Month: July 2019

My living and ministry work here in Kenya are under the sponsorship of the Archdiocese of Mombasa. This sponsorship is not in a financial sense, but the Archbishop of Mombasa, Archbishop Martin Kivuva Musonde, signed both my work permit application and my application for an Alien ID (or as it says on the card itself, “Foreigner Certificate”). Yes, I am now official. I no longer need to carry paper copies of my US passport and work permit with me all the time. All I now need is the Alien ID card. I can now easily, without any begging or sad stories of how I’m a poor missioner working and living here, pay resident rates for things.

Like pretty much all dioceses, the Archdiocese of Mombasa has a pastoral staff to oversee the various ministries in the diocese. The pastoral staff gets together for Mass every Monday morning in the pastoral center chapel to pray and worship together. On the first Monday of every month, the staff gets together in the conference room for chai (tea) and to give updates on their department or ministry. This month was my first time attending the monthly Mass and meeting. Although I’m not required to attend, I want my ministry project, Helping Orphans Pursue Education (H.O.P.E.), to have good visibility within the archdiocese in order to better tap into the resources within the archdiocese to help make my ministry project thrive. This can only happen if people know what is going on with the project and are made aware of challenges, issues and where we are struggling.

The archbishop tries to attend the weekly Masses and most specifically the first Mass of the month and meeting that follows. I was happy that the bishop was available for my first pastoral center Mass and meeting. The bishop concelebrated the Mass that day with four other priests. There were over fifty people in attendance for the Mass and meeting. Although I’ve had the opportunity to previously meet with the archbishop and several members of the pastoral staff, this was the first time I really had the chance to talk in detail about my ministry and plans for it moving forward. I also had the opportunity to introduce myself to other staff members that I had not previously met who were in attendance.

The first reading for the Mass that day was the story from Genesis where Abraham pleads with God, or more like haggles with him, over the fate of Sodom. The reason this stuck with me is that the bishop’s homily revolved around this reading. As it happens, this story from Genesis is also the first reading for today’s Sunday Mass. Although the homily at today’s Mass I attended did not touch on this story from Genesis, it got me thinking again of the pastoral center Mass earlier this month, the bishop’s homily, and how he also incorporated some reflections from the reading into the words he shared during the meeting after Mass.

The story from Genesis is the one where the Lord says how great the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is. Abraham then proceeds to ask if he will sweep away the innocent with the guilty there. Abraham asks God if he would wipe out the city and not spare it if there were just fifty innocent people there. Abraham even tries to strengthen his case by telling God “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to make the innocent die with the guilty so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike!” The Lord replies that if he finds fifty innocent people in Sodom that he will spare the whole place for their sake.

Abraham then begins to haggle with the Lord over the fate of the city, although he tempers his remarks by adding in how he is presuming to speak to the Lord this way even though he is but dust and ashes. Abraham then continues to press the Lord by asking what if only forty-five innocent people are found there. Again, the Lord says that he will spare the city for the sake of forty-five. Abraham persists and asks God what if only forty are innocent, what if only thirty, what if only twenty, and finally what if only ten innocent people are there. Each time the Lord replies that he will spare the city for the sake of those innocent people.

This passage can be looked at from so many different perspectives, each with a powerful message. For example, we can look at the passage from the perspective of mercy and justice (especially if you know how the story of Sodom eventually ends). However, I’d like to look at this passage from the perspective of prayer, especially prayers of petition, which is how the bishop approached the passage.

From Abraham’s encounter with God we see several things. First, our Lord wants us to approach him and talk with him. He wants us to open our hearts to him. He wants us to trust him and not be afraid to come to him with anything. He wants us to share our lives with him as he shares his life with us. God also wants us to persevere in our prayers. As we see from the reading, Abraham was persistent. In the span of the passage from Genesis, Abraham approached God with a new proposal six times. In his “negotiations” with God, Abraham asks God to spare the city of Sodom six times – what if fifty, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, and finally ten. However, as we also see, Abraham approaches God in complete humility as he says to God that he is but dust and ashes and asks that the Lord to not grow impatient or angry.

All of this is punctuated by today’s Gospel reading. It is so beautiful how the readings from the Mass fit together. The Gospel starts out by one of Jesus’s disciples asking him “Lord, teach us to pray.” This simple statement encapsulates what our approach to prayer should be. We are to humbly bring ourselves before our God acknowledging that we don’t really understand everything and aren’t completely sure how to proceed. But that’s OK. God is there with us, talking to us, guiding us.

After Jesus teaches his disciples the most perfect prayer, the Lord’s prayer, he proceeds to teach about the necessity and efficacy of perseverance in prayer. First, he uses a parable to talk about a friend who visits another friend late at night after he and his family have already gone to bed. The visitor asks for food for another friend who has just returned home from a journey and has nothing to eat. The friend who is being asked for food tells the visitor to not bother him. Jesus then says that if the friend does not get up to give the visitor food because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.

Jesus continues by saying “Ask and you will receive, knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives;and the one who seeks, finds;and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Jesus concludes by saying that the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. All we need to do is ask. What a goldmine we are sitting on!

Although it may seem disheartening, the flip side of this is that our prayers do not really alter God’s plans. Our petitions do not cause God to change his mind. God lives in an eternal now consisting of all time as we view it – past present and future. God already knows what he is going to do and what is going to happen. So, what’s the point then?

I believe the point is that prayer changes us. If we approach God in trust and humility, prayer transforms us and draws us closer to him. But in order for this to happen, we need to approach God trusting that his will is truly what is best for us. We need to trust that if we don’t get the outcome we prayed for, or even if our prayer seems to go unanswered, it is because our loving God knows best and has something even better planned.

We can become so fixated on getting answers to our prayers and the things that need fixing, that we miss the bigger picture. Yes, I know it’s not easy. I struggle with this just as much as anyone else. I can so clearly see what the best path forward is. Why can’t God get with the program? I just don’t understand. But I also realize that this is a lack of trust and humility in my relationship with him. Again, God doesn’t need to change. I need to change.  I need to better approach God in trust and humility and allow him to work through me. If I do this, I know that my prayers will deepen my relationship with him and conform me to the person he created me to be. God wills to share his life with us for all eternity. Prayer is how we get there. For if we allow prayer to transform us and bring us into closer union with God, we cannot do other than love him and our neighbor in our thoughts, words, and actions. 

This is the true power of prayer. Through the perseverance in prayer as Jesus taught and displayed by Abraham, we learn to trust God more and enter into a deeper relationship with him. Although hard to put our heads around, even though our petitions may be completely self-giving and involve the life and happiness of ourselves and the ones we love, our loving God desires something even more for us. Our petitions are temporal. God’s desire for our happiness and good is eternal.

The true purpose of prayer is to draw us closer to God. God may not answer our prayers the way we want or according to what we think we need. However, he never stops reaching out to us, offering to share his life with us, and drawing us into deeper relationship with himself. What ultimately matters is not how God responds to us, but how we respond to God. If we let it, prayer will transform us and lead us to the union that God desires with us.

God is good.

Patience is not one of my greatest virtues. Although I actually feel, hopefully not mistakenly, that I’m am pretty patient with other people, I’m just not very patient with myself. When I have stuff I have to do, I have a hard time putting up with things that get in the way. This is something that I’ve always struggled with, but is now even more challenging to me as I live, work, and do my ministry in new and very different environment.

Florah, my coworker, and I have been praying a novena to St. Anne, the mother of our Blessed Mother and grandmother of Jesus, or as one of the novena prayers refers to her, mother of the Mother of God, which I really like. St. Anne’s feast day is July 26^th, so we started the novena last week in order to finish the novena in time for the feast day. Praying the novena together was entirely due to Forah’s initiative, but I’m so happy that she invited me to pray along with her. On the days when we are working together, we pray the novena together. On days when we are not together, Florah texts or calls me to make sure I have remembered to pray :0)

As you pray the novena each day, you are asked to state your intention/petition. The first day, when Florah asked me to pray the novena while we were in the office together, we began reading the novena prayer for the day, which I had not read beforehand. When we got to the part which says to state your intention, I had to come up with something on the spot. What I believe providentially popped into my head was to pray for patience, which I did. OK, it’s not like I hadn’t been thinking about the fact that I need to be more patient, but this was the perfect time to entrust my petition to the powerful intercession of St. Anne. This has been the primary daily intention of my novena ever since. Yesterday was Day 5 and the novena prayer for the day appropriately starts out with “Great Saint Anne, how far I am from resembling you. I so easily give way to impatience and discouragement”. Yes, I thought while reading it, that is me.

I love my ministry work on the H.O.P.E. project. I feel blessed to be able to play a small part in helping orphans, who otherwise would not have the means, pursue an education. I feel so strongly in education as means of empowerment. Education is what I believe is key to providing the children we work with an opportunity to raise above their current situations and have happy and fulfilling lives.

I especially love working with children to help them learn how to think for themselves and learn how to solve problems. When I am tutoring students, I try to emphasize to them to not so much rely on memorization, but rather understand concepts. I’ve always had a terrible memory. I’ve always wished that I could better remember things. I get so frustrated when I know that I have read or studied something in the past about a particular subject, but just can’t ever seem to recall the specifics when I need the information. On the positive side, my poor memory has forced to be focus on understanding concepts, not just memorize things. Understanding concepts is certainly more important than brute memorization, but I still wish I had a better memory. If only I could have both!

As I begin my work on the H.O.P.E project, I’ve come up with all these grand plans on how I would like to expand and improve the project going forward. Still being in US corporate work mode, I’m developing a strategic plan with goals and objectives, as well as a number of deliverables in support of these goals and as a means of socializing my ideas with the project’s stakeholders and the broader community. My frustration and lack of patience revolves around the fact that compared to what I’m used to, it is just so difficult to get things done here. The simplest things that I would previously take for granted are a big deal here. Things that I used to be able to do pretty quickly, take a very long time to complete. Things that I used to be able to schedule and organize, seem never to work the way I plan here.

Probably not surprisingly given my background, the direction I’m trying to move the project is to utilize technology as a key enabler. I want to leverage technology to enhance collaboration, improve efficiency, and better publicize the project in order to attract more donors, funding and partners. I would also like to use technology to improve the learning experience of our students. Although right now I’m not sure how to pull it off (but keep reminding myself to leave things in God’s hands and that nothing is impossible for him), my hope is to utilize technologies like computer-based training to help students better learn and prepare for standardized exams, which are so important in Kenya. Unfortunately, these plans, which are maybe ambitious to begin with, are made even more difficult due to the infrastructure, security, and corruption issues.

I still tend to look at things in terms of productivity – what did I accomplish today, this week, the past month. I have all these plans, why can’t I make more progress? Why can’t I seem to get much done? I know it’s not only impossible, but also the completely wrong mindset to work strictly in that type of mode here, but I’m struggling to break myself away from this line of thinking. However, this is the way I lived most whole life – in pursuit of accomplishing things. Coralis, who has been in Kenya for almost 20 years and from whom I am taking over the H.O.P.E. project, is constantly reminding me to stop thinking this way. However, this is yet another journey for me.

All of this hit home for me at Mass yesterday. The Gospel reading was the story of Martha and Mary (LK 10:38-42). Jesus entered the village of Martha and Mary, who were sisters. While Martha was busy serving, taking all the responsibility for entertaining, Mary simply sat at Jesus’s side just listening to him speak. Martha approached Jesus complaining that Mary has left her to do all the work and asked our Lord to tell Mary to help. Jesus said to Martha in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

I certainly identify more with Martha in this story than I do Mary. There is always a long list of things that needs to be done. If I don’t do them, who else will? At least that seemingly is my typical mindset. So, it is with my ministry. I have all these things I want to do, all these things I want to accomplish, not enough hours in a day. Sometimes I feel like I’m back at work at IBM. I am in no way complaining as Martha did that no one is helping me, but rather see myself in the Gospel passage, like Martha, as being too obsessed with achieving and accomplishing things than in seeing what is right in front of me. That is, being present to see and experience Christ in everyone I encounter and in all that I do.

As Jesus told Martha, there is no need to be anxious and worried about so many things. Jesus reminds us that there is only need of one thing, the better part, which is him. I don’t think that Jesus is saying that we shouldn’t work hard for the things that we want to accomplish. Rather I think he is saying that we need to keep things in balance and perspective. We both need to work for what we want but also make sure to recognize him in what we are doing. We all need to work to provide for ourselves and our families. We all need to work to help those we are trying to serve. However, Jesus is also telling us to not get bogged down and overwhelmed by these things. Jesus is telling us to make sure to recognize him in the people we encounter and in the world around us along the way.  By recognizing Jesus in the things that we are doing, the great things we are trying to accomplish, as well as the smallest, mundane things we do in our daily lives, we unite ourselves with him in accomplishing them. If we do the things we want to accomplish with true love, we bring Jesus’s presence alive in them and in ourselves.

This is my challenge. St. Anne, pray for me.

God is good.

This is the twentieth anniversary of the Helping Orphans Purse Education (H.O.P.E.) project, which is now my ministry here in Kenya. Since its inception in 1999, H.O.P.E. has assisted about 2800 orphans to obtain an education that they otherwise would not have had the means to pursue. I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with a former student of the H.O.P.E. project the other day. His story touched me deeply and I want to share it with you.

Daniel (not his real name), who is now 30 years old, was born and raised in Mombasa. His father died when he was young. Daniel and his sister, who is just few years older than him, were raised alone by their mother. When Daniel was in eighth grade, a social worker brought Daniel’s case forward to H.O.P.E. and he was accepted into the program starting with his first year of high school. While Daniel was still in eighth grade and not long after being accepted into H.O.P.E., his mom passed away from AIDS. After his mom died, Daniel and his sister were living on their own. Again, at this time, his sister was just high school age and Daniel was in eighth grade.

After Daniel was accepted into the program, H.O.P.E. was able to secure a special sponsor for Daniel so that he could not only attend high school, but attend a boarding school. This not only provided the opportunity for Daniel to pursue his high school education, but being a boarding school, it provided a safe and stable environment where Daniel could not only learn, but thrive. H.O.P.E. paid for the entirety of Daniel’s secondary schooling – tuition, room and board, fees, books, and uniforms. Daniel didn’t just make the grade at boarding school, he excelled. He not only finished near the top of his class, but also played on the school’s basketball team. H.O.P.E. supported Daniel though all four years at the boarding school until his graduation.

The fact that H.O.P.E. was able to fund Daniel for boarding school became critically important when his sister went missing when Daniel was in his first year at the boarding school. During break when Daniel went home for vacation, his sister was gone and no one knew how to find her. With yet another devastating event to deal with, Daniel returned to school and persevered with continuing his education. On a side note, many years later, Daniel was able to track down his sister. By that time, his sister was married with four kids. Escaping everthing was apparently Daniel’s sister’s way of dealing with the situation. Daniel and his sister now stay in contact and they see each other a few times a year.

After graduation from the boarding school, Daniel was on his own again and moved in with a friend. Through the generosity and financial support of another person who came into Daniel’s life, Daniel was provided the means to attend college. Daniel applied and was accepted into a technical university to study Biochemical engineering. He started classes at the beginning of the next term. Daniel really liked sciences in school and thought Biochemistry would fit his interests well. As many of us can relate to, Daniel found his first year of college difficult academically when compared to high school. This was the case even though he had a full schedule of fluff courses – Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Calculus. :0) However, not to be deterred, Daniel studied hard and did very well. When I asked Daniel what his toughest course in college was, he answered Molecular Biology, which he took in his third year. Anyone who has taken Molecular Biology can certainly empathize.

Education here in Kenya is very time intensive. Although they have recently lightened the load a bit, students put in a lot of hours at school. This applies for primary and secondary school as well as college. Daniel told me that his classes went from 8 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday. While in college, Daniel played rugby. He played or practiced every day after classes. When I asked him when he did homework and studied, he replied after rugby. When I asked him when he slept, I didn’t get a good answer.

Daniel graduated college in four years ranking near the top of his class. Apparently colleges in Kenya, don’t provide any job placement assistance. Daniel finished his degree without securing a job. After graduating, Daniel rented a place and resorted to doing odd jobs – including driving matatus, the minivans here in Kenya that serve as public transportation. During this time, Daniel applied for Biochemistry positions at several companies and research institutes, but he could not find anything.

Discouraged at not being able to find a job as a Biochemist and wanting a better life, Daniel thought a change of scenery would help. So he moved to a rural farming town where he lived with a friend and together they tried to earn a living farming. However, they found it very difficult to make any money. After six months, Daniel and his friend gave up on farming. As Daniel was not able to find any other employment in the rural town, he was forced to move again.

This time Daniel move upcountry to the town where his father was from. With no real good options or prospects for employment, he figured we would explore his roots. Once he arrived upcountry, he was able to track down his father’s sister, Daniel’s aunt, who was still living in his father’s hometown. Daniel had never met her before, but she welcomed him to stay with her. After a short time, Daniel found a job at a pharmacy and moved into his own place. Although he didn’t have a certificate to be a pharmacist, he did at least have a Biochemistry degree. The owner proceeded to train him on the job for two weeks. Although the regulation of pharmacies here is Kenya is nowhere as stringent as in the US, Daniel was fortunate he got away with not having a certificate. Daniel stayed in his father’s hometown and worked at the pharmacy for two years.

At this point, Daniel had a yearning to move back to Mombasa, where he was born and raised. So last year, Daniel moved back to Mombasa and opened his own business selling clothes. Daniel did not have a shop, but rather sold clothes though social media using platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. He bought merchandise from China using the Alibaba website and stored inventory in his apartment. Daniel sold merchandise to clients in the Mombasa area and delivered the clothes himself to buyers using public transportation, meaning matatus. Business was good at the beginning, but then slowed down drastically. It appears that a number of people started selling merchandise procured from the Alibaba website and there was too much supply. Daniel eventually sold all his inventory off, but it took a lot of time. He now had to look for another source of income.

Earlier this year, Daniel found employment doing safety work with a Chinese company supplying building materials for a port under construction (yes, the Chinese are everywhere here and at some point soon will own most of Africa). Unfortunately, the work ended after only three months.

Since April, Daniel has gone back to doing odd jobs and looking for employment. As you can probably imagine, it is not that easy to get employment in Kenya as a Biochemist. Out of the 48 students in Daniel’s Biochemistry graduating class, only two are currently employed doing Biochemistry. Part of the reason for the difficulty in finding a position as a Biochemist is simply the fact that there is just not an abundance of these types of jobs in Kenya. However, the disturbing part for me is that Daniel is not even getting an opportunity to compete for the jobs that do exist. Unfortunately, like most good things in Kenya, you either have to know someone or bribe someone. As I’ve talked about before, corruption is rampant here and the people of Kenya are the ones who are injured by it. Daniel is a student worked hard and ended up at the top of his class, but still is not being given a chance. It’s tragic. Despite his frustrations with finding a job as a Biochemist, Daniel continues to persevere. He does odd jobs to sustain himself and continues his search for employment.

Daniel certainly seized the opportunity presented to him by H.O.P.E. He put in the time and effort to get very good grades and finish at the top of his class. He is prepared and ready for a career in Biochemistry, if only given the chance. Even though Daniel has yet to find an ideal job that utilizes the skills which has honed, he is very grateful for the opportunities that H.O.P.E. has provided him. Without H.O.P.E., Daniel would not have been able to complete high school. Without a high school diploma, Daniel it would be very difficult to get any kind of job. Without a high school diploma, Daniel would never had the opportunity go to college and earn a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry. Daniel goes so far as to say that without H.O.P.E. he would have been out on the street and ended up as a street kid where gangs and drugs are everywhere.

As I begin my ministry as administrator of H.O.P.E., cases like this are at the core of my hopes and struggles with the project. On the one hand, I see the tremendous benefit H.O.P.E. gives orphans like Daniel by providing the means to get an education and skills for a successful career and life. On the other hand, I feel helpless in the face of the unfairness that inhibits people like Daniel from succeeding. I know I can’t solve all the problems of the world, but I can at least give them a voice (as small as it may be).

Pope Francis addressed corruption in a prayer intention earlier this year. He said this.

What is at the root of slavery, unemployment, and disregard for nature and goods held in common? Corruption, a process of death that feeds the culture of death.
Because the thirst for power and possessions knows no limits.
Corruption is not countered with silence. 
We must speak about it, denounce its evils, and try to understand it so as to show our resolve to make mercy reign over meanness, beauty over nothingness. 
Let us pray that those who have material, political or spiritual power may resist any lure of corruption.

As Pope Francis stresses, corruption is not countered with silence. We must call it out and denounce it, and most certainly not be a party to it. Let us also pray that our Lord will touch the hearts of those in power to be good stewards of the gifts he has entrusted to them.

God is good.