My Journey

I belong to a Small Christian Community (SCC) in my parish named after St. John the Apostle. SCCs are very popular in Kenya and an effective means of organizing and engaging the parishioners of the parish in the mission of the Church and the parish’s role in that mission. SCCs typically get together once a week to pray and read and reflect on the Gospel. My parish, St. Mary’s, has just over 30 SCCs.

For Lent, the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) puts out a booklet that includes readings on practical day-to-day challenges in living out our faith and reflection questions, which we discuss as a group in our SCC gatherings during Lent.

The topic for the last week of Lent centered on threats to living out the faith in the current culture, and specifically threats to the family. These types of discussions are always challenging for me as my life spans two completely different cultures – being born, raised, and having lived most of my life in the United States and now living in Kenya. The culture and societal views in Kenya today are more reminiscent of the U.S. when I was growing up. However, the U.S. of today is so much different.

However, when we discuss how to promote values consistent with our faith in a world that is increasingly hostile to the Gospel message, my response is the same in both cases – simply be a witness to our faith in the way you live out your life. Yes, we need to engage the culture with words and arguments in support of what is true and consistent with the teachings of Jesus. But the only way to truly change hearts and minds is by living as a witness to this truth. 

In Dostoevsky’s novel the Brothers Karamazov, the middle brother Ivan struggles deeply with the question of unjust human suffering, particularly that of children, and the idea of an all-loving God. This struggle is extremely prominent in the thinking of our post-modern society today, which rejects any notion of a purpose or efficacy associated with suffering.

In a key part of the novel, Ivan tells a story to his brother Alyosha in order to challenge Alyosha’s religiously grounded worldview. In the tale, Christ returns to Earth in Seville, Spain at the time of the Inquisition and performs a number of miracles. During the story, the Grand Inquisitor attempts to scrutinize Jesus’s responses to the devil during his temptations in the desert as depicted in the Gospels by asserting that Jesus missed an opportunity to save humanity from needless suffering. However, during the interrogation of Jesus, the Grand Inquisitor states a keen insight. “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” How pertinent is this truth in today’s culture which increasingly views people as nothing more than collections of biological molecules that simply act according to the laws of nature? Given this worldview, it’s no wonder that many people struggle to find meaning in life. They have no concept of their mission.

The late Swiss theologian Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar said that there are two dramas that we can choose to live. The theo-drama is the unfolding story of creation being written and directed by God. This is contrasted with the ego-drama in which we are the center of the story and the point upon which everything else revolves.

I typically pray the Rosary using Bishop Barron’s beautiful reflections (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE247jOt4AA&list=PLg6k5UmSDlcigRZ52ETLRRoolBLuBJa20) on the four mysteries. In the second Joyful Mystery, the Visitation, in which we hear that the pregnant Mary goes in haste to visit her cousin Elisabeth, whom the Angel Gabriel had also revealed to be with child, Bishop Barron speculates that Mary proceeded in haste because she had found her mission. That is, she had discerned her unique role in the story being told by God and chose to take an active part in that story.

However, most of society today lives according to the ego-drama, which is the story that we write, we direct, we produce, and most importantly that we star in. The ego-drama is only concerned with ourselves, what we want, and our own personal freedom. But as Christians, we are called to life in the body of Christ, which is lived out in the theo-drama.  What gives life meaning and purpose is to find and live out our unique role in that theo-drama, the salvation story being told by God. God created each of us in a particular time and place. Each of us is an integral character in the story he is telling, which eventually leads, for those who choose to be part of the story, to everlasting joy and happiness with him. Life outside of this story is shallow and meaningless. Our existence on earth lasts but a brief moment, but during this time we are given the opportunity and freedom to seek out and be part of the eternal story being worked out by God in cosmic history.

This is what Ivan is intuiting in the quote from his story of the Grand Inquisitor, a belief which Fyodor Dostoevsky elegantly espouses through his novel’s characters. Our society today, is intensely focused on self-gratification and personal safety, which are not necessarily bad things, but become perverted when they are accepted as the sole purposes of living. It’s not surprising that so many people are preoccupied with the misplaced idea of creating a utopian form of eternal life for themselves here on earth, rather than finding a purpose and meaning outside of themselves.

As Jesus teaches, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit.” (John 12:20-33) In this passage, Jesus is exhorting us to die to ourselves, to live life outside of ourselves. In other words, to find our mission and put ourselves in the service of others in the theo-drama. By doing this we become truly alive. We become what God created us to be with a share in his divine life. This is the call to missionary discipleship that Jesus puts forth to us at Easter in the light of his glorious resurrection.

God is good.

I don’t aspire to be a superhero. Most days, I don’t even feel equipped to deal with the common, everyday challenges of life. I’m happy to simply end the day a little bit better person than I was the day before. Unfortunately, those days don’t come along as often as I would like. Then there are sometimes days when you are simply thrust into the absurd and you are forced to deal with it by digging deep into those superhero powers you didn’t even know you possessed.

Mombasa, Kenya is the hottest and most humid climate I’ve ever lived in.  I usually take two showers a day — one after breakfast before heading to work and the other in the evening before going to bed. After taking a shower, I hang my towel outside to dry on a clothesline hung under the overhand on the side of the house right outside the main door. There is a towel rack in the shower, but I’ve had problems in the past with those microscopic sized ants inhabiting my towel. On multiple occasions, not realizing that my towel was infested, I started to dry off with it and ended up getting bitten all over, having to turn on the shower again to wash the ants off me. For such little creatures, those ants hurt when they bite— although it may be more a case of strength in numbers than individual ants. In any case, that is why I hang my towel outside.

As I take my evening shower after it is dark, I usually just dry myself off, put on underwear and quickly run outside to hang my towel on the clothesline. Although my neighbor’s house on that side is right next to mine, we are separated by a chain linked fence with hedges growing through it that rise to about eight feet. Someone could technically see me if they looked, but it is completely dark when I go out to hang my towel and I’m outside for all of five seconds. At least that’s the way I rationalize going outside in my underwear to myself. For those of you wondering, I do put on shorts when I go out to hang my towel after my shower in the morning. This is a family neighborhood, after all.

As is the case with most buildings in Kenya, the house where I live is enclosed by a wall and a gate for security reasons. I keep the outside gate padlocked almost all the time. The wall, which is about eight feet high, is made of cement on three sides and out of a chain linked fence and hedges on the third side — the side where I hang my towel. All the windows on the house, which are pretty much always open because of the heat, are covered by steel window grates, which cannot be opened. The two doors to the house have steel security gates, which I padlock at night, on the outside of the wooden doors.

The padlocks that I use for the security gates on each of the two doors are those idiot proof locks, which you can only lock with the key. Knowing me, I would inevitably lock myself out of the house with normal padlocks.  The wooden doors to the house use skeleton keys to lock, which is typical for doors in Kenya. On my keychain, I have the keys to the skeleton locks for the door, the padlocks to the security gates, as well as the key to the gate to exit the wall that surrounds the house.

For some reason, after coming home one day and unlocking the padlock to the security gate and the lock to the door, I placed the skeleton key into the lock on the inside of the house door, with the padlock hanging from it (remember, the key can only be removed from the padlock by locking the lock). I don’t usually do this. I’m a creature of habit and try to follow the same routine all the time – if for no other reason than the fact that I can retrace my steps if needed. I absolutely hate when I put something down unconsciously without thinking and then can’t find it later. After coming home that night, I forgot all about the door and left it unlocked with the key and lock hanging from the inside of the door as I ate dinner and later took a shower. 

When attempted to exit the house (in my underwear) to hang my towel, I found the door unlocked. I proceeded outside and closed the door behind me figuring that I would just lock everything on my way back in. I hung the towel quickly and proceeded to open the door to reenter the house. Locked! What? I tried again. Still locked. How could this be? The door can only be locked with the key and the key is inserted into the inside side of the lock. Panic starts to set in. Maybe the lock is just stuck. I try jiggling and shaking the handle of the door to see if I that will help. Nothing. Still locked. What now?

Several thoughts went through my head. It would be embarrassing, but I could call one of my friends, who lives close by, to come help me. Not sure exactly how he would help, but I’m desperate. Oh, I can’t call him because my phone is inside the house, and I’m locked outside.

I could yell and try to get my neighbors attention, but that would also be embarrassing. What could they do anyway?

Oh, I keep a spare set of keys at the HOPE office at the church, which is a five-minute walk away. OK, now I’m getting somewhere. But as I don’t have the key to the gate to get outside the wall, I’d somehow have to scale the wall and jump down into the street. I have only an outdoor plastic chair to use to scale the wall. Even if I was successful and didn’t kill myself in the process, I’d then be locked out of my compound in the dark with no shoes and wearing only underwear. And I’d have a towel if I remembered to bring that with me.  I’d then have to walk in my underwear barefoot to the church, which is a five-minute walk with shoes, over non paved surfaces with rocks and who knows what else. I’d then have to present myself to the security guards at the church and have them let me into the office so I could get the spare set of keys. Once I have the keys, I’d have to make the return trek back home. Knocking on the rectory door in only my underwear to ask one of the priests to drive me home was a little too much to contemplate. And what if I can’t find the spare set of keys? Although I know where the keys are supposed to be, I haven’t seen them in a few years. Although this seemed like the most reasonable option, I just couldn’t get myself to follow through with it.

Then I thought about sleeping outside on one of the plastic chairs. It’s not safe to do so, but what choice do I have. But then I thought through where this gets me.  I’d be in the same situation in the morning, but it will be light out instead of dark. Then no matter what I do to try to get into my house, everyone will see.  If I didn’t like the idea of scaling the wall and walking to the church in the dark, how much worse would it be to have to do this in the daylight with people walking about getting water and food, walking to work, and going to the church.

Think. Think. There must be another way. Then I came to the realization that I’m going to have to kick in the door. Is that even possible? They do it in the movies, but that’s not reality. Sure, I have a black belt in karate, but I’ve never actually kicked in a door before or even tried to. How much noise will it make? What will the neighbors think is happening? I have no choice.

With this apparently the only option, I start to think of the consequences. I could possibly break the whole door. This is not my house, I just rent it. At a minimum, I’m going to wreck the whole door frame and probably the lock.

Can I really do this with one kick? Breaking down a door is not something you can do a little at time. It’s not like you can chip away at it until you break through. The action must be performed in one large burst of force.

Upon further reflection, I came up with the idea that it would be easier to break down the door if I held the door latch open while I kicked the door. Makes sense as I would then only need to break through the deadbolt, not both the latch and the deadbolt. One problem though. Holding the door latch open with one hand while trying to kick means I’m within arm’s length of the door with little room to generate power into the kick. After stalling for a few seconds, I finally got up the nerve to give it a try. While holding the door latch open with my left hand, I kicked with my right foot. The door rattled but stood firm. It is just hard to generate enough power at such a short distance. Did my neighbors hear that? I listened but didn’t hear anyone. I decided to wait a few seconds to make sure before I try again.

Then came one of those moments in my life where I knew I just had to go for it. I had to do what I needed to do regardless of the consequences. I had no other choice. I was pretty sure I could break down the door. I just wanted to minimize the damage and the noise to prevent my neighbors from rushing over to see what was going on.

So, I just did it. Like I was taught in martial arts training, you must envision striking or kicking through the object. The door burst inwards. Splintered wood and wall cement splattered everywhere. I did it. I was in. I’m not sure if it was the right solution, but it was too late to worry about that now.

Now that I was in the house, it was time to clean up and assess the damage. As I purposely kicked the door right below the lock, the door fortunately suffered no damage. I thought the lock might need to be replaced, but it just kind of fell out of the door due to the kick. Once I screwed the lock back into the door, it was fine. The door jamb, however, was another story. As the deadbolt and lock had to break through the door jamb, it splintered and pulled out of the cement. Not only was one side of the door jamb in shambles, but there were now sizeable holes in wall that the door jamb pulled away. However, in the end, I only ended up only having to have that one side of the door jamb rebuilt and the cement on the wall that tore away with the door jamb patched up. Then both the piece of wall that was patched, the door frame, and the door were repainted. Everything now looks good as new. OK, it didn’t look good as new even before the incident. The door pretty much looks the way it was before this whole episode — maybe even a little bit better with the new coats of paint.

So that is the story of my superhero moment. I never aspired to be a superhero and wouldn’t have freely chosen to be put in in this kind of situation. Then again, I don’t think anyone wants to be put in a situation where they have to be a superhero. However, people often find themselves in these types of no-win situations and must dig deep and do it when they need to. I just wish my opportunity had been in service of a more noble cause than breaking into my own house. Maybe next time, God willing.

Good is good.

I never wanted a Twitter account. In fact, I intentionally tried to stay as far away from Twitter as possible. While I have considered having a HOPE Project Twitter account to try to publicize the work that we do, that would simply be for posting content about our work, not to engage in any type of discourse. Like what I do on Facebook. I don’t think civil discourse is even possible on Twitter anymore from what I have seen of it. But I must admit that I now have a Twitter account. However, it is not for any reason that you would guess.

Power outages are a way of life in Kenya.  The power can go off at any time and for no apparent reason, such as inclement weather. I suspect that the underlying reasons are things like equipment failure and supply shortfalls.  Not only does the power go off with no advance warning, but you are in the dark (both literally and figuratively) as to when the power will be restored. There are no public service announcements to inform people about what is going on.

Typically, the outage lasts less than an hour, but it could last several hours or a whole day. You just do not know. Power is usually restored by nightfall. Kenyans tell me that this is because workers wait until after normal work hours to do real work so that they can collect overtime.

I probably should not really be complaining about power as many of our HOPE families do not even have electricity in their homes. In my defense, I am completely dependent on a computer and internet access for my ministry work. No power means no use of a computer and no internet.

If random power outages of uncertain duration are not bad enough in the office, I have been battling with an even worse situation at home. Since the beginning of the year. I’ve been without power at home for four days, another time for three days, and another time for two days. When I looked out the windows during these periods, there were lights all around and everyone had electricity except me – not a good feeling. As it turned out, the power line from the pole to my house runs underground and was very old and needed to be changed. The wire was corroded and would not stay securely attached to the power line on the pole.

However, getting the power company here to fix the problem was no easy task. I had to literally call the power company five times or more a day every day to finally get them to come, which usually occurred several days after I began my calling campaign. All I ever got from customer service was the equivalent of “the check is in the mail” response to my calls, but no one ever showed up. When someone finally showed up, all I could get them to do was simply reattach the wire to restore power, but not actually fix the underlying corrosion issue. There was always some excuse as to why they could not run a new above ground wire at that time. In typical fashion, the technicians would show up after dark. While it was not too dark for them to climb the pole (there are no boom trucks, so a technician actually climbs the pole), it was apparently too dark to run the new power wire. Otherwise, they couldn’t run the wire because their shift was over. Each time, I was promised that someone would come back tomorrow to run a new above ground wire, but by now as you can guess, no one ever showed up. This initiated more calls to the power company and more empty promises and excuses. The excuse I like the best is that they had to procure the wire. Doesn’t a power company stock wire? Isn’t this what they do?

Lest you think this is because I am not Kenyan, I enlisted my landlord in the battle. He is Kenyan and had no better luck than me. Like most Kenyans, he is resigned to the fact that like most things in Kenya, the power company is completely corrupt. The second time my electricity went out this year for the three days, he had to pay a private contractor to reattach the power line back to the pole as we just could not get the power company to respond. After having been previously without electricity for four days and now for three days, I had had enough and begged him to do something. Alas, this was just a temporary fix and as we all knew would happen, the connection came loose again.

This brings me to last week. As expected, power wire detached again, and I was without electricity for two days this time. My landlord called the power company several times a day and through the grace of God they showed up on the second day to reattach the power line. Again, I was promised that someone would come the next day to install a new above ground wire. As expected, no came and calls to the power company lead to more empty promises. At least I had power for the time being. The next day when I came home from work, there was a crew working on my street. I explained to the crew my situation and was again promised that someone would come tomorrow. Even though they were right there working, they told me that they do not have wire with them, which I’m sure was not true. When I called customer service, the told me the wire needed to be procured. What kind of power repair crew does not have wire in the truck? What kind of power company doesn’t have wire readily available? As you can guess, no one showed up the next day.

At this point I was at my wit’s end. I knew it was just a matter of time before the power line disconnected again and I would be without power for God only knows how many days until the power company showed up to reattach the line. It would mean multiple daily calls to the power company and putting up with more lies and promises that mean nothing.

A Kenyan friend of mine, who not only does not have a Twitter account, but does not even have a smart phone, suggested that I tweet at the power company. He had heard that when you tweet, the power company responds. With nothing to lose, for the first time in my life, I created a twitter account and tweeted for the first time.

I got a quick reply.

I probably should have started my Twitter campaign a little more diplomatically, but by this point I was beyond frustrated. After hearing nothing further, a few days later, I tweeted.

To which they replied,

A few days later, I tweeted again.

This prompted the following reply.

I had plans to step up my Twitter campaign and be even more aggressive as I just could not take it anymore. Then lo and behold, the next day I get a call stating that they are coming to install a new power wire to the house. I was in the office and dropped everything to rush home to meet them. I didn’t want to provide them with any excuse not to fix the corroded wire. If I was not there when they arrived, they would not wait and all my efforts to this point would have been wasted.

I am happy to say that there is a happy ending to this story. The crew did show up around an hour after calling me and ran a brand new above power line to the house. They tell me that this new power line is secure and should not come loose. While that remains to be seen, I am so grateful to have power and not have to live under the constant fear of the line detaching and being plunged into darkness for an unknown period of time while having to beg for someone to come fix my power.

I have to say this whole Twitter experience was both empowering and sad. I am certain that without my tweets, I would still have the old, corroded power line and be living under the shadow of a ticking power outage time bomb. On the other hand, it is so sad that I had to resort to using Twitter to cudgel the power company into doing what they should have done all along.

It is funny that, like companies all over the world, the power company here bent to the will of a small minority, in my case a minority of one, of vocal activists. I had just opened my Twitter account and had no followers. It is sad that Twitter users with not many more followers than me have been the cause of people losing their jobs and ruining their lives. I was not attempting to do anything like that. I just wanted someone to fix my power line.

I can see how people can get addicted to the power they can potentially yield with Twitter. It really costs you nothing. You don’t have to sacrifice anything for the cause. Unless you are outed, you can tweet in complete anonymity. Twitter mobs require no investment on the part of the participants. This is what I see as the big issue with people who use Twitter in this manner. Any progress made without sacrifice is not real progress. (OK, I just wrote that, but then I Googled it to see if anyone had said something like this before. I found this quote by James Allen. Since I was not previously familiar with this quote, I’m taking credit! My thoughts on this topic come from a biblical perspective. In a fallen world, to truly live, to truly progress requires sacrifice, which is demonstrated to us by the suffering and death of Jesus.)

It is easy to sit behind your computer and batter people with tweets when you do not have to put any skin in the game. Unfortunately, while this behavior may make you feel virtuous, it is inauthentic. We instead need people who will invest in what is good and be willing to make sacrifices for the good of others. Tweets do not do this.

God is good.

During the COVID lockdowns, I was forced like most Catholics to resort to streaming Mass online. Although I watched Masses from practically all over the world during the lockdowns, I most often watched Mass from the Crypt Chapel of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. It wasn’t that I necessarily desired to watch Mass from our nation’s capital, but rather the fact that the Basilica had a prerecorded Mass that I could watch on Sunday morning. Although many churches now prerecord the Sunday Mass, the National Basilica was one of the first places to do this and make it available before Sunday. This mattered to me because of the time difference between the US and Kenya, which is eight hours ahead of US EST. I’ve always gone to Mass in the morning – almost exclusively early morning (8 AM or earlier). In fact, although it may have happened, I can’ think of single time when I attended a Sunday evening Mass, with the exception of when I was in college. My development into a morning person had not yet been fully realized. The prerecorded Masses from the Basilica allowed me to watch the Sunday Mass in the early morning (Kenya time) during the lockdowns.

The National Basilica is purported to be the largest Catholic Church in North America. Some sites claim in to be the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Although the Sunday Mass is live streamed from the magnificent main church, the prerecorded Mass that I watched is celebrated in the Crypt Chapel, which is also very beautiful and located on the lower level of the Basilica.

Located prominently above the sanctuary of the main church of the Basilica is a huge mosaic named “Christ in Majesty”. It is not a depiction of Christ that we are normally used to and is often referred to as “Scary Jesus” due to our Lord’s rather stern disposition in the mosaic rendering.  Although as I’ve mentioned, the prerecorded Mass is celebrated in the lower Crypt Church, pictures of “Scary Jesus” are often shown in the prerecorded Mass as the video incorporates shots from other locations within the basilica.

Seeing that representation of Jesus on Sundays really got me thinking. In today’s culture, many people prefer to think of Jesus as a cross between a hippie flower child and a Marxist. Although I profess and believe with every fiber of my being that Jesus is all-loving and merciful, I also know that He is our creator, redeemer and our judge.  Jesus humbled Himself to become one of us, to be born in a stable, to subject Himself to extreme persecution and punishment and to eventually to die an ignominious death on a cross, having been abandoned by almost all his closest friends. But Jesus is also God, who is eternal and all-powerful, the one who created everything there is out of nothing. While Jesus exhibits His power through humility and self-sacrifice, He is still our all-powerful God.

Fear of the Lord is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is also talked about extensively in scripture. Today, we don’t like to think or refer to God in this way even though fear of the Lord has nothing to do with God wanting us to be afraid of Him. We are His beloved children. Rather, fear of the Lord means that God should be the most important thing in your life and that everything in your life should flow from and be subordinate to your love of God. What I believe is also often missing in our current age is a sense of awe of God – a reverence for His power and majesty. This is what I believe is meant by fear of the Lord. I think this is why the “Scary Jesus” mosaic appeals to me so much.

With the current priority given to science and social justice issues, it is not surprising that fear of the Lord has taken a back seat. Today’s culture looks to government and human efforts to fix all the world’s problems and fulfill all our needs. Neither science nor justice nor government is antithetical to God, but they are not God. I have engineering and physics degrees and have been immersed in science and technology my whole life. Science enables us to understand the world in which we live. Science gives us glimpses into the “mind” of God, who created all there is But I fully understand science is not God. I believe that we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the creation which God has entrusted to us, but again, this creation is not God.

When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus tell us that we should love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. I love this passage not only for the fact that in it Jesus tells us how to properly order our lives, but that this is based on the Jewish Shema prayer that Jesus would have prayed daily as an observant Jew. “Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) What could be better that praying what Jesus prayed. Jesus then proceeds to state that the second commandment is like the first, that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. We cannot truly love God if we don’t love others, but in this passage, Jesus teaches that our love of others can only flow from our love of God. Love of God precedes love of neighbor. In fact, we know that Jesus took this teaching even further and taught that we must also love our enemies. I think it is easier for us to wrap our minds around the fact that love of God precedes love of enemy (although loving our enemy is itself not easy to wrap our heads around!), but love of neighbor and love of enemy are really one and the same.

Jesus goes so far as to say that “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” While that seems rather harsh, Jesus is again calling us to love God and then to love everything else for the sake of God. Our love for even our own family can only truly flow from our love of God. Jesus us compels us to put Him first in our lives and to find meaning for everything else in our lives, including our love of others, in relation to our love for Him. St. Augustine put it this way. “Anyone who does not love Him Who made man has not learned to love man aright.” God does not compete for our love. God is love itself and sustains us in being out of love. True love can only flow from God, who is love. Remember Jesus’s words: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father.”

One of the Mysteries of the Rosary that never felt quite satisfying to me is the Finding of Jesus in the temple. When Jesus was twelve years old, Mary and Joseph traveled with Jesus to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, which they did every year. Upon departing, Mary and Joseph thought that Jesus was in caravan of family and friends returning home, but he had actually remained behind in Jerusalem. When after traveling a day, they discovered Jesus was missing, Mary and Joseph frantically searched for Jesus and when not finding him in the caravan, returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days, they found Jesus in the temple, listening to and asking questions of the teachers. Mary, understandably upset, says to Jesus “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” Jesus responds in a manner that Mary and Joseph did not understand, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

For most of my life, I simply looked at the finding of Jesus in the temple as a joyful mystery because of Mary and Joseph’s joy at finding Jesus, which is certainly true. But like every word of God, there are layers and layers that we can spend our lifetime unpacking. I now see the joy in this mystery as having more to do with Jesus teaching us (like in the Beatitudes) how to rightly order our lives to live joyfully. Jesus is telling us that we can only live joyful lives when we align our lives with God’s creative intention for us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven (an oldie but goodie from the Baltimore catechism).

God is good.

May is one of my favorite months – not only because it is the month of my birth😊 , but living in the northeast US for all of my life before coming to Kenya, May is the time when the page on winter has definitively turned. Yes, spring technically begins in April, but we have had a number of blizzards in April during my lifetime. For that reason alone, April is eliminated from the discussion. Mother’s Day is celebrated in May. May is the time when flowers bloom and of new beginnings. Even in Mombasa, May is the time when the oppressive heat and humidity of the hot season breaks. The weather becomes absolutely perfect this time of year.

May is also the month when the Church honors the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph the Worker. May is when the great Solemnity of Pentecost and the Feast of the Ascension are often celebrated. The Feast of the Holy Trinity is celebrated the Sunday after Pentecost, which also sometimes falls in May. In 2021 with Easter celebrated at the beginning of April, the Feasts of the Ascension, Pentecost and the Trinity Sunday were all celebrated in May.

There are also many great feast days of saints in May including St. Damien of Molokai, whose memorial falls on my birthday. Father Damien died of leprosy at the age of 49 while caring for the spiritual and physical needs of victims of leprosy in Hawaii. I’m so happy to have the feast day of such heroic model of charity and mercy celebrated on my birthday.

Tucked in at the end of the month on May 31, last but not least, is the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which celebrates the visit made by Mary, pregnant with the baby Jesus, to her cousin Elizabeth. We are all familiar with Luke’s well-loved account of how at the sound of Mary’s greeting, the pregnant Elizabeth felt the infant Saint John the Baptist jump in her womb.

Bishop Robert Barron recently posted four terrific videos to pray each of the sets of mysteries of the rosary – Glorious, Joyful, Sorrowful, and Luminous – on his YouTube channel. As he introduces each of the five decades, he gives a wonderful meditation on the mystery for that decade. What is a bit unique about Bishop Barron’s meditations is that he approaches them from the perspective of mission. As I’m currently serving in mission, this is a topic that is always first and foremost on my mind and in my prayers. I’m always asking myself questions like why am I here, what am I accomplishing, am I really doing God’s will, am I doing the right things, am I doing what I’m doing for the right reasons. I constantly implore God to help me to love more, be more merciful and give more fully of myself in imitation of Jesus as I do, and sometimes struggle through, my ministry work.

It may seem strange for me to be asking myself these types of questions when I have already been in Kenya for several years, but I think it is important that each and every one of us continually asks ourselves these kinds of questions. By virtue of our baptism, all Christians are called to be missionary disciples. We are not all called to serve overseas, but we are all called to share God’s love and mercy with all people while living out our everyday lives. Pope Francis says that being a missionary disciple does not mean conquering, mandating, or proselytizing, but rather witnessing, humbling oneself alongside other disciples and offering with love the love that we ourselves received.

Following Bishop Barron’s inspiration and given that we are currently in the month of May with the Feast of the Visitation fast approaching, I’ve been thinking a lot about Mary’s visit to Elizabeth in terms of mission and what I can learn from this biblical event. The Visitation, which is the second Joyful Mystery, centers on Mary’s response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to set out on a mission of charity to help her cousin Elizabeth.

In his Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus, Pope Paul VI reflects on the fact that the Feast of the Visitation is centered on the Blessed Virgin carrying her Son within her and visiting Elizabeth to offer charitable assistance and to proclaim the mercy of God. In other words, Mary, carrying Jesus in her womb, set out on mission.

In the first Joyful Mystery, the Annunciation, which precedes the Mystery of the Visitation, Mary says yes to God: “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.” As he did with Mary, God also calls each of us to mission and to participate in His works of mercy and salvation. Like Mary, we must respond, we must answer the call. God seeks us out and asks for a response, but never forces Himself upon us.

We hear in the account of the Visitation that Saint John the Baptist leaped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb. Mission must be done in a spirit of joy as we bring the authentic joy that only Jesus can give to those we encounter. In mission we bring the joy of the Gospel to others as Mary joyfully brought Jesus in her womb to Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist. Like Mary, we offer joyfully with love, the love which we have received from our heavenly Father.

In the account of the Visitation, we hear that Mary went in haste to share the gift of Jesus to others. As a pregnant woman, she embarked on an 80 kilometer journey over difficult and unsafe terrain to visit her cousin Elizabeth and help her in her time of need.  Like Mary, we are called to be missionary disciples and bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to others – even in difficult circumstances, even when it is not popular as it most often is not in today’s secular world. Jesus exhorts us to be the light to the world.

Mary went in haste. She did not procrastinate or make excuses. She followed the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and set out immediately. We are called in the midst of our everyday lives to respond in charity and mercy to our brothers and sisters when needed. Words are not enough. We must love God through our actions, by loving our neighbor, by seeing Jesus in others and having others see Jesus in us in the concreate and most often messy reality of our everyday lives. We are called to respond in haste – now not later.

When Mary set off on mission, she didn’t set out to abolish poverty or end world hunger. Her time with Elizabeth most likely simply consisted of helping Elizabeth with domestic chores – washing clothes, sweeping the mud floor, cleaning, fetching water, preparing meals, and washing dishes. As Mary’s example shows us, it’s not what we do, but that we do things with great love as Mary did.

As I’ve written about many times previously, one of my primary inspirations for the way I try to live my life as a missionary disciple is St. Therese of Lisieux – a cloistered nun who died at the age of 24. It wasn’t that Therese accomplished great things, but that she sought out a life of holiness in the ordinary and the everyday. It wasn’t that she was perfect in following the Lord, but that she strove to do the small things with great love and answered God’s call to holiness. St. Therese said that “Our Lord does not so much look at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them.” This is my number one mantra for living my life in mission – something which I strive for, but unfortunately do not always live up to. Like all of us, all I can do is keep trying and leave the rest to God, trusting in his goodness and knowing that he is with me even when I fail, which I often do.

Both Mary and Elizabeth submitted to God’s providence. Both Mary and Elizabeth were pulled completely out of their comfort zones by God’s call. God asked each of them to do things that they had not planned to do and didn’t necessarily want to do. Mary, a virgin, was greatly trouble by what the angel Gabriel told her and asked, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” Elizabeth was thought to be barren and both she and Zechariah were advanced in years. Elizabeth was beyond child bearing age, but she trusted God’s plan at work in her. As Gabriel told Mary concerning Elizabeth conceiving a son in her old age, “nothing will be impossible for God.” Neither Mary nor Elizabeth knew the details of God’s grand plan for their lives, but trusted and submitted themselves completely to God’s will. We are called to do the same in our own lives. This is not an easy thing to do as we all want to be in control of our lives, but Jesus calls us to something radically different – “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Living a life of missionary discipleship means proclaiming the Gospel in our everyday lives by living in humble witness to Jesus Christ in all that we do. Mission is not about serving overseas or accomplishing great things, but responding and offering ourselves in love at the time and place God calls us, in good times and in bad, when it is convenient and when it is not. Fortunately for us, our life as missionary discipleship doesn’t depend on our own strengths or abilities, but rather on Jesus. All we have to do is say yes as Mary did. All we have to do is trust and leave the rest up to our loving Savior, who will pick us up and carry us if needed.

God is good.

During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

Luke 1:39-45

Sr. Pauline and I made homemade pasta yesterday. I doubt if many, if any, other people in Kenya make their own homemade pasta. Sister didn’t even know what homemade pasta was before I showed her, but she is now an expert pasta maker — an honorary Italian.

Sr. Pauline is one of my (and the other Maryknoll Lay Missioners here in Mombasa) dear friends and a close collaborator of mine in my HOPE ministry work. Sr. Pauline is the Director of the Pontifical Missionary Societies (PMS) in the Archdiocese of Mombasa.  Her congregation, the Daughters of Divine Love, lets us use their facilities for tutorials and other HOPE actives such as uniform measurements and distributions as well as handing out food to needy families.

The key to the whole pasta making endeavor was a pasta maker. I never expected to see one in Kenya. I have one of my own stored in my sister’s basement in Rhode Island along with the rest of my wordy possessions, but that is half a world away. It’s not that you can’t make pasta without a pasta maker. Obviously people made pasta long before pasta makers were invented, but making pasta completely by hand without any equipment is even more work than I’m willing to put in. This from the person who has always loved pasta, or macaroni as Rhode Island Italians more popularly call it, as evidenced from the one memory that sticks with me from my childhood. When I was making my first communion, my dad asked me what I wanted to have for Sunday dinner that day. My immediate and unequivocal answer was ravioli. As macaroni is technically defined as dried pasta, I suppose what Sr. Pauline and I made should accurately be called pasta and not macaroni. I’ll save the Italian gravy (meat sauce for those not Italian) conversation for another day.

So what is a pasta maker doing in Kenya? Well, it turns out that the other sister who lives with Sr. Pauline is Nigerian. Sr. Chinekwu makes a number of different kinds of delicious snacks like roasted nuts. Another snack that she makes is called chin chin.  Chin chin is a popular Nigerian fried snack made from dough cut into small pieces and deep fried until crunchy. I love chin chin and often get it, as well as roasted nuts, from Sr. Chinekwu.

One day I was visiting Sr. Pauline and we were sitting down having chai (Kenyan tea made with milk). Lo and behold, I saw a pasta maker on top of the cabinet where the dishes and glasses are stored. What is that I asked and went over to take a closer look. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It turns out that Sr. Chinekwu had brought the pasta maker from Nigeria and uses it to make the chin chin. I had just assumed that she made the chin chin completely by hand (again, requiring more patience than I would ever have).

I told sister that this was really a pasta maker and that we had to make homemade pasta. Ever since that time, sister had been asking to make the homemade pasta I told her about and yesterday was the day. The one challenge we had is that the sisters do not have a measuring cup, which was unimaginable to me or I would have brought one from home. This meant we had to eyeball everything. This necessitated bit of finagling with the amount of flour to get the right consistency, but we eventually worked it out. We just made a simple tomato sauce to put on the pasta. I brought basil and oregano with me as Kenyans are not really familiar with these herbs and so don’t stock have them in their pantries. Of course, we used real, not canned, tomatoes, for the sauce. The meal came out delicious (especially given the flour debacle that we had to overcome) and sister loved it. We made two batches of pasta so that we could share with others. I never imagined I would be enjoying homemade pasta in Mombasa, Kenya.

Although I sometimes do it, making pasta (or ravioli for that matter) is typically not the kind of thing I like doing alone. To me cooking, especially something like making pasta, is much more enjoyable doing with someone else. What better thing is there than cooking with someone then sitting down together and enjoying the fruits of your labor. I often cook with my sister. While that’s on hold until I return home, it’s something I’m very much looking forward to doing together again.

Maybe the world would be a better place if we all started cooking together.

Mungu ni mwema. God is good.

As we start 2021 I find it hard to believe that I’ve been in Kenya for two years. While I feel I’ve accomplished a lot in my time here so far, part of me wishes that I had been able to do more. While some of my dissatisfaction can be attributed to the circumstances caused by the pandemic in 2020, it mostly comes down to the fact that I have lofty goals for my ministry, which are not easy and take time to accomplish. As I’ve stated many times before, patience is definitely not one of my greatest virtues. When I step back from things, I can see that my impatience has much to do with me both wanting to be in control of things and my aversion to the slightest inconvenience in achieving what I want. However, in the midst of daily struggles, it’s hard to see with that perspective. I know that I need to trust God more. I firmly believe that He is in charge and that everything will work out for good according to His plans. However, for me, that is often times easier said than done, especially with respect to ordinary, everyday things. I often times fail to see the forest for the trees, so to speak, when I am only focused on doing and not adequately reflecting on what and why I’m doing something.

I’m not very big on New Year’s resolutions. For me, life is a continuous battle to improve and become the person that God made me to be. Rather than make resolutions, what is more beneficial to me is to continuously reflect on where I am, where I’ve been and where I want to go. As I stated, the one thing that jumps out at me, which is not new as I’ve known this for a long time, but have not been terribly successful in overcoming it, is that I get frustrated and irritated by small things. These are by no means big life changing events, but the small mundane challenges that are just a part of everyday life. These are things that each of us face every day, although we all have our own pet peeves that are unique to us.

From a big picture perspective, I have everything I want. I love my work and am doing exactly what I want to be doing and what I feel God is calling me to do at this particular point in my life. I have no health or money issues.  I love my family and friends — including my “family” and friends here in Kenya. So, what’s the problem?

My dad used to have a book, which some of you may know, called “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and It’s All Small Stuff”, which he kept on his nightstand. The book gave ideas on how to keep from letting the little things in life drive you crazy. Just the title itself is really all the wisdom you need – especially the second half – as it truly is all small stuff. If we actually believe in the beneficence of God, what worries do we really have.

The book also contains other gems like “Ask yourself this question: Will this matter a year from now?”. Usually the petty things I get aggravated about won’t matter a day from now, or many times not even an hour from now, much less a year from now. Again, really small stuff.

I could blame much of my woe on the circumstances of life here in Kenya as many of the things I complain and get aggravated about were not an issue for me before I came here. They just weren’t things I had to worry about and therefore never caused me any angst. However, this would be disingenuous. Although I didn’t have these same small things to sweat about before coming to Kenya, I was more than able to find other things at the time to complain and be irritated about. As I believe it is with all things in life, it is not the circumstance, but how we react to the circumstances that really matters. This is not meant to imply that people don’t have real problems and very difficult circumstances and even tragedies to overcome in their lives. However, as I’ve witnessed many times firsthand, especially here in Kenya, circumstances and joy are not linked. I’ve met many people in my life who seem to have everything and yet are not joyful. On the other hand, I’ve met many people who have nothing and yet are very joyful. True joy transcends circumstances – exactly what Jesus teaches in the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount — “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

This past year has been stressful for everyone. The lockdowns have caused financial hardship, isolation, an inability to do many of the things we love and enjoy, suboptimal learning situations for those in school, and separation from friends and loved ones – especially on the holidays or events like funerals when want to be with those we love to mourn the loss of a loved one.

As usual, we can take comfort and find inspiration in the lives and words of the saints – people who had the same issues and everyday challenges as us, but rose above them. St. Ignatius of Loyola, went so far as to say “As far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life.” In other words, true faith and trust in God allows you to live detached from your life circumstances with all its ups and downs. Easy to say, but hard to do. This reliance on God enables us to transcend our current situation. As Jesus showed us on the cross, this kind of detachment is true freedom and true happiness.

I came across this excerpt from Fulton Sheen’s Guide to Contentment, which really gets to the heart of the matter. Using St. Francis of Assisi as an example, he says the following.

“If St. Francis had been sent to a Siberian labor camp, or to a leper colony, or to a Wall Street brokerage firm, would he be any less a St. Francis? But how many mortals there are in the world who are one kind of character in need, another kind of character in plenty, who grumble amidst the uncomfortable, and who become possessed by possessions.

“St. Francis remains the same in all circumstances; the non-St. Francis types, like a chameleon, take on the color of the leaf on which they rest. Why the difference?

“Because St. Francis is more free.

“That seems at first far-fetched, but when is a man free? Negatively, he is free when he is not determined by outward circumstances, for example, when he is not in chains among prisoners, when he is not downcast with the despairing, when he is so far above environment as to be uninfluenced by it.

“He does not revolve around the world; the world revolves about him. It does not make his moods; he is free from moods. St. Paul said that he was content whether he abounded or whether he was in want.

“But whence comes this psychological independence of the external, of maintaining an even spirit in a world of constantly changing lights and shadows? It comes from dependence on God. In fact, every true Declaration of Independence is a Declaration of Dependence. . . .“

One of the wonderful things that has arisen out of the depths of the pandemic and its associated lockdowns is the wealth of Catholic ministries that have provided free online content in the form of conferences, scripture studies, virtual pilgrimages and digital retreats. One of the online Advent retreats I participated in was run by Chris Stefanick that focused on the theme of unshakeable joy. The reflections revolve around the idea of how joy doesn’t depend on a change in your circumstances, but a change in you and how different life would be if we actually lived like that was true. This is the secret to unshakeable joy. All we need to do is ask God for the grace to really believe it and to live it.

As I write this on the Feast of the Epiphany, I reflect on the familiar story of the wise men recounted in today’s Gospel. They prostrated themselves before the infant Jesus and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts. But what can I offer Jesus? It’s not like God needs anything. In fact, anything I offer Him is in reality something that He gave me as everything that we have comes from God. We only possess what we have because God gave it to us.

I’m working in Kenya as a missioner trying to do the best I can working among those who have little. God doesn’t need me to solve the world’s problems, which I obviously can’t do no matter how hard I try. But that is not what God is asking of us anyways.  What He asks is that we give ourselves to Him by loving and trusting Him. And we can only love Him by loving others. God doesn’t need our help, but He wills that we want to help and that we try to help. Through my ministry work, I hopefully make a small difference in the lives of those I encounter, but know that through my feeble efforts, God is also making a change in me.

I still struggle with the trivial issues I face in my life. That is, I still sweat the small stuff. As I offer myself to Jesus on this Feast of the Epiphany, I offer all of myself to Him – including my inability to stop sweating the small stuff. It is part of who I am. It’s not perfect, but it’s me. That’s all I got. But I proceed forward knowing that my ultimate joy rests in Jesus. I ask God for the grace to truly believe this and to live like I truly believe it.

Mungu ni mwema. God is good.

I live in my own small house in a suburb of Mombasa. I chose to live where I do because I wanted to be both close to work and to a church. My house fulfills both these requirements. Although it took me almost four months to finally find this place in September of last year, I’m so happy I persevered.

My HOPE Project ministry office is in the Community Center on the grounds (in Kenya they would use the word compound as it is behind walls and a gate with security) of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. My house is directly behind the church and I can walk from home to the church and the office in about five minutes.

St. Mary’s has daily Masses and a Eucharistic Adoration Chapel, where the Blessed Sacrament is always exposed. It is a vibrant parish with a large religious education program. There is always some sort of activity going on and lots of kids around doing chores or activities after school and on Saturdays. This is one of the two locations where we run tutorials for HOPE students. The parish is staffed by three priests. This is my spiritual home here in Kenya.

Although a supermarket has opened within walking distance of my house, and I’m happy it did as I used to have to travel to “town” to get certain things, I try to support my neighbors by buying most food and home items from local shops and street vendors close to the house – everything from bread and eggs to bananas and cabbage to soap and toilet paper.

My house is also behind its own wall and gate, that is, it is in its own small compound. Although I don’t have a security guard, I feel completely safe here. Although I don’t know everyone on my street or in the immediate vicinity, they all know who I am as I not surprisingly stand out. The houses are very close together and everyone looks out for one another.

One thing I did not want when I came to Kenya was to do yard work. After taking care of houses my whole adult life, I was done with it – mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, raking the leaves, etc. OK, there are no leaves to rake in Kenya, but after living in Massachusetts for twenty years with a yard with lots of trees and abutting conservation land that had lots more trees, I’ve done enough leaf cleanup to satisfy several lifetimes.

Yet here I am living in a house with grass (granted more weeds than grass, but still needs to be maintained) and partially surrounded by hedges that need to constantly be trimmed (as things grow fast here.) My sister likes to remind me of the fact that I chose to live in a house with maintenance whenever I complain about it. Fortunately, I have someone, Caro, who comes help with the yardwork, although I was doing everything myself when travel wasn’t allowed due to the coronavirus lockdown.

There are no lawn mowers to be found in Kenya, or at least that I’ve seen. Not that I would need one for my little patch ground. This means that the grass/weeds need to be trimmed by hand using what is called a “slasher” in Kenya. I don’t know what it’s proper name is – perhaps a sickle or a scythe. Every time I have to “slash” the grass, I first say a prayer asking God to let me complete the work with as many digits as I started. Luckily, with travel restrictions relaxed and Caro coming again, I can leave this dangerous work to a pro again.

In Kenya, the renter is responsible for pretty much everything. If a faucet leaks or breaks, you have to get a plumber replace it. If a power outlet or overhead light stops working, you need to have it fixed. Insect problem, you have to hire a service to remedy the issue. As a landlord of property in the US, I wish things worked this way there! I always end up on the wrong side of things!

With a yard and tropical weather in which most fruits and vegetables can grow year-round, I thought it would be a good idea to grow some of my own food. Caro and I planted some vegetables last year – butternut squash, kale and spinach.  Although the vegetables grew well and tasted great, I decided it was entirely too much work. I would have to spend well over a half hour picking the greens, washing them, pulling the leaves off the stems, and then chopping them. Or, I could just walk to the roadside stand few minutes away and buy enough to last me a whole week already chopped and bagged for less than 50 cents.  There are only so many hours in a week and I can barely get want I need to get accomplished done.

I’ve now shifted my strategy to growing fruit and have several papaya trees in progress. They are coming along well, although still a way off from any potential fruit. That is, if they do produce fruit. As I’m told (I don’t know any of this stuff), there is no way to tell if the tree is female, and thus will bear fruit, or male, and just stand there spreading its seeds, until the tree either produces fruit or not. So, all this effort could be in vain if all my papaya trees end up being male. But what are the odds of that? I’m guessing 50%. I already inherited two apparently male papaya trees when I moved in. We got already rid of one them as it was taking up needed space.

By this point you are probably wondering why I titled this post the Banana Chronicles when there have been no bananas in sight (except for the fact that I buy bananas from a local street vendor.) Not to worry, we’re finally there. 

Before I moved into the house, my landlord had planted a banana tree in the yard. When I moved in over a year ago, the tree was already pretty much full grown, but with no signs of bananas. I watched this tree just sit there for six months. Nothing. I then threatened to cut it down. Nothing. Then one day, before I even knew what happened, there appeared a whole bunch of growing bananas on the tree. Yes! Success! I love bananas and eat at least one and many times two a day.

But then … the bananas got so heavy that the tree was bent over by the weight of the bananas so that the bananas were resting on the ground. Oh no.  What do we do now? We got a local shop to make a piece of wood in the shape of a “Y” that we could use to prop up the banana tree.

Problem solved. Or so we thought. Although the propping up the tree with the “Y” worked well for several months (yes this is a long process), eventually as the bananas continued to grow, their weight caused the tree to snap completely in half and the bunch of bananas to crash to the ground. When I noticed the situation one morning on my way to the office, I was in full panic mode. All that time and effort and my dreams of virtually unlimited bananas up in smoke. I was worried all was lost. 

However, I was told to calm down and that everything would be fine. Although still very deep green and hard, the bananas were apparently far enough along that they would just ripen on their own removed from the tree. (Again, I don’t know anything about this stuff. I’m a city boy.)

So, we cut the bananas from the fallen tree and placed them aside to ripen. I waited impatiently for a banana, any banana, to ripen. After what seemed like eternity, but was in reality only one week, a few bananas seemed ripe enough to eat. I picked one out of the bunch, peeled it, and took a bite. Perfection! In fact, it tasted better than the bananas I normally buy. I am told (again, I don’t know anything about this stuff), that there are different kind of bananas and that some taste better than others. I don’t know what kind of bananas these were, but they were very good.

Unfortunately, now all the bananas were starting to ripen. Panic sets in again. What am I going to do with so many bananas? The obvious answer was to give them away. So, I gave a bunch away to Caro and some of the students – my neighbors already have plenty of their own banana trees with bananas. I’m the only one on my street who is fruit deficient, but I’m on a mission to change that.

However, I didn’t want to give all the bananas away. All that work. All that anticipation. I didn’t want everything to be gone in an instant. Although I ate my fare share, even a lover of bananas couldn’t keep up. Eventually the bananas were starting to get past the point that I like them.

What to do now? Well what else do you do with overripe bananas but make banana bread. But this was going to be a lot of banana bread.  As those of you who bake banana bread know, you want the bananas to get pretty nasty so that the starch is pretty much all broken down into sugar. So, I waited until they were completely black and started baking.

I gave some banana bread to Caro and some to my neighbors. I also brought two banana breads to tutorials for the students. After lunch we launched into the banana bread. I bought a 2L bottle of soda for them to drink. As if the banana bread didn’t already provide them enough of a sugar fix!

Kenyans love Fanta – especially Fanta Orange. They much prefer it over Coke or Sprite. I guess because it’s sweeter. I don’t really like soda to begin with. The idea of Fanta Orange, well I won’t go there. But Fanta Orange it was—for the students, not me. Fanta Orange and banana bread. Yum? I’m not sure what soda goes with banana bread anyway.

Even though the students never had banana bread before, they really liked it, evidenced by the fact that they all had pretty generous helpings.  Like when you bring something good into the office and everyone seems to know about it, it was like there was a special alert that went out notifying everyone we had desert. So not surprisingly, some of the parish staff who were around magically appeared. But we were happy to share.

There is no more banana bread left. I don’t have room to freeze it, so that was not an option. There are sadly no more bananas on the horizon either, at least in the short term, but we are making plans for more banana trees. This time we need to figure out a better way to keep the trees from falling over and breaking. My dream is to have a constant supply of bananas all year round. I know that’s probably not possible, but I can always dream.

Mungu ni mwema. God is good.

World Mission Sunday, which takes place on the next-to-last Sunday of October each year (which this year is October 18), is the day when as a Church we all come together to recommit ourselves to our baptismal call to be missionaries. Yes, each of us is called to be a missionary by virtue of our baptism— not just priests and religious, not just those serving in foreign countries, but each and every one of us (cf. Mt 28:19). Pope Francis emphasizes this fact in his apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”) where he teaches that all the members of the people of God have become missionary disciples through baptism and that each of us is called to be personally involved in the missionary work of the church. This is not just a collective responsibility, but a personal responsibility of every person baptized in Christ Jesus.

As those who read what I write are aware, one of my favorite doctrines of the Church is that of the Communion of Saints in which the saints in heaven, the souls in purgatory and the faithful here on earth are bound together in spiritual solitary in the mystical body of Christ. We exist not only as individuals, but more importantly as members of Christ’s mystical body as St. Paul so wonderfully tells us. Many of us pray to patron saints for specific needs. Who has not prayed to St. Anthony for a lost item? However, the saints are not just porcelain statues who interceded for us, but real people who lived real lives with the same struggles as you and me. Some of the saints didn’t even live very saintly lives for much of their lives— St. Dismas, the Good Thief crucified next to Jesus at Calvary being the perfect example. However, God’s love and mercy is inexhaustible, which is good news for me as a sinner who needs God’s mercy. To me the saints are examples of those who have fought the good fight and finished the race. (cf. 2 Timothy 4:7).  Interestingly, the Church has given us not one, but two patron saints for missionaries and missions— two examples of missionary discipleship for us to emulate and call on for help. Both have something important and unique to teach us.

The first, St. Francis Xavier, is what most of us think of when we hear the word missionary. Francis Xavier was born in Spain in 1506. When he was 19, he went to study at the University of Paris on his way to becoming a priest. While at the University of Paris, he became friends with another future saint, Ignatius of Loyola. Together, they would go on to establish the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. Just a few years later, the Fr. Francis Xavier sailed from Portugal to India, where he introduced many people to the Catholic faith. He next traveled to the East Indies and then to Japan, where he was the first missionary to preach the Gospel. Along the way, Francis Xavier baptized tens of thousands of people motivated by his missionary desire to make Jesus know to the whole world. He died at the age of 46 off the coast of China, where he wanted to preach the Gospel next. As China was closed to foreigners at the time, Francis Xavier was trying to be smuggled into the country when he contracted a fatal disease. St. Francis Xavier was instrumental in the establishment of Christianity in India and Japan and is considered the greatest Catholic foreign missionary of modern times.

One of my favorite quotes of St. Francis Xavier is “In Thee, O Lord, have I put my hope. Let me never be confounded.” Above all, mission is about trusting in the Lord. As I will come back to in a bit, mission is not so much about doing and accomplishing, but about trusting, being humble, and allowing God to work through you.

The second patron saint of missionaries is St. Therese of Lisieux— a seemingly more unlikely candidate than St. Francis Xavier.  St. Therese was born in 1873 and  entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux, France at the age of 15, just short of her sixteenth birthday. She died at the age of 24 after years of struggle with tuberculosis. Not only did St. Therese die at the very young age of 24, but she spent all of her adult life, what little there was of it, as a cloistered  nun. St. Therese wanted very much to be sent on mission to Vietnam, but her poor health precluded her from leaving the confines of the convent. And yet, not only is St. Therese the Patroness of Missions, although having never left her Carmelite cloister, but she is also a Doctor of the Church, although she barely had an education and had no formal theological training. To put things in perspective, in its 2000 year history, St. Therese is one of only thirty-six Doctors of the Church. Dying at only 24 years old, she is also the youngest person to be so designated.

The fact that St. Therese is the Patroness of Missions, although being confined to a cloister until she died,  is a testament to the important role we all share as missionaries by virtue of our baptism. St Therese lived out missionary discipleship though prayer, sacrifice, and love, not serving in foreign lands. Through her lived example, countless numbers of people have come to know and love God. She offered her prayers and sufferings for missionaries around the world. Her last words before she succumbed to tuberculosis were “My God, I love You!” What more could you expect of any missionary?

Like St Francis Xavier, St. Therese put her hope in the Lord. She lived her life in childlike trust of God and God’s love for her. She said “God would never inspire me with desires which cannot be realized; so in spite of my littleness, I can hope to be a saint.” Trusting in God is so essential to being a missionary. We must be humble and acknowledge that we are not in control and can do nothing of our own accord. As exemplified in Jesus’s miracle of the loaves and fishes, we just need to use what God has given us to the best of our abilities and leave the rest to Him. 

By human standards, St. Therese didn’t accomplish anything great. However, what she did do is live the ordinary events of everyday life with extraordinary love. “What matters in life,” she wrote, “is not great deeds, but great love. “In humility, she committed herself to living out every encounter with other people and every task put before her with love. This was St. Therese’s Little Way.

As I take stock in my development as a missionary disciple, albeit one currently doing foreign mission, I realize that I still have much room for improvement. I know that l focus far too much on accomplishments (or lack thereof) in my ministry work. I have so many things that I want to accomplish that they sometimes become too much of a preoccupation. I get too frustrated when when things don’t go the way I had planned, which is most of the time.

At this point in missionary life, I tend to feel more like St. Francis Xavier then St. Therese, but without quite the total trust in God that St. Francis Xavier had. I’m making no claims to holiness, just the opposite. My point is that my current mode of operation is more about doing, even though I know and desire to focus more on how I do things. I struggle with just letting things happen and feel compelled to make them happen. I have little patience and want to get things done in my timeframe, not necessarily God’s. Even when I made an effort to listen more as to better discern God’s will, I often get distracted.

When I first came to Kenya, I wrote the following on my Maryknoll Lay Missioner profile page (https://mklm.org/profile-rich-tarro). “My approach to my ministry work and my life as a missioner is to strive to do everything, even the simple things of everyday life, with love. I’m not trying to save the world, but rather have others experience Christ in me through the way I live and share my life with them. I am inspired by St. Therese of Lisieux, who said ‘Our Lord does not so much look at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them.’” Today as I reflect on how I want to live my life in light of my missionary discipleship as a baptized Christian, I wouldn’t change a word. 

Like most of us, I’m a work in progress. Like St. Paul and the rest of us sinners, “I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it.” (Romans 7:15). I want everything I do to be done out of love, but many times fall short. I know I need to trust God more and stop trying to drive the train so that God can work though me. I know that Jesus is calling me to simply get in the boat with Him, but I most times feel more like St. Peter sinking out on the stormy sea and Jesus saying to me “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

As Catholics, we are blessed to not only have two exemplary models of missionary discipleship in St. Francis Xavier and St. Therese of Lisieux, but also two powerful advocates. I pray for their intercession to help me better live my life in childlike trust of our loving God and Father. I pray that I’m  better able to act more out of love in even the simplest things, which are often times the most challenging for me.

St. Therese promised that “When I die, I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.“ I ask her to fulfill that promise in me every day. Please pray for me and my HOPE ministry project as I pray for each of you. Thanks to all who support me in my ministry work. Your generosity is what makes my work even possible. I’m just the feet on the ground distributing your generous gifts to those we serve together.

St. Therese and St. Francis Xavier pray for us.

Mungu ni mwema. God is good.

Please consider donating to my HOPE ministry project, which provides educational assistance to orphans and other vulnerable children, particularly those impacted by AIDS, in Mombasa, Kenya.

https://www.mklm.org/RTarro

You can learn more about the HOPE project on our website.

https://hopegiveshope.com