left Tarime the following year, I made several trips to Bukenye to visit the Christians on sick calls and to celebrate the Eucharist with the people there.

For many years Bukenye was a difficult place to reach because of the lack of roads. In 1974-75 a newly ordained priest, Father Justin Samba, worked with the Christians to repair the old chapel which had been falling down. The area continued to be served by Tarime Parish. However Tarime was growing with many schools, prison, District Hospital and a large town population that kept the pastoral team very busy. Then in the early 1980s Kowak began to cover the Mara Valley. It was an area that could only be reached by pikipiki (motorcycle). Much of the visiting and contact with the people was done first by Jim Conard and Tom Tiscornia and later by Carl Meulemans and Frank Flynn. Outstations were set up in Komaswa, Surubu, Nyamarembaro, and Bisarwe, the latter place being the site of the original rock chapel of the 1950s.

In the 1990s big changes began. A modern tarmac road was put in from the Kenya Border, over the Mara River to meet with the Mwanza-Musoma road. It went right through the upper edge of the valley by Komaswa. In the meantime a large foreign gold company took over the mining in Nyamongo and they built an all-weather murram road from Komaswa right through the Bukenya Valley to Nyamongo. Also during the 1990s Jim Conard, with the help of Maryknoll Lay Missioner Lou Flaim, built a church in Surubu Village.

I returned to Tanzania in 2000 and after a short stint at the Language School, Bishop Samba assigned me to work at Kowak. His letter of assignment instructed me to assist the Parish Priest in all the pastoral ministries of the parish with “special attention to our beloved Bakuria people in the Mara Valley.” So after 40 years I found myself saying mass at the site of the original chapel where I had spent several nights and which was now a pile of rocks on the ground.

Kowak is a huge a parish consisting of five large centers, each of which could be a parish in itself. I soon found myself in charge of the Baraza la Walei (Lay Council), the catechists, Youth Group, Vocation Club, etc. Surubu in Bukenye was just one of five centers to be served. Finally I told the bishop that it was not possible to “pay special attention” to Bukenye until we had a young priest to cover the rest of Kowak. In 2002 the bishop assigned a newly ordained priest to us and in January, 2003, I started to concentrate on the Bukenye area. Kowak had also “inherited” several outstations from Komuge Parish and two of them, Mara Sibora and Nyanchabakenye, are connected to what will someday be the new missionary parish.

After consulting with the bishop and Jim Conard, I decided to make the center at Komaswa. It is on the main road and is building up to be a small town. There is a police station there and electricity has been brought in. Many people are building permanent brick houses. One of the problems is that there is no ground water at Komaswa. Last summer when I was at Maryknoll I asked the help of Brother George Carlonas to design a house that would supply a lot of water from the rain. This house is now being built with a 100,000 liter underground water storage tank. Hopefully, if all goes well, the new missionary parish of Komaswa will open next year.

Kowak is the “Mother Mission” of North Mara, built by the Missionaries of Africa in 1933. The first Maryknollers arrived in 1946. The first expansion took place in 1948 when Joe Brannigan moved to Rosana and Bert Good and Joe Glynn to Masonga. Since then Maryknollers have opened parishes in Komuge, Nyarombo, Tarime, Tatwe, Nyamwaga, and Ingri. Others who came behind us have further expanded to Rogoro, Sirari, Shirati and Nyamongo. The early Maryknollers, following the mission methods of the Missionaries of Africa, saw the parish to be by its very nature missionary, that is, not a place “to settle down in,” but a place “to go out from.” From Kowak the Catholic Church has been planted in many corners of North Mara. But “God isn’t finished with us yet” and there are still places out there waiting for the Good News.

Road Building – Our Number One Means to Evangelize

By Paul Fagan

Now in my 45th year of missionary priesthood in Tanzania, I feel more than ever the Holy Spirit prodding me to continue reaching out to people living in the remote areas of Old Maswa Parish in Shinyanga Diocese. We have already built two center churches in areas only a few miles from the Serengeti National Park. With the help of donors we are now building small outstations in remote villages. My dream for the coming years is to build a steel frame church seating 1200 at Ngulyati Center, a parish to be. My dream also includes a steel frame church at Old Maswa seating 900. At present we have to pray outside on most occasions. We have been blessed and must be filled with a holy fear of the Lord lest we be unworthy of his blessings.

I never forget that life is what happens while we are making plans. Yet a plan gives me direction. Most of my work in Old Maswa for the past 38 years has been routine with occasional highs. However, now there is excitement in the air. It is like seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Evangelization takes many forms. I remember how important and influential traveling around our parish with the Missionary Cross was during the 2000 Jubilee Year.

I preach daily, but I have found evangelization by service to be part and parcel of my life. For 20 years I worked in the fields with the local people improving crop yields. Gradually we divided the 1200 square mile parish into four centers and built center churches. In 1983 we began medical work in Old Maswa and did the same in Nkololo in 1992. Years ago we shipped in an 80-year-old road grader and a used tractor to pull it. Later we added a tractor with a front-end loader and a big Isuzu dump truck.

Road building may not strike one as a means to evangelize, but for us, it is number one. It has done more to make the church known and help bring catechumens into the church than anything else we have ever done. Our education program has helped over 200 young people to change their lives and has helped to make the church known. We continue to build churches where we can celebrate with dignity and devotion. I feel that we are now on the downhill stage of our journey to spread the Good News. Small Christian Communities (SCCs), made up of 15 families or so, form the basis of our outstations, centers and parishes. The SCCs take a lot of time and patience as well as prayer. They are essential to the growth of the church, and we will keep working with them.

Getting Sewer Permission Has Been An Education

By John Lange

The people in the Mukuru slums in Nairobi, Kenya have no electricity, no toilets and shower except for the few people we’ve helped to build toilets and a few showers. But my trump card is that I helped four groups of women from Mukuru Kwa Njenga get permission to tap into the municipal sewer from the City Council of Nairobi. And the sewer connection is vital as the people can’t afford the price of having the excrement extracted by a honey-dumper truck. And the pits fill up real fast.

This whole venture of getting sewer permission has been an education. We first tapped into the city sewer in Mukuru Ruben over two years ago. When we were just going to bust in illegally like most other people in the slums, my friend Jacobo Kioko cautioned me: “You just can’t bust into the main city sewer without authorization.” I asked him: “How do you go about getting permission?” “Leave it to me”, he said. “I know the people at the City Council.” Jacobo came back with a figure of $250 for permission, three to four months salary for many people here. He gave stories about maps of the sewer, licensed plumbers’ fee, blue prints, etc. In my naiveté, I wrote a letter to his friends at City Council telling them that this charge was way too high; that these toilets were not mine. I was only helping a group of poor slum dwellers, most of them women, to get a toilet. So convincing was my appeal that they cut the fee in half to $125. Fearing that Jacobo might not have been entirely on the level, we afterwards sent Cosmos Musyoka to make our applications. Cosmos got the charge down to $80.

When we began our toilet campaign in Mukuru Kwa Njenga I had nobody to help us do battle at City Council. I feared to send the poor women on their own lest they be brushed aside. So I bravely volunteered to accompany Agnes and Lucy, the leaders of two choo (toilet) clubs, to the City Council. The council forms showed the price for connection to be $31.25. The catch was that we had to have the signature of a registered plumber plus his license number. When I asked Cosmos whom he got as a plumber, he gave me a big line of baloney. He was no help at all. So I asked the clerk at City Council what we could do. “Easy”, he said, “we have Mr. Thieury, a registered plumber, right here in our office today.” So I gave Mr. Thieury $20 for his signature and license number and a little scrap of paper on which he wrote “completion.” We were all set to enter the sewer just like most people except that we were legal. We had Mr. Thieury’s “completion” note.

The City Council is a bee hive of chaos. After viewing shelves of papers and folders stuffed with papers, I wondered how anybody could trace anything. There were people all over the place, laughing and talking. I judge most of them were on salary, but can’t say for sure. It was hard to pass through the aisles. The clerks were very gracious and helpful (I made sure I wore my roman collar!). I had to pay a clerk to go out and get photocopies of their forms as they didn’t have any extra copies in stock. I walked to another building to pay the connection fee. After waiting in one long line and finally getting to the cashier, I was told I was in the wrong line. I should go to Window 7. All the time I was peeking at my watch. Minutes and hours were ticking by and I wanted to get home before the horrific rush traffic in the evening. Thank goodness on my second trip I trained a young man, Bernard, to negotiate future applications.

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Body Slam

By Don Larmore

Great discoveries?
Holy smoke and ashes?
Frozen insights?
Bliss-tering real-izations?
Wondering what is going down?
Haven't a clue what God is up to?
You've been body slammed-
lifted up
swung 227 degrees north
flipped over
and thrown to the wrestling mat by a 700 lb Archangel.
In Swahili it is “kuundwa kutoka matupu.”
In English it is “what's up.”
Biblically it is poverty of spirit.
Practically it is time to get up laughing.
Spiritually it is zero, right where the fun begins.
Mission?

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How Fast You Carry the Flashlight

Heading into the game park in Tanzania on his first safari, the American visitor was confident that he could handle any emergency. He sidled up to the experienced local guide and said smugly, “I know that carrying a flashlight will keep the lions away.”

“True,” the guide replied, “but it depends on how fast you carry the flashlight.”

— True story from the book, Once Upon A Time in Africa, by Joseph Healey

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Chinese Youth Visit Tanzania -- an Unforgettable Trip

By Paul Kam

From 1 to 18 August, 2004, 22 youth (8 boys, 14 girls) and one priest came to visit Tanzania from Hong Kong. They wanted to experience our missionary work, but finally they experienced the Eucharist also. Since I believe that they came to visit not only the place but also the people, I arranged that 14 Tanzanian youth (8 boys, 6 girls) welcome them and live together with them. People came from different countries, culture, and languages and lived together. It was not easy. But finally they become friends.

During the trip we visited parishes, Radio Tumaini, street children, Bagamoyo, PASADA, Muhumbili Hospital, orphans, disabled children and the sick in Dar es Salaam. We also went to the Arusha to visit Ngorogoro and other places. We had an unforgettable experience on this trip. We discovered through this missionary journey that we meet God through meeting people from different countries. This missionary experience brought us (the Chinese and the Tanzanians) together to share the same Eucharist. We could see and experience this union. Even though we have different cultures, languages, and color, we can experience that there is One Bread, One Church, One Baptism. There is One God who is Father of us all.

As a Hong Kong diocesan priest who was sent to do missionary work with the Maryknoll Fathers & Brothers in Tanzania, I was very happy to become a bridge to connect the Chinese and Tanzanians to experience this unforgettable trip.

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Good Samaritan

NOTE: The launching of my book called Once Upon a Time in Africa: Stories of Wisdom and Joy (Orbis Books, 2004, Maryknoll, NY) was also the happy occasion for people to give me new African stories. Here is a new one from Dan Griffin who has two stories in the book – JGH        

Tanzania is a big country with few roads, and even fewer road signs. One day I was driving along in a remote area in Shinyanga in the pouring rain, and I saw a woman alongside the road.  I thought I would be a Good Samaritan and pick her up despite being in a big hurry. As she got in, she asked me where I was going.  I told her that I was headed to Mwadui Mine and she said, “Good, then we can help each other.” Puzzled, I asked her what she meant. As she climbed in the truck and we started off she added, “I'm going to Mwadui and need a lift, and you're going to Mwadui, but you're going in the wrong direction.”

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Three Korean Missionary Priests Will Go to Mozambique

Moved by the situation of millions of sick, poor and abandoned children in Africa, the Korean Foreign Mission Society (KFMS) established in 1929, has extended its mission to that continent. In early November, 2004 during a mass in Seoul Cathedral three missionary priests were solemnly sent on mission to Mozambique, the sixth country to which the KFMS has sent its members, after Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, China, Russia, and Cambodia.

The three priests departed on November 24, 2004. After a period of formation in Portugal to learn Portuguese, the official language in Mozambique, they will work in the diocese of Lichinga, where 200,000 Catholics are assisted by 10 diocesan priests and about 20 expatriate missionaries. The three Korean priests will first work with the Maryknoll missionaries in Metangula Parish.

The sending ceremony was presided by Father Augustine Kim Myong-dong, Superior General of the Korean Foreign Mission Society. After receiving the mission mandate and the missionary’s cross, the priests made a solemn promise to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Mozambique.

In his first address to the Catholic community in Korea, the new Papal Nuncio to Korea Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig encouraged Korean Catholics “to build a missionary community to give missionaries to evangelize the whole world.” (based on an International Fides Service story).

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NOTHING MATERIALLY BUT EVERYTHING SPIRITUALLY

By Paul Nadeau

NOTE: Along with the wide variety of short term volunteers and missionaries who work with Maryknoll priests, Brothers, Sisters and lay people in Africa, relatives and personal friends of Maryknollers come for safaris, learning experiences and even help out in local projects occasionally. Their stories are very interesting. Here is true story written by Paul Nadeau in Shinyanga, Tanzania (published in Once Upon a Time in Africa: Stories of Wisdom and Joy. Complied by Joseph G. Healey. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2004).

In Shinyanga, Tanzania we visited some friends of my Uncle Ernie, a Maryknoll priest. They were a husband and his wife with leprosy who had been eventually cured with the help of Uncle Ernie and some patrons back home. They had built a large, very neat home, creating an oasis in the middle of nowhere full of banana trees, mangos, rice, and many other crops.

What is most beautiful, however, was this family. They had four children, none with leprosy. Each was a delight. The oldest daughter, Rebecca, was married to George and had a beautiful little baby. Since the baby was born healthy, George’s father agreed to pay the dowry for Rebecca. This was great financial boost to her family.

Before dinner the whole family knelt in the dust to pray the rosary and to thank God for his bounty. As an American I found this to be remarkable. The parents had no fingers or toes left and had otherwise been disfigured by their leprosy. They could have cursed God for their afflictions, but instead they held their rosaries between the nubs that had been fingers, knelt in the dirt in front of their mud hut, and thanked God for their many blessings. It was beautiful and humbling and amazing all at once.

Afterwards, as I helped them pound the husks off of the rice and watched the chaff blowing in the wind, I couldn’t help but admire these simple people -- they had nothing materially but everything spiritually. I realized that eventually I would be returning to witness more true poverty in America than I have seen in any part of Tanzania.