July

2008

University Ministry in Africa

            In the Maryknoll Society’s 62 year old history in Africa we have had over 30 priests and brothers involved in Higher Education whether it be in a university, major seminary, institute, hospital, etc. This long cloud of witnesses have been involved in university-level teaching, administration, chaplaincy and counseling in Egypt, Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda. Some concrete examples are presented in this issue of our newsletter.

            What of the future? Examples of the ministry of Father Lance Nadeau at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya, Father Dick Albertine at the University of Namibia in Windhoek, Namibia, and others present many creative possibilities for the future. Working with African youth is an exciting part of our missionary ministry.

            We hear so much these days about globalization, internationalization, multi-culturalism, multifaith, diversity and so on. In an article in the 2 June, 2007 issue of the Tablet , “Communities Built on Difference”,  Father William Kaggwa, a Missionary of Africa from Uganda, writes: “University chaplaincy in a multicultural, multi-faith context may become a model for a future parish.” He then suggests three practical action steps that are a clear reading of the signs of the times in Africa today:

            1. Take diversity as a cultural and religious fact. We need to take diversity as a cultural and religious fact, a gift of the Spirit who creates diversity. It is an expression of the human quest for meaning and an occasion for our own self-discovery. Our world of many faiths, cultures and philosophies is evidence of God’s historical and unpredictable engagement with humankind.

            2. Consider the Trinity as a model of community. Perhaps it is more challenging to build community in the very diverse environment of the chaplaincy and in view of the transitory nature of the student body.

            3. See otherness as a value in itself. We also need to recognize the spiritual and moral goods found in other people and their traditions. It is an occasion for insight into the Trinitarian mystery. Diversity and otherness have to be seen as values in themselves and an opportunity for mutual cross-fertilization.

            The future unfolds for Maryknoll in Africa.
 


Catholic Chaplaincy at Muhimbili in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
By Michael Snyder

It has been a year and a half since my return to Tanzania after 10 years of service in the U.S. This assignment has brought me to Dar es Salaam and a new experience as Chaplain at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), the medical university of Tanzania. This medical school at Muhimbili Hospital was once the only one in Tanzania. Formerly the School of Medicine of the University of Dar es Salaam it had a student population of just 400 in the 1970s. Today with a student body of 1600 it stands alone as MUHAS. Nearly 50% of the students are Catholic, a tribute to an historical emphasis placed on education by the Catholic Church. For over 30 years there has been a fulltime chaplain appointed to guide and counsel students during their three to five years of training. In 1988 an ecumenical chapel was constructed and divided into two prayer centers, one for Catholics and the second for Lutheran and Anglican communities. With rapid university expansion taking place the time has come for a similar effort on our part. So, we too are in the midst of an extension program which will double the chapel’s size!

Serving among them has been a privilege. For some 60 students the day begins with Mass at 6:30 a.m. at our chapel. Classes begin at 8:30 a.m. and continue right up to 5 p.m. with an hour and a half break for lunch. I had heard that these students are the cream of intelligentsia in the country and have come to learn how true it is. The Catholic Community at Muhimbili engages 40 students in different facets of leadership. They take responsibility for accounts, banking, distribution of salaries and organization of events and activities for the community. They are intelligent and mature, yet maintain the spark and enthusiasm of youth. If they are able to cope with the temptations that lead to corrupt practices and the lure to abandon Tanzania for lucrative jobs outside the country, these young people can make a tremendous contribution in the medical sector.

Maintaining the ideals and positive motivation of service is a major challenge facing them. Perhaps the singular most interesting challenge for me as their chaplain can be described with a question: How can the message of Christ alive within us nurture and prepare medical students for the sacrifices needed so that God’s hand may touch the thousands who seek them out for healing in a country where poverty prevails?

For the most part, the students are committed and want to help. But they also have a right to a decent living. They are smart and can see what is happening around them. They have questions and they wonder how they will reconcile their faith with the desire for a decent living. Salaries are low and resources scarce. So medical professionals are tempted to inflate their salaries by hoarding available services and charging patients extra for them. Medical Ethics is a major question. In the classroom they are taught how to scientifically deal with illness. They are given procedures that sometimes conflict with Catholic Church teaching and wonder how they will be able to function as faithful Catholics in a medical system that promotes policies that are contrary to the church’s position.

I hope this gives you a little feel for what medical university campus ministry is all about in Tanzania. Let me end with some comments from the students themselves when asked what the Catholic Community at Muhimbili means to them:

I’m participating in the activities of my Church because first I believe it is my responsibility to make my Church active and as I receive blessings from God everyday I also need to do something in return. In addition to that, it gives me a sense of really belonging to the community. I am happy to work with other members, as in doing so, I learn a lot about understanding myself and others and obtain skills on how to work well as a group anywhere in serving God.

~ Cecelia Ngatunga (3rd year medical student)

Praise the Lord! The Muhimbili Catholic Community has enabled me to understand the meaning of love and humility in action, especially on Saturday evenings when we visit patients of different religions in the wards seeking to comfort them. At our chapel people of different ages and medical professions are united together as the Muhimbili Catholic Community!

~ George Alcard Rweyemamu (3rd year medical student)

The advantage I see for being a member of the Muhimbili Catholic Community are the spiritual services offered such as daily Mass. I also value the church activities, especially the seminars and volunteer opportunities such as visiting the sick. Finally, I enjoy socializing with different people that build me spiritually.

~ Valeria Rugaiganisa (3rd year nursing student)
 


Who Will Give This 12 Year Old Boy Back to His Momma?

By Tom McDonnell

For some of us it’s a long way back to 12 years old, but it might help to go back there as we meet this boy… In the chaos of the clashes after the December, 2007 elections in Kenya a family hunkers down in terror of the violence all around them. They haven’t eaten in days because there is no kerosene (paraffin).

There is a brief calm and Momma sends her 12 year old boy to buy kerosene in a nearly shop. The usual shops are burned down so the little hero goes on to Molo Town where he finally finds it. On his long journey home he is confronted by a gang of thugs. They beat him, pour his kerosene on him and set him ablaze.

The college student at Kenyatta University in Nairobi has to stop and cry often as she tells me the story. Who will give this 12 year old boy back to his Momma?
 


 Window into the Present African Reality

By Joseph G. Healey

Teaching at Hekima College, the Jesuit School of Theology in Nairobi, Kenya has given me a very interesting window into the present African reality. Hekima is a constituent college of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). From January to March, 2008 I facilitated a course on “Small Christian Communities as a New Model of Church in Africa Today.” I say “facilitated” rather than “taught” because we tried a new way of teaching and learning to model Small Christian Communities (SCCs) as a new way of being church.

One new reality is the explosion of African vocations. There were 24 students -- all seminarians studying theology – coming from 10 countries. There were 21 first and second year theologians from nine African countries: Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia. Three students came from Mexico. The students came from six congregations/ societies/orders: Assumptionists, Guadalupe, Jesuits, Montfort, Pallotines and Redemptorists. It is clear that most congregations are now training their seminarians in Africa itself.

Our course simultaneously took place on three levels: academic, pastoral and personal appropriation. We used the Pastoral Circle or Pastoral Spiral Process -- the “see, judge and act” methodology including the tools of social analysis -- starting with experience. So we constantly shared and evaluated concrete SCC examples on the local level.

A key to the process is to see that SCCs in Africa are not a program or a project, but a way of life. We sat in a circle to model a typical SCC in Africa. In three different classes we spent 20 minutes each in modeling a typical SCC’s Bible Sharing/Bible Reflection in small groups: once in the whole group, once in groups of six each and once in Buzz Groups of two each. We read and reflected on the Gospel of the following Sunday as thousands of lectionary- based SCCs do every week throughout Africa. Most important we tried to connect the Bible to our daily lives.

Since SCCs are mainly composed of lay people I invited three lay people (two laywomen and one layman) who are deeply involved in SCCs in Nairobi to help me present SCC case studies and to reflect with the students on their experiences.

Another part of the process that we used in this course and in short SCC Workshops in the January to June, 2008 period was to begin with the participants’ practical experience. We asked the basic question: “From your personal experience what are your burning issues, your burning questions about Small Christian Communities?” Then we wrote the most important questions on the blackboard and they become the basic for the facilitators’ input and the group discussion. Some common questions kept coming up again and again:

1. How to attract and involve men? Youth?

2. What is the difference and relationship between SCCs and the Traditional Parish Associations/Societies/Apostolic Groups/Devotional Groups in the parish?

3. How do we help the SCCs to choose and form the best leaders?

4. How do SCCs help its members who cannot receive the Eucharist to have church marriages?

5. How do we empower SCCs for economic self-reliance and for the financial support of the parish?

6. Then in the context of the post December 2007 election crisis and violence in Kenya: Did you/your SCC prevent or promote the violence in Kenya?

Part of the SCC Course at Hekima College was a “Practicum.” Instead of a regular class one week, the students participated in a gathering/activity of a SCC in a parish or special interest group/apostolic group in Nairobi Archdiocese and wrote a short paper on the experience. This led to the most dramatic present reality in Kenya. We were surprised, even shocked, to find so much tribalism and ethnicity in SCCs especially in Nairobi where our experiences took place. This permeated and influenced our whole course at Hekima College and all our short SCC Workshops as well. A clear “sign of the times” was that 19 of the 24 final papers were on tribalism and ethnic tensions in SCCs in Africa especially in Kenya today and its ramifications such as Cultural Associations, Nepotism, Human Rights, Gender Issues, Land Reform, etc.

This led to interesting discussions on “SCCs and the Challenges of Reconciliation, Justice, and Peace in Africa Today.” We presented many positive and negative examples. The challenge to SCCs that are participating in creating a new Kenya can be summed up in the words of a Catholic woman in a St. Paul Chaplaincy Center, Nairobi Prayer Group: “I am a Christian first, a Kenyan second and a Kikuyu third.
 


 Kenyatta University Catholic Community

Through the assistance of the Maryknoll Society, the Catholic community in Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya in the late 1990s was allocated a piece of land in its current location after a great deal of opposition from some members of the administrative body of that time. Initially the services (masses) were conducted in a small chapel that later proved too small to the vastly growing number of Catholics.

The generous contribution and support of Maryknoll through the chaplaincy of Father Edward Philips enabled the construction of the church and the chapel in 1999.

The parish offices, the seminar room, the parish library, the sanitary facilities and the equipment store were put up by 2000. Currently a parish hall is under construction under the present chaplaincy of Father Lance Nadeau.

Through the chaplains provided by the Maryknoll Society, five major achievements have been made as far as university ministry is concerned:

1. KUCC has become a place to belong. We regard KUCC as a family to which all Christians are adopted. Followers of Christ come together in one spirit to worship and for mutual encouragement.

2. KUCC has become a place for service. In this family the various members use the special spiritual gifts from God to perform important tasks for the common benefit of all. Just like the physical body where each part has a special purpose and function, Christians are involved in service to help them discover and exploit their gifts. Christ’s example and command to serve others still applies. In KUCC there are not less than 25 Christian groups that pursue different missions but are all focused toward a common goal. Membership in these groups is voluntary but is influenced by one’s gifts.

3. KUCC has become a place to be served. Parts of the body depend on each other. For instance the eye gives the body vision while the body gives nourishment, protection and transport for the eye. As we serve within the church we find God meeting our needs through others, all described as LOVE. In Christ the Teacher Parish the chaplain almost on a daily basis handles a case or two of members of the family who may be in need of financial assistance or another form of assistance. The parish vice chairperson heads the Needy Students Assistance Committee that conducts interviews with students who apply for food assistance. Those who deserve assistance are issued with meal vouchers. In the academic year 2007/2008 (that covers the post election violence period in Kenya from January to June, 2008) over 800 students were assisted.

4. KUCC has become a place to grow. Just as our physical body requires nourishment to develop and grow, our spiritual lives need to be fed with spiritual food through worship, instruction and counsel. Through praise and prayer to God a special bond occurs. In Christ the Teacher Parish we are taught and challenged by gifted and experienced teachers who know God’s word, in particular our chaplain, and any other pastors or bishops who may be invited to celebrate mass on given occasions.

5. KUCC has become a place to obey. Christian faith is personal but not private. Healthy and growing Christians are not loners. Christ said that the world will pay more attention to the relationship between Christians than to the Christianity of individual Christians. For a follower of Christ the church is a place to practice new and growing faith, a mature and wise faith. Christ the Teacher Parish has played a major role in strengthening thousands of students in faith and the hope promised by our Lord Jesus. Every year many students join during the first year. Some are unbaptized and others unconfirmed. The Catholic Chaplaincy has over the years conducted catechism classes for these students who receive the sacraments to become full Christians after the training. All the other sacraments are also administered.

A follower of Jesus Christ on the path of life must embrace the fact that there are others walking with him or her. We are meant to do it together.

EDITOR’S (NOTE: This report is compiled by Dominic Mutunga M, the Chairperson of the Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) of the Kenyatta University Catholic Community (KUCC) in Nairobi, Kenya. Visit the Kenyatta University Christ the Teacher Catholic Chaplaincy Center Website at: www.kucatholic.org
 


 Visiting Sister Florence Ogutu for the Last Time

By Arthur Wille

After I returned to Tanzania from the USA in October, 2004 I was able to make a two day safari from Musoma to Dodoma to visit Sister Florence Ogutu, a Kenyan Novice in the Ivrea Sisters (Sisters of Mary Immaculate Conception). She was a good friend of mine who was dying of cancer. Sister Margaret John of the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Africa accompanied me. Just to see once again Florence’s beautiful smiling face and to feel her loving presence was worth the long difficult two day drive I had to make to be with her. She was even able to show me around the convent and the grounds at Veyula. I felt privileged that I could be with her at this time. I knew even then that it was difficult for her as it was evident what the cancer, her terrible pains and suffering had done to her physically. Even these could not cloak the happiness and joy that continued to radiate from her.

She took me to the novitiate at Miyuji where I met Sister Palma Porro, her Novice Mistress and her staff and also the novices whom I had known from the Komuge Catechetical Center in Musoma where I had taught them. It was enlightening to me because I understood from the happy spirit that was so evident why Florence loved so much the novitiate and her companions there. Their warmth and hospitality was everywhere. Sister Palma was very gracious and helpful to Sister Margaret John and me. It was rewarding to see my former students in their final preparation for their First Profession.

Florence saw to it that we were shown the many activities and ministries in which her Ivrea community was involved. I was impressed not only by the professionalism with which all the sisters did their work, but especially with the happiness and commitment with which they did it.

I was especially happy to spend some time with Sister Raffaella Franzin, the Provincial of the Ivrea Sisters in Tanzania and Kenya. I had met her previously when she had visited Komuge, but my visit to Dodoma gave me a greater opportunity to know her better. She had a remarkable relationship with her daughter Sister Florence Ogutu. She called her in Swahili “Lulu” (“My Pearl”). There could have been no more intimate, loving and caring relationship between a mother and her daughter than there was between Sister Raffaella and Florence during Florence’s long illness. Florence called Sister Raffaella in Swahili “Mpendwa Mama Raffy” (“My Beloved Mother Raffy”). She did everything possible to help Florence during all this period. She was ready to send her to Italy for treatment until the doctors in Kenya persuaded her that they could do everything that could be done in Italy to help her. It was fortunate that she could remain in Kenya from where she could get back between treatments to her “Paradise” (her novitiate) in Tanzania.

It was with a heavy heart that I left Florence. I realized that I would not see her again. She was forced to be bedridden just one week before her death. She died in Dodoma General Hospital at 4:15 in the afternoon of 2 November 2004. There can be no doubt that her Heavenly Father enjoyed receiving into His arms His beautiful daughter with such a smiling face. Her funeral mass, which was crowded, took place two days later in Veyula Parish Church. Sister Florence Anne Ogutu is buried in the Veyula Passionist Cemetery. What a joyful reception she must have received from the God she loved so much!

EDITOR’S NOTE: As a labor of love, Father Art Wille wrote a 33 page booklet called A Flower of the Cross: Memoirs of Sr. Florence Ogutu – SCIC (the Swahili is Ua la Msalaba: Kumbukumbu ya Sr. Florence Ogutu – SCIC). It includes seven colored photographs. This is the inspirational story of a Kenyan Ivrea Sister who died of cancer after a painful illness. Copies of both the English and Swahili booklets are on display in the Glynn Hall library in Nairobi, Kenya.
 


 My Time at Lumko, South Africa

By Tom Tiscornia

Way back when preparing catechumens for baptism in Mtoni Parish in Dar es Salaam and even in Sudan I became familiar with the Lumko Missiological Institute, South Africa book, Our Journey Together. I liked the method of beginning with experience to introduce each lesson. This made it so practical as well as meaningful for the participants. From the experience the lesson would then relate it to Scripture and the tradition of the Church. Very often pictures were used which visualized the theme, similar to when many of us studied Swahili at Makoko Language School in Tanzania.

I had inquired about courses offered at Lumko in South Africa and by good fortune their two courses in “Catechetics” and “Pastoral Ministry” fit perfectly into my own schedule for the months of October and November, 2007. We were priests, deacons, sisters, catechists and laypeople from many countries in Africa sharing the wealth of our own experiences, ministries and cultures. What had always intrigued me was the methodology of Lumko. The content, for the most part was not new: RCIA, General Directory on Catechesis, levels of catechumens including the physically challenged. The Pastoral Ministry course dealt with vision of the Church as a Communion of Communities, Leadership, Small Christian Communities (SCCs), Awareness, Inculturation and Social Concerns. Emphasis was on the Bible and prayer.

What was special about my time there was the sharing and exchange of ideas with the African Church – this is what really made the courses rich for me. Now that I have returned to Sudan I am trying to put some of it into practice.
 

 


Everyone Knows Who Sepp Blatter Is

By Joe Healey

During a visit to the Kibera Slums in Nairobi, Kenya in May, 2008 we had a tour of the John Paul II Mixed Secondary School. This is the very part of Nairobi where riots and burning of shops took place during the post December, 2007 election violence. Entering the Senior High School English Class we greeted the teacher and students in the typically warm and friendly African way. On the blackboard I immediately noticed three names:

Abraham Lincoln

George Washington

Joseph (Sepp) Blatter

Now you might find this a strange or unusual combination of names. My three American Maryknoll companions didn’t know who Sepp Blatter is. But, of course, all the Kenyan students did. In this soccer-crazy country that is passionately following the 2010 Soccer World Cup qualifying matches everyone – even in the slums – knows that Sepp Blatter is the President of FIFA (the French acronym for the International Federation of Association Football).
 

 


COMMUNICATIONS NEWS NOTES

1. New Video:

Blessed Are the Peacemakers. 27 minutes. DVD and VHS. PAL and NTSC. Produced by Ukweli Video Productions, Nairobi, Kenya. Released June, 2008. Highlights the efforts of some of the organizations working for peace in Kenya and beyond. Very timely in light of the post election violence in Kenya and the pressing need for reconciliation, justice and peace.

2. New Book and Article:

a. Applied Ethics in a World Church: The Padua Conference. Edited by Linda Hogan. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2008. Collection of essays by moral theologians from five different continents on the urgent ethical issues of today. African writers treat HIV/AIDS, Economic Reforms, Globalization and Social-economic Justice.

b. “Do We Understand the Market? Re-defining and Restructuring African Catholic Health Care” by Edward Phillips. Dolentium Hominum (Church and Health in the World), No. 66, No. 3, 2007.

3. Internet Websites:

a. Check out our updated Maryknoll Fathers & Brothers Africa Region Website at: www.maryknollafrica.org — A great resource on Africa. Please send further updates and additional information to the webmaster.

b. The Small Christian Communities Global Collaborative Website at: www.smallchristiancommunities.org — The section on the continent on Africa includes material from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Tanzania.

 

 

Happy Birthday to You!

Daniel Ohmann July 6

Loren Beaudry July 12

Donald Sybertz July 23

Richard Bauer Aug. 1

Hung Dinh Aug. 1

William Fryda Aug. 12

John Mullen Aug. 16

Richard Albertine Aug. 20

Edward Phillips Sept. 1

Ramon McCabe Sept. 15

Richard Quinn Sept. 27

Michael Snyder Oct. 11

Mark Gruenke Oct. 16

Mark Huntington Oct. 20

Edward Hayes Nov. 13

George Cotter Nov. 22

James Conard Nov. 27

Kenneth Sullivan Dec. 13

Michael Kirwen Dec. 15

James Eble Dec. 17

Michael Bassano Dec. 22