My Journey

On Saturday, I spent the afternoon at the Nairobi Safari Walk. The Safari Walk, which is adjacent to the Nairobi National Park, has a raised wooden boardwalk trial that allows you to walk around and see animals in a fairy open environment. The animals – such as lions, rhinos, zebras, hippos, crocodiles, ostriches and monkeys – are in fenced-enclosed areas, but the enclosures are fairly large and the animals are free to roam around in their respective natural habitats. The Safari Walk park spans about 27 acres of wilderness, so the animals are fairly, although granted not completely, free.  In addition, there are plenty of baboons that roam around in the park and will come right up to get you! While walking along the boardwalk (and occasionally sneaking in a little closer), I was able to experience the wildlife at close quarters – much closer than I would have ever imagined. I’ve been to a number of zoos in my life, including the San Diego zoo multiple times, but I have never quite experienced anything like this.

The Nairobi National Park is touted as being the only national park within the boundaries of a capital city. What a blessing to have a park like this so accessible within a city of well over 3 million residents. The park and the Safari walk are about a 35 minute walk from Consolata, where I am living while studying here in Nairobi. Some of the other students were heading into the city center to shop, but as I really wanted to see the park and am running out of time in which to do so while living right next door at the school, I decided to just go on my own. I am so glad I did. It would have been nice to have gone with others, but a tour guide, who is actually one of the animal caretakers, walked me around the park. He was awesome and really made the whole experience so special for me as I got to talk with him while he shared lots of information and ensured that I had the best view of everything – including venturing off the boardwalk and up really close to some of the animals!

I had such a good time at the park that I know feel a little bad about how I got in. The Safari Walk, like all the national parks in Kenya, has much different admission prices for residents of Kenya vs. non-residents. Case in point, the admission to the Safari Walk is the equivalent of about $35 for non-residents adults (about equivalent to what it would cost if a park like this existed in the US) and only $3 for residents (dirt cheap). I am currently in Kenya on a tourist visa and have applied for a work permit. However, things can take a long time here, so it might be a while before I actually have my approved work permit in hand. I was previously told that if I show a copy of my work permit application at the national parks, I would only have to pay the resident rate. However, when I got to the park, they told me at the ticket counter that just the application was not good enough to get the resident rate. As I was pleading my case with one of the ticket agents, a park official came up to me and joined in the discussion. In addition to showing him my work permit application and telling him that I was  previously told that I could get the resident rate with just the application, I also went on to tell him that I was a poor missionary (OK, at least true for my current state in life. I had to rationalize things somehow.) who will be living and working in Kenya for at least the next four years and that I would soon be moving to Mombasa, where I will not have easy access to the park. After a few moments, he told me that he would make a one time exception for me and as long as I promised not to use the ticket to also get into the National Park itself on a resident rate, to which I readily agreed. As the purchase of most goods and services Kenya involve bartering, a lot different than in the US, this was my first real victory since being here. Had I known how good a time I was going to have, I would have gladly paid the non-resident rate.  When I had looked at some of the reviews for the Safari Walk online, a number of people complained about the higher cost for non-residents and the fact that at times, a lot of the animals were not out and so not able to be seen. I did not find that the case at all and, in fact, if certain animals were not out, my guide would make sure that they came out to see me. Case in point, when we got the the area where the hyenas are, they were sleeping under a tree that was a ways away from the viewing area on the boardwalk. My tour guide told me not to worry and proceeded to  enter into the area where the hyenas live, grabbed a branch, and proceeded to use the branch to walk up the hyenas so that they would walk around and give me a chance to see them at a much closer distance. How is that for customer service?

I not only got a chance to walk along the boardwalk with the tour guide, but a number of times he took me up even closer the the animals. First, he had me go up to the monkeys and hand them something to eat. There are signs all over the place to not feed the animals, but hey, he is the caretaker who feeds them every day. Later on, we went inside the outer gate enclosing the environment where the lions live, and right up to the inner fence, which was the only thing separating us from the lions. As you can see in the pictures, the lions were right up against the fence and we went over to where they were lying down. He then somehow got me to sit against the fence and then to reach through the fence and touch the lions paw, which he did beforehand to show me, and I did for just a brief moment. I think because I was afraid to just leave my hand there and so touched the lion with more of a jerky motion, the lion growled a little. He told me not to be afraid and that I could touch him longer. At that point, I drew the line and told him that I would like to leave the park with all my fingers still attached. My guide was also able to get these awesome pictures through the hole in the fence using my cell phone camera. All these pictures were taken with my cell phone. No telephoto lens was used. My other up close and personal encounter was with a crocodile as my guide again took me off the boardwalk and up to the fence enclosing the reptile, where he had me reach through the fence and touch the crocodile’s body.

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I’m not sure if touching the animals was the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but after watching and listening to my guide, I had total confidence in what he was telling me, and in retrospect, I’m glad I went through with it. Thanks be to God I still have all my fingers intact! It is interesting how much more relaxed things are here. Could you ever imagine a zoo in the US allowing you to go right up to cage, let alone putting your hand through it to touch an animal. At home, just straying off the boardwalk would have gotten me thrown out of the park. Again, in my own defense, I only did what the guide asked me to do.

After the tour guide finished the tour, which took about 45 minutes, I was so taken by what I had seen that I decided to do the entire walk all over again. This time I did the walk on my own, staying only on the boardwalk, but going more slowly and taking even more pictures. All in all, I ended up spending about three hours at the park.

The beauty and wonder of the wildlife at the Safari Walk get me thinking about creation. It also so happened that a few of the Catholic online publications that I read also recently had some articles touching upon this topic, which only added to my thinking even more about it. I tend to think of creation in terms of its role in God’s unfolding plan and our responsibilities as stewards of this gift, which has been freely given to us. As I believe as a Catholic that God is being itself, I believe that creation, or you may also say the universe, unfolds in God as nothing exists apart from God. As the Prologue to John’s Gospel tells us, all things came to be through the Word, and without him nothing came to be. I see creation as the canvas on which the story of how God invites us to share in His life and how we respond to that invitation unfolds. Creation is a gift freely given by God as God is love itself and love can do nothing other than give of itself. So, God created the universe out of nothing as an expression of that love and as a manner in which to share it. Genesis tells us that God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good. I’m not going to even attempt to tackle the question of evil here, but will only make the statement that the nature of love is that it can not be forced, it must be both freely given and freely received. Thus, creation is marked by freedom, not necessity, as God did not need to create, but we are blessed that He willed to do so.

However, creation was not complete without man in it and so man is not separate from creation, but part of it. How awesome that with man in creation, creation can seek to understand itself and ponder its own meaning. Man can wonder at the beauty of the universe and how everything fits together.  We also see that the world was not made complete from the beginning, but rather is in a state of journeying. That is, creation is an ongoing process. The Catechism tell us that creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created ‘in a state of journeying’  towards an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. As St. Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians, “so that God may be all in all.” So man, together with creation, are on this journey together.

I say all of this as a preamble to my reflections on my rereading and thinking about some of Pope Francis’ teaching on creation that my trip to the Safari walk inspired. Pope Francis tells us that there is a mystical meaning to be found in things, such as a leaf, in a mountain trail, or in a dewdrop, as well as, in a poor person’s face. We are called to not only discover the action of God in our soul, but also to discover God in all things. He says that our insistence that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own purpose. None is superfluous. The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God. Pope Francis also warns against viewing different species merely as potential resources to be exploited, while overlooking the fact that they have value in themselves. That is, in God’s loving plan, every creature has its own value and significance.

Who would have thought that a trip to the zoo would be so transformative! God is good.

Last Sunday, I went went back to the Kibera slum with Francis, the Consolata seminarian, to meet with the Small Christian Community (SCC) with which we have been worshiping on Sunday afternoons. Small Christian Communities are much more prevalent in Africa, where the Catholic Church is undergoing tremendous growth, than in the US. In rapidly growing environment of Africa, SCCs have become an integral part of the pastoral structure of the Church. SCCs are groups of about fifteen people who come together in a family like setting for prayer, scripture reading, catechesis, and to discuss topics relevant to the Church or the daily lives of the community members.  SCCs form a community of communities within the parish and remain in communion with the parish to which they belong. At Kibera there are several dozen Catholic SCCs, each organized into subgroups of centers, which come together once a month as a larger group. In addition to the monthly gatherings in the centers, the SCCs meet weekly in the home of one of the members within Kibera. SCCs form a faith sharing, inclusive community for the members to pray, reflect, share, care for and serve one another.

I first became interested in SCCs during my orientation program, which I completed at Maryknoll in Ossining, NY from September to December of last year, prior too coming to Kenya. Fr. Joe Healey, a Maryknoll Father, who lives and works here in Nairobi, came to the US and did a one day session on SCCs as part of the orientation. Fr. Joe, who has written several books on SCCs, gave the orientation class a great introduction to SCCs and how they promote evangelization within the Church. I was very excited to meet Fr. Joe in NY as I am interested in the topic, having been a catechist in my parish for a number of years, but also because I was going to be living and doing ministry work in Kenya, where Fr. Joe lives and works. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting up with Fr. Joe at the Maryknoll Father’s house in Nairobi a few times since arriving in Kenya. According to recent research that Fr. Joe has published, there are over 180,000 SCCs in East Africa and over 45,000 of these in Kenya alone. SCCs are a big part of the Church here.

When SCCs meet, they pray together and reflect on the Bible, usually the Gospel of the following Sunday, trying to connect it back to their daily lives. At the SCC with which Francis and I meet, we typically say the Rosary together, then Francis reads the Gospel and gives a reflection of about ten minutes on that passage, then each individual will talk about things that they want to discuss and pray over with the community – all in Kiswahili (although they try to accommodate me by letting me speak in English with Francis translating as necessary). Since starting this pastoral work with Francis, I’ve been so impressed with his reflections. Not that I can understand much of them, as he does his reflection in Kiswahili, but I can see the way he delivers the reflection and the way the community members are drawn into and react to it. The communities in Kibera have wanted me to read the Gospel from the first time I visited, but I didn’t feel capable of doing it. However, now the time had come to go for it and read the Gospel in Kiswahili. Not only that, but I agreed to give the reflection, albeit in English, with Francis translating. So during the preceding week I practiced reading the Gospel in Kiswahili to myself, even though I didn’t really understand and was not familiar with every word in the text. Luckily Kiswahili is easy to pronounce (the jury is still out on how easy it is to learn to speak and understand) and everything sounds just like it is written. The problem for me is the way the language is structured, as a number of prefixes and suffixes are added to words, particularly verbs, to convey the person, tense, mood and objects of the action, and so each word is in a sense a unique combination of these. The Gospel I read included words like ‘Watakuchukua’, which translates to ‘they will take you’. In retrospect, this is not a hard word to pronounce. I’ve certainly come across words a lot more complex. In any event, although not perfect, I think I read the Gospel well enough for everyone to understand me.

The Gospel that I read, which as I mentioned is for the following Sunday, is St. Luke’s account of Jesus being tempted by the devil after having fasted for forty days in the desert. In my reflection I tied the temptations, which are principally concerned with the pursuit of wealth, power, honor, or self gratification, back to the Beatitudes – Jesus’ great prescription on how to be happy that I reflected on in previous blog posts. Each of the temptations that Jesus undergoes in the Gospel reading are temptations that relate to things that we experience in our own lives and which directly undermine the happiness that Jesus wants for us as spelled out in the Beatitudes.  In my talk, I reflected on each of the temptations that Jesus underwent and the role of temptation in our own lives. I talked about the fact that temptations are only empty promises and will not ultimately make us happy, the reasons why we give into temptations, using the apt words of St. Paul in his letter to the Romans as a guide – “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.”, and why I believe God allows us to undergo temptations. Jesus was tempted, why should we expect anything different in our own lives. The good news is that having been fully human and tempted in all things as we are, Jesus can completely sympathize with our weaknesses and stands in full solidarity with us. Ultimately, I believe that temptations help to transform us by shining a light on areas of our lives that need attention.  I ended with a discussion of the fact we are all tempted in different ways and have different imperfections that need to be addressed. It is easy to look at someone else and say I would never do anything that bad. However, you may not be tempted in that way, so the fact that you have not done what the other person has done may be just a result of the fact that it is not something to which you are susceptible. We all have our own weaknesses, temptations and failures. Jesus directs us to look inwardly when he said “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?” After I was done with my reflection, one of the community members asked us to pray for her as she said she experiences a lot of temptations in her life. My response was that we all do and that we all need to pray for each other. The Gospel confirms this need for ongoing vigilance in the face of temptation as it ends with the line “Having exhausted every way of putting him (Jesus) to the test, the devil left him, until the opportune [emphasis added] moment.” 

Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and I attended Mass in the morning in the Seminary chapel. As always, I enjoyed sharing in the celebration of the Mass with the seminarians, given the energy and love of God that comes through in their worship and music. I also like attending Mass at Consolata in general, whether in the seminary chapel or the Father’s chapel, where daily Mass is celebrated, as there are almost always multiple priests concelebrating the Mass. Some Masses, even daily Masses, will have four or five Consolata Fathers concelebrating. For me, this somehow makes the Masses even more special. Fr. Deo, one of the Fathers responsible for formation of the seminarians, was the principal celebrant and homilist for the Ash Wednesday Mass. In his homily, Fr. Deo touched on several Lenten themes, but the one that stuck most with me was the need for humility. Fr. Deo used the words that are used when the ashes are applied – “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” – to launch into the need for us to be humble. However, while Fr. Deo was preaching, another bible verse, from that day’s Responsorial Psalm that was read at the Mass prior to the Gospel, popped into my head. The verse is  “For I know my transgressions; and my sin is always before me.”  from Psalm 51. I’m guessing the reason that my mind made this association is that the line “my sin is always before me” is one that I often hear Fr. Wanyonyi, another Consolata Father who teaches and is the head of bible studies at a Catholic university here in Nairobi close to Consolata, say when he enters the dining room. Having heard Fr. Wanyonyi say this many times, I have reflected on it quite a bit. However, I don’t approach this verse from the standpoint of being a miserable sinner, which I am,, but from the viewpoint of the humility that Fr. Deo was touching on in his Ash Wednesday homily. After all, as St. Therese said “Everything is Grace” with the full quote being “Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father’s love—difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul’s miseries, her burdens, her needs – everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness – Everything is a grace because everything is God’s gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events—to the heart that loves, all is well.” To me these words from St. Therese pulls together perfectly the thoughts expressed in both the reflection on temptation that I did at Kibera (difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul’s miseries, her burdens, her needs) and Fr. Deo’s call to humility (because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness) in his homily on Ash Wednesday. However, as stated at the conclusion of the quote, do not worry as for the heart that loves and is humble, all is well.

God is good all the time. All the time, God is good. / Mungu ni mwema kila wakati. Kila wakati, Mungu ni mwema.

Last weekend I got a short break from language school and headed to Voi, for our Maryknoll Lay Missioner (MKLM) Kenya Region Lenten Retreat. The retreat was  graciously rescheduled to better fit with my school schedule. Last weekend was the break between classes (for me between the level 1 and 2 classes) and so there were no classes scheduled for Monday. Yes, only a one day break between classes! I actually made it a slightly longer break by also taking the preceding Friday off. As we had our final exam on the Thursday, which I thankfully passed and was thus allowed to take the second level class, Friday was just a review of the exam and class wrap up and I didn’t end up missing any new material. I got an opportunity to review my exam when I returned to the school.

Voi, is about 189 miles or 304 kilometers straight line distance (“as the crow flies”) from Nairobi – obviously longer if you drive or take the train, as I did. I’m still trying to get used to kilometers and kilograms. Remember when the United States was finally going to convert everything over to the metric system? What ever happened to that? I think we got as far as introducing two litter bottles of soda, but that’s about it. It turns out that the United States is one of only three countries left that doesn’t not currently use the metric system. Look it up! For those of you dying to know, the only other two countries in the whole world that don’t use the metric system are Liberia and Myanmar. Even the British, who invented the “Imperial” system we currently use in the US, have mostly abandoned it in favor of the metric system. Given how divided every issue is these days, the conversion to the metric system is not going to happen anytime soon, certainly not in my lifetime. This is really too bad as the metric system is so much easier to work with (as everything is based on factors of ten), however, I just don’t have a gut level feeling for it. Being trained as a scientist/engineer, every course I took in college used the metric system, I just never have had to apply it to everyday life. Living in Kenya, that will now change for me along with getting used to cars driving on the opposite side of the road. I can’t tell you how disconcerted I still feel riding in a car that is driving on the wrong side of the road :0). The other big thing that messes me up here is telling time in Swahili. In Swahili, the first hour is what would be equivalent to 7 o’clock our time. So when I have to say the time in Swahili, I not only have to remember what the numbers are in Swahili, but also do the time shift in my head at the same time! In Kiswahili, to say 5 P.M., you say “saa kumi na moja jioni”, which literally means “hour eleven in the evening” with eleven being written literally as ten (kumi) plus one (moja). Try that at home.

With my skipping the last day of class on Friday and Monday being the one scheduled break day between classes, I was able to use these as travel days to and from Voi and spend the weekend with the rest of the Kenya MKLMs at the retreat.  Dee and I took the train from Nairobi, which takes about 4.5 hours each way.  This is a vast improvement over the 10+ hours I understand the trip took before the new train service was launched in May of 2017. The railway, which currently spans Nairobi to Mombasa (we only went as far as Voi on this trip) is the largest infrastructure project in Kenya since gaining independence from Britain in 1963 and plays an important role in Kenya’s tourism industry and economy in general. Construction is already underway to expand the rail line past Nairobi, with the ambitious goal of eventually expanding to provide travel to and from neighboring countries.

Dee and I took the train from Naibobi Terminus, the new train station here in Nairobi serving the new rail line. The security at the train station is much tighter than train stations in the US and closer to security you find at an airport. We had to pass through two separate security checkpoints, in which both we and our luggage were scanned, in order to enter the waiting area of the terminal. At the terminal, we met up with Pat and Ilona, MKLMs who live in Voi and were hosting the retreat, but who were in Nairobi for a few days and now heading home. The train has assigned seating and Dee and I sat together. We had to buy our tickets together, in a single transaction, to get seats next to one another. The trips to and from Voi were nice. We got to see a few animals out the window on the way, but not as many as I had been told to expect. This might have been due to the fact that Dee and I talked most of the way and weren’t really paying great attention to what was going on outside the train.  Although Dee has been boarding at Consolata since I’ve been here, we don’t really see each other that much. The women’s hostel is separate from the Consolata Fathers’ House where I stay, as well as from the men’s hostel, where most of the other male students stay. We also eat separately – separate dining areas and at different times. As Dee reminds me all the time, I live a privileged life here at Consolata :0) In addition, Dee was taking her second level Swahili class with a private teacher outside of Consolata, at a location a 45 minute walk each way from Consolata, so she is away most of the day on weekdays. Thus, the train gave Dee and me a good opportunity to catch up and talk. Dee is now finished with language school and is moving into her own apartment here in Nairobi and starting a ministry job. Dee will be working with refugees with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). I will hopefully visit her apartment and see where she works before I leave Nairobi and head to Mombasa in April. Where Dee will live and work is closer to the Maryknoll Sisters’ House, where I stayed the first few days when I arrived in Nairobi before checking into Consolata.

When we got to Voi, it was great seeing Kathy and Mike again for the first time since they “abandoned me” at the school when I first got here. :0) I also finally got to meet and get to know Coralis, our Kenya regional director, in person after numerous phone calls, emails and texts both at home while getting ready to leave for Kenya and since getting to Nairobi. Also as the train down to Voi was fairly crowded and we weren’t sitting together, this was the first meaningful time I got to spend with Pat and Ilona. I had a wonderful time eating, talking and spending time with everyone during the retreat. Our dinner meals tended to be very long affairs as the wait time for food after ordering was extremely long (and I mean measured in hours), but this gave us more time to talk and be together.  As I mentioned in previous posts, the concept of time in Kenya is different than in the US. This is another case in point.

On Saturday morning, we toured St. Agnes Primary School, the Catholic school were Ilona works helping preschool children. I don’t yet completely understand the educational system here in Kenya, but it is very structured. Comparable to Nursery School and Kindergarten in the US, there are a few years of early childhood education in Kenya before a child enters primary school. In Kenya, the school year begins in January and ends in November. Students get three school vacations during the year – in April, August and December (between grade levels). There are a little less than 300 students at the St. Agnes Primary School. The student to classroom ratio is about 33:1. However, as I understand it, there are two teachers per classroom who alternate between teaching and assisting students.

After our visit to the school, we headed to the Voi Wildlife Lodge, which is located at the edge of the Tsavo East National Park. The Lodge overlooks a watering hole where animals come to cool off and drink water. This is where we spent most of Saturday relaxing, talking, meditating, praying, snacking and watching the animals – elephants, giraffes, hippos, zebras, warthogs, baboons and other assorted wildlife. We also spent a little time in the pool at the lodge cooling off. Watching the animals was quite an experience for me. I’ve been to plenty of zoos in my lifetime, including big ones like the San Diego Zoo, but nothing compared to this. Seeing animals in the wild like this not far from where we were watching was incredible.

On Sunday morning we left for the Tsavo Children’s Village (TCV) Project site, arriving at the Marungu Outstation before 8:30 AM for rosary and prayers followed by a Eucharistic liturgy at 9 AM. There was no Mass as there is no priest available to celebrate Mass at this outstation. The liturgy was led by a member of a local parish, who also gave a very nice homily – given what I could understand as all the prayers,  liturgy, readings and homily were in Swahili. At the end of the service, we all took turns introducing ourselves and saying a little bit about what we are doing in Kenya. I did my introduction all in Kiswahili. It wasn’t perfect, but I did well enough to at least be understood. 

After Mass we toured the TCV project site a bit. TCV is a planned village for orphan children in the coastal area of Kenya and their caregivers. In addition to home care, the project will include programs to empower the children and caregivers to be self sufficient and integrate into the larger Kenyan society. At full capacity, somewhere on the order of one orphan per week will enter the program and another re-integrate back into Kenyan society. This is the ministry project that Pat works on.

At the tail end of the TVC project site tour, it started to pour. This was the most significant rain I’ve experience since being in Kenya. As part of the retreat, we each prepared a reflection to share with the rest of the group. Each person chose something from a reading upon which to reflect. The reading which we all chose from was St. Mark’s account of the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-13). We ended up doing our reflections at the project site standing under umbrellas in the rain. This actually made it even more special for me.

I based my reflection on Mark 9:4 – “And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus”. My reflection tied this back to Jesus saying ”Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish them but to complete them.” as well as Jesus also stating that “not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the law until its purpose is achieved”. Although His teachings were considered radical at the time, and still are by many today, Jesus emphatically states that His teachings are not meant to undermine the moral values in the Law of Moses, as these are absolute values rooted in the nature of God Himself, but rather to complete them. Tying this back to my previous discussion of the Beatitudes and Jesus desire for us to share eternal happiness with Him, I talked about how Jesus completes the law by teaching us transformation of the inner person, not simply the following of a set of rules. Jesus presents his teachings as virtues which will ultimately lead to happiness. Jesus teaches us that love should be the motivation for all that we do. In the Transfiguration, Jesus manifests His divinity, but roots His humanity in the fulfillment of the prophesies and law that are all part of God’s plan for us to be happy with Him forever. Rather than constricting us, the law is in reality the way to life. Jesus told us that He came so that we may have life and have it to the full.

After the Reflections, we visited World War I (WWI) Historical Exhibit at the Taita Hills Lodge. Having read and watched many documentaries on WWII and not much on WWI, I have to admit that I didn’t even know that there was an East African campaign in WWI. In WWI, Kenya (then British East Africa) fought alongside the British and served as a fighting ground between the Germans and the British from 1914 to 1916. A series of battles that began in German East Africa (what is Tanzania today) resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people. The lodge where the exhibit resides is next to the battleground area where the fighting took place

After the WWI exhibit, we visited the home in Voi where Pat and Ilona live, which was very nice. Pat and Ilona treated us to snacks and drinks while we were there. We also had a brief regional business meeting to discuss a few items that we needed to talk about as a region.

On Monday morning, Dee and I headed back to Nairobi on the return leg of our train trip. We arrived back at Consolata in the late afternoon. Like my trip to Ruiru last weekend, this was another special weekend for me – this time with my Maryknoll community.  I’ll end this post by sharing a quote from Fr. John Horn that I came across this week and pondered a bit – “The great paradox about Christian maturation is that it depends upon growing in childlike trust. This is how we come to mature and grow in stature within Jesus’ heart.”

God is good. (I hope by now that you know the response. See previous blog posts for help. 0:)

This weekend I went with Joseph, my Kiswahili classmate, to visit his community in Ruiru, which is located about 25 miles from the language center where we take classes together. Given the roads and traffic here, the drive is typically a little over an hour (but can be much longer during peak times). Joe stays at Consolata in a room a few doors away from me during the week, but goes back to his community in Ruiru on Friday afternoons after lunch and returns to Consolata early on Monday for morning Mass. This is Joe’s last week at the language school, as he is not staying for the second level class. He may return at a later date to resume his Kiswahili studies, but at that point I’ll be in Mombasa. I am so happy I went to Ruiru with Joseph as I had such a fulfilling weekend with him and his community.

The community that Joe belongs to is called the Society of Christian Doctrine  (SDC). SDC is a society of lay missioners that teach catechism to children and adults. The society was established in 1907 in  Malta, but they now have missioners all over the world including three here in Ruiru, Kenya – Joe, Mario and Oliver, who is the superior for the community in Ruiru. Oliver, Mario and Joe are all from Malta. Mario has been in Ruiru the longest, about 13 years, followed by Oliver, who has been in Ruiru for about 10 years. Joe just arrived in Kenya a few days before I did at the end of 2018/beginning of 2019. He had just finished 7 years in Cuba and before that had served in Peru and Sudan and was replacing a SDC member who was returning to Malta after a number of years in Ruiru. Joining Joe, Mario and Oliver in Ruiru is Mike, who is an SDC candidate. Mike is Kenyan and has been involved with the Ruiru SCD since he was young. Mike is  currently attending university and stays in the Ruiru house only on the weekends.

Oliver, Mario, Joe and Mike made me feel so at home in their community. They not only provided me with a nice guest room in which to stay, but also let me to join them in prayer and faith formation, meals, as well as pastoral activities. I can’t thank them enough for how welcome and part of the community they made me feel.

The SDC compound consists of three separate structures –  a main house where Joe, Oliver and Mario live, a guest house with the three apartments (each one containing four twin beds and a bathroom, although I was he only one staying in my room), and a school where the classrooms, library, registration office, and play areas are located. Classes, prayer, and faith formation are held each day of the week. Oliver, Mario and Joe coach and mentor SDC candidates, who help teach the classes, but also lead some sessions. In addition to attending  daily Mass at the parish next door and praying the rosary together in the chapel in the main house in the evening right before dinner, there is also one hour of daily prayer and faith formation with the approximate ten candidates to the society that are in various stages of formation.  During the week, general religious education classes are held. However, Sunday classes are specifically for sacrament preparation – first communion, confirmation, and baptism. Everything at SDC is grounded in community life and ongoing faith formation.

Joe and I left Consolata on Friday after lunch and arrived in Ruiru in time for the afternoon activities and classes. This was followed by the one hour of prayer and faith formation with the other SDC members and candidates. Oliver, Mike, Mario, Joe and I got back together at 8 PM to pray the rosary and then ate dinner.

SDC is exploring doing ministry work at the Ruiru Prison. It just so happened that the weekend that I was there, they were going to the prison on Saturday morning with one of the local parish priests to celebrate Mass there. I was welcomed to accompany them. The Mass was scheduled to start at 9:30 AM. Oliver, Joe and I left SDC at about 8:45 and headed over to the parish to pick up Fr. Moses, who was going to say the Mass. The parish next door to SDC, with which they work closely and for which they provide the religious education and sacrament preparation, is called St. Francis of Assisi. There is also a primary school, which was at one time parish run, but is now run by the Kenyan government. Fr. Moses welcomed us in and offered us some fruit and a drink. Fr. Moses and the other priests at the parish are Franciscan Capuchins. Interestingly, Fr. Moses is being re-assigned to a parish in California. He has never been to the United States – sort of like me coming to Kenya without having ever visited beforehand.

We then headed, with Fr. Moses now with us, over to the Ruiru Prison, which is not far from SCD. Ruiru Prison is a sprawling farming prison with about 600 inmates. The prison appeared to me to be a sort of minimum security prison as inmates are allowed to roam freely within the smaller secured area and sleep in shared cell block buildings, not individual cells. Outside the secured area are residences for prison personnel as well as land for farming, which is where inmates spend their morning working. As I mentioned, the Mass was supposed to start at 9:30 AM, but actually didn’t start until 11:30 AM.  In Kenya, you kind of have to go with the flow and Fr. Moses was good about the delay, but am sure he would rather have had the time back. Luckily he didn’t have another commitment and so was willing to wait around. The reason for the delay had nothing to do with the prison, but the fact that a number of parishioners from three deaneries (groups of neighboring parishes), who were coming to the Mass, arrived very late. One good thing that came out of the delay is that we were able to get a tour of different areas of the prison by Mr. Songa, the person running the Catholic ministry at the prison, and speak with him while we were waiting.

Once the Mass started, all the delays were forgotten. The Mass was celebrated in an outdoor covered area , which was a very good thing as there was a very brief downpour during the Mass and we all would have been soaked. The Mass was an absolutely wonderful experience. There had to be well over 100 inmates attending the Mass, about 50 people from the deaneries, some prison staff, Fr. Moses, Oliver, Joe and me. The deanery attendees processed in singing and dancing. Most of the congregation was clapping and some were even dancing in place during the procession. There was a prison choir that provided some accompanying music and background vocals and the folks from the deaneries led the congregation in song and did the Mass readings. A few inmates offered petitions during the prayer of the faithful. Fr. Moses did such a wonderful job with the Mass. He had the congregation engaged and even laughing during his homily, which lasted between 45 minutes and an hour. At one point he threatened to preach for three days –  as long as Christ was in the tomb! Even some of the prison guards joined in the laughter. The Mass lasted almost two hours in total.

The Mass was in Kiswahili, which made it a bit of a struggle for me. However, Fr. Moses, like most Kenyans, mixes in English when he speaks and so his homily while predominantly in Kiswahili, had a bit of English mixed in. It fascinates me how Kenyans will mix Kiswahili and English even within a single sentence. Between the English and my now more “advanced” Kiswahili vocabulary, I was able to follow a little more of the homily than past Masses in Kiswahili I’ve attended. I also had the added advantage of reading the Mass readings beforehand. As the Gospel for Sunday was St. Luke’s account of the Beatitudes, I knew that much of the homily would revolve around that, which was indeed the case. In Kiswahili, the words for the “Blessed or Happy are you” of the Beatitudes are “Heri ninyi”.  So “Heri ninyi mlio maskini, kwa sababu ufalme wa Mungu ni wenu.”  or in English, “Happy are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.”. In what seems like contradictory terms, Jesus is actually giving us a blueprint for happiness. He is showing us the way to be truly happy. Our God, who created us with sole purpose of being happy with Him in eternity, is telling us how to get there. The amazing thing is that Jesus doesn’t start out with a set of rules and prohibitions, but with happiness. Happiness. God wants us to be happy. God created us to be happy and Jesus is telling us how to be happy. At its core, I believe this is what our faith is really all about – following Jesus along the path to happiness. Jesus told us that He came so that we may have life and have it to the full. So be Happy! (I’m telling myself this as well. Again, life is a journey!)

At the end of Mass, Fr. Moses had the “Brothers” – Oliver, Joe and myself introduce ourselves and say a few words about what we were doing in Kenya. Although we did not play an active role in the Mass, people really seemed to appreciate that we were there and participating.  It will be wonderful to see what ministry evolves at the prison for SDC.

After Mass, we headed back to the SDC house for lunch, a little rest, and then the children come in for afternoon study, classes and some play. Joe amused a bunch of the kids with some magic tricks and they all gathered around him in fascination. It was great. I ended up playing a number of games of Uno with the students. As it has been many years since I last played Uno, I needed a quick refresher before we began.  However, once we got going, I was able to hold my own and win my fair share of games. In fact, I would have won the first game, but didn’t remember you had to call “Uno” when you have one card left and ended up losing that game because of that. You would think I would remember I had to call “Uno” as the whole game is named after this fact 🙂 . As a penalty, I had to drawer four cards and never recovered. Upon further investigation, it appears that the penalty in the official rules of the game is to draw two cards, not four. I think I was taken advantage of! After the students left, we had the hour long prayer and formation session, then went back to the house for a little break before gathering to say the rosary, have dinner, and head to bed.

On Sunday, Oliver, Mario, Joseph, Mike and I got up and walked to the neighboring parish, St. Francis of Assisi Church, for 8 AM Mass. The church is being expanded and so at this point in time it is basically a construction zone. However, Masses still go on and the Church was full.  It was also a beautiful Mass, as are pretty much all the Masses I’ve attended here in Kenya, with lots of singing, clapping and dancing, and a long by U.S. standards, rousing homily. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m so inspired by the enthusiasm of the Catholic Church in Kenya and the fact that they can’t build Churches quickly enough here. It is a wonderful thing.

After lunch, students come in for classes and some play. As I mentioned, the students who come on Sunday are specifically there for sacrament preparation, but there was also ongoing faith formation sessions for both young adults, who have already received the sacraments, which Joe led, as well as one for older adults, which Mario led. The week of classes ends with a prayer and reflection session, called the Union, and is led by Oliver. At the hour of faith formation later in the day, Joe led a reflection on Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Guadete Et Exultate on the call to holiness in today’s world. Over the span of several months, Joe has led the group in the reading and reflecting on the document. This was the last session on Guadete Et Exultate and we read and discussed the final sections in the document. I really enjoyed the session and hope that I added some good commentary to the discussion. It was a great way to end the weekend and my experience at SDC.

On Monday morning, Joe and I drove back to Consolata. We had left in what should have been enough time to make 6:45 AM Mass with the Consolata Fathers, but there were some accidents and a lot of congestion on the roads, which caused us to arrive too late for Mass, but just in time for breakfast. We had the best of intentions …

I thank Oliver, Mario and Joe for so warmly welcoming me into their community for the weekend and allowing me to experience and participate with them in their ministry, prayer and community life The experience gave me a lot to think about as head into my second and final Kiswahili class at Consolata and prepare to head to Mombasa to start my own ministry.

Happy are we that Jesus is leading us to true happiness with Him.

As I write this, it has been a month and a week since my arrival in Kenya. Like most periods of time in my life, whether it be a week, a month, a year, or even a decade, when I look back, the time has appeared to have passed in an instant. This is not new phenomenon for me, not a product of my “advanced” age, but something which I have experienced my whole life. Time marches ever forward and I’m always trying to keep up with it. I’m never bored as there never seems to be enough time, always things I want to do, things I want to finish. However, I’m old enough now to realize and appreciate that life is what happens during the time when I’m trying to keep up with time – if that makes any sense.

As the well-worn saying goes, life is a journey. The question is where am I going and how did I get here. I often wake up here and find it hard to believe that I’m over 7000 miles from where I grew up and lived all of my life, the place where everything is familiar and where all the family and friends I’ve known for most of my life are. My journey has now taken me in another direction – one which I am on the journey of trying to understand. Coralis Salvador is my regional director here in Kenya. She often uses the tagline “Be in the Moment!” In her emails. This is constant reminder to me, that although the journey is important, life is really living the journey. I try more and more to make sure I’m doing that.

This wasn’t necessarily the way I intended to start this blog post, but this is what came out. I think I’ve been on this line of thinking since the first reading at last Sunday’s Mass – “The word of the LORD came to me, saying: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” It always amazes me how the little things we see, hear and experience, can bounce around in our heads and gently nudge us in certain directions. For me, I take this to be our Lord at work and Him urging us to come along for the ride. God has a plan. God is the plan. I don’t necessarily take the word prophet in the line from the reading from Jeremiah from last Sunday’s Mass to mean missionary work. This is just the direction my journey has led me at this point in my life. We are all called to be prophets. We are all called to be witnesses to the truth and the manifestation of that truth, which is love. We live this out in our journey of life.

All of this I hope serves a a preamble to some thoughts on the past month. My arrival in Kenya and being greeted by Kathy, Mike and Dee seems in the distant past at this point. Kathy and Mike headed back to Mombasa after spending a few days with me. Dee lives here at Consolata, but as she takes classes at a different school, I usually only see her once or twice a week. However, she always is available if I need something. Most of my days are spent with the Consolata Fathers, my fellow classmates here at the language school and a few of the Seminarians. As I mentioned in a previous post, my days are pretty regimented – Mass, breakfast, language classes, lunch, study, and dinner with time thrown in for occasional shopping trips, reading, praying, as well as trying to keep up with family and friends on Facebook and via email and texts. Saturdays are my primary days for resting and catching up. It is when I typically write my blog posts, wash clothes, do some things with other students, and prepare for the coming week. As for washing clothes, I’m fortunate to have access to the Fathers’ washing machine. Otherwise I’d have to hand wash and wring my clothes! There is no dryer, so everyone hangs their clothes out to dry. I’m going to miss the access to the Father’s washing machine once I leave Consolata. Sundays are pretty busy between Mass, or sometimes more than one Mass, and the pastoral visits with Francis to Kibera. I typically don’t have a lot of free time on Sundays, so Saturday is the day for getting done what I want to get done.

The unique experience here at Consolata is being together with such a diversity of people. With Dee off campus for classes, I’m often the only American here. Most of the Fathers and seminarians are from Kenya and Uganda. Most of the students come from countries in Africa – including a number of students from Eritrea, a country in the northeast part of Africa on the Rea Sea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well as the Republic of the Congo. I have to admit that I didn’t even know that Eritrea existed before I got here. However, I’m glad it does as I’ve been blessed to meet and get to know some of the students from there – most of whom are priests and religious sisters. While most of the students are from the countries I’ve mentioned, there are also students here from other parts of the world – Brazil, India, Italy, Malta, Hungary and Belgium. Working for IBM for 33 years, I got to meet and work with people from all over the world. However, this is a whole other level. If only everyone would realize how much more alike we all are than different.  A number of things certainly vary by culture, but at the heart of things, we are all the same.

My Kiswahili classmates are Fr. Francis and Joseph. Joseph is a missionary from Malta, who speaks more than six languages and has lived and done mission work in both Cuba and South Sudan among other places. The society he is from is based in Malta, but has a house about an hour outside Nairobi. Joseph lives here at Consolata during the week and goes to the house that he shares with two other members of his congregation on the weekends and teaches catechism classes. Fr. Francis is a Carmelite priest from India. He was ordained about a year ago, but did his Theology studies at a university in Nairobi, so has been in Kenya for a few years. Fr. Francis also speaks several languages. Fr. Francis lives a distance from the school, but stays close by at another Carmelite house during the week and goes home on weekends. Fr. Francis has to say at least three Masses each weekend at parishes that are not very close together, so he is pretty busy.

Both Joseph and Fr. Francis both speak English fluently, which becomes the default language among us even though we should be trying to use Kiswahili more often.  However, when our teacher is present, we have to use Kiswahili! Although I’ve studied and am familiar with Italian, German and Spanish, I’m probably the only person here who only speaks one language fluently.  Hopefully that will change soon! Most of the Fathers speak at least four languages. Fr. Francis tends to pick up vocabulary the quickest. He can remember words and phrases that I struggle to retain. I want to attribute this to the fact that he has been in Kenya longer and has been exposed to Kiswahili longer than I have. However, in reality I know it has more to do with age and the fact that I never was good at rote memorization. Both Fr. Francis and Joseph are only taking the first level seven week long Kiswahili class for now, which means we only have two more weeks in class together. I will be staying on for an additional seven week level two class before leaving Consolata and heading to Mombasa.

Incorporated into each session of classes at the Consolata Language Center is a cultural activity.  Yesterday afternoon the students went to the Bomas of Kenya, a tourist village that is a short walk from Consolata  Bomas means homesteads. Traditional villages of Keynan communities are on display there. The Bomas also features a program of traditional cultural music and dance as well as one segment that was full of acrobatics and jumping through, over and under fire. The performers also invited a few audience members on stage and some of the acts are pretty funny. I kind of thought of it as the Kenyan version of the Harlem Globetrotters. Kenya is modernizing rapidly. The Galleria mall near the school has a Pizza Hut and KFC. The Bomas appears to try to preserves some of the traditional cultures in the midst of all this “progress”.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention before closing that the second reading at last Sunday’s mass was St. Paul’s beautiful Ode to Love, which many of us are very familiar with, especially since it is used in many wedding ceremonies.. Although there are many beautiful lines in that reading, the one that stuck with me this week is “If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.” As St. Therese taught us, we don’t need to do great things, but rather do the small things, the things that constitute most of the, at times mundane, parts of our lives, with love. I know I fall far short of this ideal, but I keep trying. It’s part of my journey.

On Sunday morning at breakfast I asked Fr. Denis where he was celebrating Mass. Last Sunday he was the main celebrant for the Sunday morning Mass in the Seminary chapel, which is where I went to Mass. Fr. Denis told me that this weekend he was going to say Masses for the Consolata Sisters and asked if I would like to go with him. I told him that I would definitely like to go and drove with him to the Consolata Sisters Flora Hostel, which is about a twenty minute drive. The hostel provides accommodations for missionaries and their family and friends and is run by the Consolata Sisters. Next to the hostel is a fairly large chapel where Masses are celebrated daily. A different Consolata Father goes to the Flora Hostel every Sunday morning to celebrate two Masses – one in Swahili and one in English. Each Mass lasts almost ninety minutes and there is about thirty minutes between Masses. Fr. Denis celebrated both Masses and I attended both. Following the Mass in Swahili is still a challenge for me. I can follow the prayers of the Mass fairly well, but struggle with the readings, homily and songs (with which I am not familiar). Swahili is not Fr. Denis’ primary language as he from Uganda, where English is the official language. He “picked up” Swahili on his own while living in Kenya. As Fr. Denis has worked, spent time and also studied in Latin America, he speaks a number of languages. He is urging me to immerse myself to learn the language, which is why I try not to pass up opportunities to participate when Swahili is being spoken. However, as pretty much everyone in Nairobi speaks English, it’s a challenge to be  completely immersed in Swahili here.

The Masses in Kenya are very inspiring. The church or chapel is typically full for a Mass and the people are very engaged in the celebration of the liturgy. This is especially true of the music where people will not only sing, but also clap and move their bodies in praise and worship. There is much more music incorporated into the Masses in Kenya, which is why the Masses tend to be closer to ninety minutes rather than the hour that most of us are used to.

Fr. Denis’ homily centered around the second reading, which was taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians – St. Paul’s well known Body of Christ metaphor.  In his homily, Fr. Denis urged the congregation to be active participants in the life of the Church, which is the body of Christ. Fr. Denis stressed that we are all individually integral parts of the Body of Christ. Of course, I understood this from the English version of Fr. Denis’ sermon, not the parts in Swahili! Hopefully in time …

To me, Fr. Denis’ homily and the reading from St. Paul fits very nicely and is a continuation of what I thought about last week and wrote about in my last blog post. St. Paul’s reading tell us that God has designated different roles for each of us. He has endowed each of us with different gifts, but not necessarily the same gifts to each and every person. As St. Paul tells us, if the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? This reading has so much to offer, even though I’ve probably heard or read it several hundred times in the course of my life. St. Paul goes on to say that the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary and that if one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy. If only we could all live this teaching out more fully – me especially included.

We got back from Flora and Fr. Denis drove straight to the building where we have our meals so that I could eat. He knows that I leave with Francis to go to Kibera at 1:30 PM to do pastoral work and we didn’t arrive back at Consolata until a few minutes after 1 PM. The trip to Kibera is always interesting as it is too far to walk to, so we take a matatu – the privately owned minibuses that are ubiquitous in Kenya. A typical matatu seats about 8 – 12 people packed in. I still have not gotten the hang of them yet. I’m never sure of which one to get on, where they will drop me off, how much it costs, … They are always crowded and hectic. It took a long time for a matutu which went in the direction of Kibera to come along and when we go on, we were all crushed together. Luckily the matatu stop is right up the road from Consolata, next to the Galleria shopping mall that is easily walkable from Consolata. However, there is still quite a bit of walking  involved on the other end – getting from where the matatu lets us off to the entrance of Kibera and then making our way through Kibera to get to the location of the week’s meeting.

The meeting this week was again very uplifting for me. It was held in the place where one of the members of the small Christian community lives. She has recently lost a son and part of the meeting, after praying the rosary and reading the Mass readings for the next week, was to pray for her and offer words of condolence. She spoke some in English so I could understand and I said a few things in English. This woman now has one remaining son. She is not surprisingly still coming to terms with her loss, but spoke so beautifully about her trust in God even though she doesn’t understand the reason why something tragic like this happened. The members present were all so inspiring. Their intense love of God shines forth from them. There is no complaining, just praise for our Lord.

Although I practice speaking and listening in Swahili with the seminarians on my way to and from the meeting, I do resort to a lot of English to ask questions. I’m going to force myself to only use Swahili at Kibera with the residents there. It will definitely limit what I can say, but I want to keep pushing forward. I see some improvement in my ability to pick out Swahili words and phrases from week to week, but I’m still a long way from being able to understand a lot of things. I can follow along with prayers like the rosary and the Mass in Swahili, but other than that, learning Swahili is definitely a work in progress. In Swahili they say ‘pole pole’ which means slowly, slowly. I’ve only been here a month. When I look at it from that perspective, I’ve learned a lot.

We got back to Consolata from Kibera around 5:30 PM, which gave me time to take a shower and get ready for dinner. Dinner is late here – around 7 PM. I’m pretty used to eating dinner late now and am able to make it from lunch to dinner without a problem. I eat a lot less here and really don’t snack between meals. I don’t eat desert often, but will partake when it is available, which only happens on special occasions. Unfortunately, I don’t get much in the way of exercise with the exception of a little bit of walking. I’m not starving and I arrived in Kenya with a few extra pounds that I could easily afford to shed. I think I’m making some progress in that respect as I feel my clothes are generally looser fitting now. I guess that is a good thing.

Today is the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord. In celebration of the feast there was a special Mass this morning in the large chapel. The Mass was celebrated by Fr. Geoffrey, the superior and rector of the Seminary, along with five other Consolata Fathers. We – Fathers, Seminarians, Sisters, and some students – gathered  at the flog pole in the courtyard for a few prayers and for a candle lighting to recall the light of Christ in us. With lit candles in hand, we processed to the chapel for Mass. The Mass was very nice. The seminarians are very vocal and engaged in the liturgical music. In his homily for the Feast of the Presentation, on which we also celebrate the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin (according to the law of Moses), Fr. Geoffrey talked about the ways in which the Lord touches and purifies us in our lives – whether through suffering or graces that He gratuitously bestows on us. May our Lord continue to purify us and shine brightly in each of us so that we may be a light to others.

Last Saturday I was sitting at breakfast with two of the Consolata Fathers – Fr. Samuel and Fr. Josephat. A number Fathers and students sleep in on Saturdays and so there weren’t many of us at breakfast at that time. I mentioned the snow storm that was forecasted for the northeastern US and was commenting on how beautiful the weather in Nairobi is. I understand I missed a lot of rain, which occurred before I arrived, but the weather here has been almost perfect since my arrival. It is sunny and in the high 70s F every day. It does get down below 60 F some nights, but I have as yet had to have to shut the windows in my room, which are always open. I know most people just think of Kenya as uniformity hot, but Nairobi sits at almost 6000 ft. above sea level, making the weather here much cooler than other parts of the country. This will not be the case when I move to Mombasa at the end of April.

The conversation about the impending snow storm somehow morphed into a conversation of resources in Kenya and from there into a discussion about how God provides for us. Fr. Samuel stated something to which I also subscribe, that is that God provides all that we need to meet our physical and spiritual needs, but that he disperses these gifts among all the people of the world in such a way that we all only have enough if we all work together. God does not leave us here on earth without the means to sustain ourselves both physically and spiritually, however, he doesn’t distribute gifts to each person in a way that makes each person self sustaining, but rather in a way that  everyone will have their fill only if we share of ourselves with others.

Maybe Fr. Samuel had in mind a passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, which would be the second reading at Sunday Mass the next day. In that reading St. Paul says “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another, the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another, faith by the same Spirit; to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit; to another, mighty deeds; to another, prophecy; to another, discernment of spirits; to another, varieties of tongues; to another, interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes.”  As I heard this read at Mass on Sunday I was struck at how this tied back to what we were talking about at breakfast on Saturday. We always say that God provides, which is certainly true – remember “God is good all the time, all the time God is good”. However, also contained in this passage from St. Paul is the fact that God does not bestow all these gifts on each and every person, but rather He distributes them individually to each person as He wishes.  He gives each of us gifts for some benefit, gifts that when combined with the gifts of our fellow brothers and sisters, provide all that we need to not only survive but flourish spiritually, as well as physically, using the resources God has bestowed on us through the planet on which we live.

What made this yet more meaningful for me is what happened on Sunday. As part of my language studies at the Consolata Language Center, immersion experiences are incorporated into the program to give students an opportunity to practice speaking Swahili – which at this point comes with great difficulty for me. The immersion experience I chose was to do pastoral work in Kibera with one of the Consolata seminarians. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi and is considered by many to be the largest slum in all of Africa. The residents of Kibera live in extreme poverty. People there don’t have the means to earn a living and great majority of the people living in Kibera lack access to basic human services.

The seminarian that I’m assigned to work with in Kibera is named Francis. I will be joining Francis each Sunday afternoon to do pastoral work with small Christian communities in Kibera for approximately 3 – 4 hours. The stated objective is for me to have the opportunity to practice Swahili, but after my first trip there, I know that what will be even more meaningful to me is my experience of being there with the people who live and live out their faith life in the midst of so much need.

I’ll leave the details of my experiences at Kibera for future posts when I have more than one visit on which to base things. However, what I can say at this point is that I was welcomed warmly and allowed to participated as part of the community. Of course, everything was in Swahili and I could only pick out so many words that I understood, but I was at least able to get the general gist of what was going on. I had to introduce myself and say a few sentences about myself in Swahili. I messed up a little and the people that were there laughed, but I knew they understood what I was trying to say.

What I experienced at Kibera last Sunday was people coming together to pray and worship our God deep in the heart of this large slum which appears to be forgotten and hopeless. What I saw was people bringing their gifts and talents together in the service of the community as a whole in order to move the community together to grow in faith and love of God. I continue to have a lot to learn.

As I write this blog post, I’ve completed my second week at language school and have settled into a daily routine here. Mass is at 6:45 AM, followed by breakfast. Class is from 9 AM to 1 PM, followed by lunch. By the time class is finished my brain hurts and I am kind of worn down. Most of the class is now taught in Swahili and it takes a lot of energy to just keep up with what the instructor is saying. The language itself is not conceptually difficult and Swahili is easy to pronounce and write. The problem for me is learning the vocabulary. We get a lot of new vocabulary each day and the instructor will start using the new words as soon as they are introduced. I was never good at brute memorization and as is the case with most people, my ability to memorize things has degraded with age. I have to make sure I learn the new words by the next class so I will understand them when they are used. Being able to recall the words on the spot so I can use them when speaking is another issue. I know it takes time and that the more I immerse myself in the language the better it will be.

The Consolada campus, of which the Language Center is part, is pretty self contained. In addition to taking classes at the Language Center, the campus is where I currently live, eat meals, and go to Mass. There are people from all over the world taking language classes here – in addition to the seminarians who are studying Philosophy at the seminary. As Dee is taking a class outside Consolada and is just living here, I think I am the only American currently taking classes at the Language Center. While most of the students come from African countries, there are also students here from places like Italy, India, and Brazil learning English, Swahili, Italian, and Spanish among other languages. Luckily all the students at the school speak at least a little English and the Consolata Fathers speak English fluently, otherwise, I would have a very hard time communicating.

Last Sunday I went to an English Mass with Dee at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is within walking distance from Consolata. Dee goes to Mass there on Sundays and it gave me an opportunity to leave the campus, which I haven’t done much of with the exception of trips to the nearby Galleria shopping mall to buy toiletries and put more money in my M-PESA account, the mobile money service that is used so extensively in Kenya. During Mass, I heard the now familiar saying “God is good all the time, all the time God is good.” However, something was added at the end of the saying, which I wasn’t quite sure if I was hearing correctly. After Mass, I asked Dee and it turned out that I did heard what I thought I had heard, that is “God is good all the time. All the time God is good. That is His Nature. Wow!” When I got back to Consolada I asked some of the Fathers and they confirmed that they’ve also heard the phrase “That is His Nature. Wow!” used. I now have a whole new dimension of the saying on which to reflect. How profound in its utter simplicity!

It saddened me that during the week there was a terrorist attack on a hotel and entertainment complex in the Westlands area of Nairobi in which 21 innocent people were killed – including one American. The location of the attack is about 8 miles from the school and there was no direct impact here. However, it is a reminder that you always need to be vigilant here. Although security checkpoints, walls and barbed wire are ubiquitous in Nairobi, these measures can only do so much to protect people. The sad thing is that besides the lives that were senselessly lost, the attack will most likely have an impact on tourism here, which is so important to the local economy.

Fr. Lance invited Dee and me over to the Maryknoll Father’s house for dinner on Wednesday night. It was the last night of a regional meeting and there were a number of Fathers there from Tanzania. I also got to meet the Maryknoll seminarians, who were still away on Christmas break the first time I had dinner at the Nairobi Maryknoll Father’s House when I first arrived over two weeks ago. At the end of the meal, the seminarians treated us to some entertainment. How inspiring it was to witness the joy in these seminarians.

I look forward to starting pastoral work tomorrow with one of the seminarians. This will not only give me the opportunity to do some meaningful work, but also give me the chance to venture out and practice some Swahili. “That is His Nature. Wow!”

Kathy Flatoff and Mike Garr checked me in at language school yesterday. They then proceeded to head back to Mombasa where they have to return to their mission jobs on Monday after spending a few days with me in Nairobi getting me settled in. Dee Dungy remains with me in Nairobi where she will be taking a second level Swahili course while I start my first level class.

I will be doing my Swahili language studies at the Consolata Language Center, which is run by the Consolata Missionaries – an Italian Catholic missionary congregation that includes Priests, Brothers and Sisters.  A number of other languages are also taught at the school including English, Spanish, German and Arabic. The language center shares the campus with a seminary and a philosophy school.

Two immediate surprises about the school and my class work here. The first is that the second level Swahili class, which I’m scheduled to take, starts right after the first class ends with only the weekend in between. The original plan was for me to spend a break between classes in Mombasa to get acquainted with the city, see where everyone lives, practice my Swahili and get a general lay of the land there. With the two Swahili classes back to back, I’ll now be in Nairobi at the school until the middle of April and then head to Mombasa after that.

The more important surprise was the sense of community here. I was aware of the existence of the seminary and philosophy school before I arrived, but didn’t really understand how things worked. Not only will I be learning Swahili, but I’ll also have the opportunity to get to know the Fathers, Sisters and Seminarians who are here and interact with them. The way things are set up, I share meals with the Fathers and other male students attending the language school.

Fr. Denis is the director of the language school. He is a graduate of the Consolata Seminary here, did his theology studies in Bogota, Colombia and served in mission in Brazil. He has been at the school for less than a year. I went to Sunday Mass this morning in the main chapel where Fr. Denis was the main celebrant for the Mass. The Mass was attended by about sixty of the seminarians, who are primarily  from Kenya and Uganda. The seminarians were very vocal and energetic in their praise of God during the hymns at Mass. Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, the Catholic feast that commemorates the visit of the magi (wise men) to the Baby Jesus. Fr. Denis wove the story of the Epiphany into a call to mission in his homily, which he used to encourage the seminarians as they begin a new semester of study after having been home on Christmas break for the past month. As I’m beginning my own mission journey, I used Fr. Denis’ words to reflect on my own situation. The call and response “God is good/all the time. All the time/God is good.”, which we had used a several times during Orientation at Maryknoll was also used by Fr. Denis during the Mass. It was such joy to celebrate Mass with the seminarians and experience such a profound expression of our Catholic faith – albeit a little different from what I’m typically used to. 

At the end of Mass before the final blessing, Fr. Denis proceeded to call me up to the altar and have me introduce myself. After my introduction, Fr. Denis said that from this point forward the seminarians are to speak to me in Swahili only – no English. Given that my Swahili vocabulary at this point consists of maybe a few dozen words, it’s going to be a struggle, but a good one.

“God is good all the time. All the timeGod is good.”

I’ve arrived in Nairobi – the first step in my journey into Kenya. It was hard saying goodby to everyone at home. The most difficult part for me is the realization that I won’t be there for many of the life events of my family and friends. I’ll do my best to stay in touch with everyone, but I know it’s not the same as being there. I also realize that there is the possibility that some of my relatives, who are advanced in age, may not be there when I return home.

I am so appreciative of the beautiful sendoffs I was given by family, friends and my parish communities. You are all part of what makes up me and so part of what I’m doing here in Kenya. Your thought and prayers are so important to me.

My first few days here in Nairobi have focused on getting to know the Maryknoll family here, my fellow lay missioners along with some of the Sisters and Fathers, as well as a basic introduction to Kenya. Kathy Flatoff and Mike Garr, the two Maryknoll lay missioners who came to Kenya last year, took the train up from Mombasa, where they are living and doing mission work, to meet me at the Nairobi airport. Kathy is a nurse and administrator in a dispensary serving the needs of those living in a slum in Mombasa. Mike is teaching culinary arts and catering at a vocational school in Mombasa. Joining them is Dee Dungy, a lay missioner who spent six years in Cambodia, but has now transferred to Kenya. Dee is between Swahili language school sessions and will be starting the second level class when I start the first level class that she just completed on Monday. I am so grateful to the welcome that Kathy, Mike and Dee have given me. Kathy and Mike are facilitating my orientation into Kenya. Having just gone through what I’m going through now a year ago, their guidance and support have been invaluable. They are also helping me get settled logistically before they head back to Mombasa on Saturday and I check into language school where I will be living for the next seven weeks for the first level Swahili class. For the past few days, we have been living together in the Maryknoll Sisters house in Nairobi covering things I need to know about living in Kenya and exploring the city of Nairobi.

There is no doubt that living here in Kenya is a big change for me and presents a number of personal challenges in terms of how I live my daily life. So many things that I took for granted living in the US are either non existent here or are much more difficult. I have so much to learn. I’m blessed to have Kathy, Mike and Dee here with me in Kenya, as well as the other lay missioners living in the region that I will meet later on, for friendship and support.

I’ll end this post with a quote from Mother Teresa that I’m doing my best to integrate into the way I live my life. “Give Jesus not only your hands to serve, but your heart to love. Pray with absolute trust in God’s loving care for you. Let Him use you without consulting you. Let Jesus fill you with joy that you may preach without preaching.”