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Thanks for the Donation (August 2006) Fr David Cullen
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Mphangwe Prayer Centre (September 2007) Fr David Cullen
Mphangwe Prayer Centre (May 2008) Fr David Cullen
Mphangwe Prayer Centre (July 2008) Fr David Cullen
Books for the Prayer Centre (August 2008) Fr David Cullen
News from Chipata (Zambia) January 2009 Fr David Cullen



Mphangwe Prayer Centre
P.O. Box 511233
Chipata
Zambia
 
Thursday, August 10, 2006



(source : Fr David Cullen)



Dear Paul and all Pelicans,
 
Again, a much appreciated helping hand from you all in the form of £270 deposited with the White Fathers in Stormont Road. Many thanks to all of you for the on-going concern and help.
 
Just at the moment I’m down in Lusaka for a few days, partly to see the doctors who treated me in hospital for TB. It seems that, from that point of view, I’m pretty well cured although I still have to take the pills for another month or so. Apart from one or two wear and tear problems I thank the Lord for the good health that enables me still to be here and be able to do a job that seems to fit in with what the local Church wants of me.
 
Our retreat centre is gradually getting into operation although what we can offer remains pretty basic. In most of the 25 rooms available for retreatants, apart from a bed, basin, mirror, chair and table there is not much by way of furniture, but we have plans to put in some shelves and have made a contract with a local carpenter for 30 softer chairs than the straight hard back one already there. In some rooms we don’t yet have a table, but hopefully again we can get local carpenters to make more and they are very pleased at the possibility of employment.

Our cook is still occupying a room in one of the hostels, but one of our projects at the moment is to build him a house according to the plan that is used throughout the diocese for employees, not luxurious but adequate. As he wants to get married we have to try to move as fast as we can. We have two teams of brick-bakers on the spot, but it takes quite a bit of time to get the clay moulded and the ovens going although it’s a lot cheaper than transporting them and again the local people are glad for to have the work. This being an almost entirely subsistence farmer area, jobs are very few and far between.

Anyhow with time and money , a member of a local congregation of Brothers, and myself are gradually trying to make of this quiet and picturesque spot in the hills a really suitable retreat centre.

As regards the people who live in the area this year, even if the crops have been good this year, they are not going to make much progress out of their poverty due to what the markets are offering for their produce. They are being given just over half of what they got last year for the major cash crop, cotton, and many, having paid off the debts they had for fertilizer, don’t have much left for their children’s education and other needs. What the local companies are offering them is about 11p a kilo. Also they’ve had difficulty in selling their maize surplus as the government ran out of money to buy it. Maybe the latter problem is going to be solved as this being an election year the government is conscious that it has to win hearts.
 
There remains great poverty all around. I often have to help orphans especially for school needs — and as the news spreads, so the needy surface. I have been asking the Home Based Care volunteers who are the ones often bringing those in need to my attention to ask the children helped to come and do a bit of work here at the centre during the holidays. We are trying to get going a vegetable garden and our 4 km road from the main tarmac road still needs flattening here and there and we can usually find a few other jobs around the place. I’m sure the youngsters will come as in fact most people don’t come asking for handouts but for ‘piecework’ to earn what is needed for school or other needs.
 
The members of the Home Based Care who cater for the victims of HIV/AIDS come to ask for extra food for some of their clients as also the bus fare to the hospital, some 30 km away, where they have to pick up their monthly supply of ARVS.

We are drawing near the end of our cold season and yet still some days are really cold, at least I feel it so. I use money that people like you send me to buy blankets wholesale so as to be able to help especially the elderly women who don’t have one. The SVP does a good research job to find the most needy and sometimes I’m able again to give some piecework to those who ask by way of cooking when we have a group here, washing and ironing bed linen and towels when the rooms have been vacated and generally keeping the place clean.
 

 We’re starting to get more individuals and groups wanting to use the centre, mostly for retreats, for instance the Pioneers and the Charismatics from the parishes around and groups of catechists too. We had a recollection day for the priests and nuns of a neighbouring deanery in the diocese. We also had a four-day youth rally from the four parishes in the deanery and a couple of weeks ago the Home Based Care of the diocese held a seminar here for those within our parish boundaries who are HIV positive. Hopefully as we get better installed and it also gets known that we try to keep the costs as low as possible we will get more requests.
 
Being this week here in Lusaka it is hard to avoid some of my former ‘clients’. Just today I’ve had to help Albertina, the grandmother of six children. Three of her daughters died of AIDS and now it seems that at least one of the children has been diagnosed positive. There are 3 other children in her care from the same mother. They have not yet been tested, but I fear for them. Albertina tries to manage by renting out a room in her house and growing crops of maize and groundnuts in a field someone put at her disposal. She’s also trying to complete another very simple small house in a compound in Lusaka that would also bring in some rent. I have to help her with the schooling of the children as also with her projects.
 
Another one I had to help today was Maureen, a fourteen-year old girl from the compound of Misisi where some 50,000 people live, often in sub-human conditions. Maureen is nine months pregnant. I’ve had to help her to buy what the baby will need when born. When the child can be left with Maureen’s mother hopefully she can return to school. Pray that the child be delivered safely. Still another one I’ve had to help today is Bernadette who has 3 of her own children plus an orphan to care for. She has a job as a cleaner in the hospital but it does not suffice for all the family needs. I’ve given her something to be able to start a small business buying chickens at the market very early in the morning, getting the children to dress them and then sell them to nurses and others at the hospital. Hopefully the business will work.
 
Two others I’ve had to help are two boys at schools for special needs. One in particular I remember as he is a deaf mute and his mother is a widow amongst the poorest of the poor. I had better not stay too long here in Lusaka otherwise I shall be completely broke.
 
The parish at Mphangwe is also no sinecure though the people are very co-operative. We had a big crowd for our Corpus Christi Mass and long procession. The liturgical committee set up an altar on the football field. Bunting being a problem to find out here, they used toilet paper instead! And the other week we had an ecumenical prayer service for the sick that brought in a full church. By popular demand we’re putting on another in September.

There were a few who got ‘the spirits’, all women as is usual here. I often wonder why it is that the spirits don’t seem to bother about the men. What happens is that those ‘seized’ by the spirits go into a trance and start trembling and groaning and falling about the place. Anyhow our charismatic group is very skilled in coping with these situations. I’m not sure the people here in the rural area especially are yet ready enough to accept that there might be another explanation other than being possessed by the spirits, even though I do throw out the question that I wonder why the men are not affected. Belief in the existence of the spirits, both good and bad, is very strong.
 
The centre is also a Marian Shrine and we’re planning to have a Mass and procession on August 15. We’re also taking advantage of the school holidays to have retreats and training sessions for the altar boys and stellas, the girls who do the liturgical dancing at Mass, as also the youth. We’ll be receiving the catechumens too for a week’s catechetical preparation. Here in the diocese there is a 3-year preparation for baptism so perseverance is a very necessary virtue in the catechumens.
 
I must stop. Thank you again for your on-going concern and support. May the Lord bless and be with you all.
 
Sincerely yours,
 
 
Fr David Cullen, WF
 


P.S. I include two photos.



This is a Mass that I was saying in one of our small Christian Communities when we were collecting the maize offerings of the people there. The two members of the financial committee who came with me are being introduced at the end of the Mass. The Community meets there on Sundays for prayers apart from the once every two months Mass that is said in the out-station to which several small Christian communities come. At times the community will also trek to the parish at Mphangwe for a major Mass like Corpus Christi.


A Mass at Mphangwe I think on Easter Sunday. This is the finale of the procession with the bible before the readings at Mass. One of the liturgical 'dancing girls' is carried by a group of the women known as 'the women of the mortar' (where the maize is pounded) who are a major force in the parishes of the dioecese.

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Mphangwe Prayer Centre
P.O.Box 511233
Chipata, Zambia.  

05/03/2007

Dear Pelicans             

Many thanks indeed for the donation of which I received word from the provincial treasurer of K300 from you all. That was a most welcome Christmas present for the all too many poor around us here.  

Just at the moment I’m away from Mphangwe to give a week’s session on the bible to a group of novices belonging to one of the congregations that do a lot of good work out here, Canadian in origin, but now with quite a number of Sisters from Malawi and Zambia. I’m trying to help them get to grips with the real meaning of Genesis.              

Back at Mphangwe we have a big group of catechists for a week’s session on the bible. As there are 3 other priests who have come for it I’m taking advantage of their presence to take this week here in Chipata. I get very spoiled by the nuns.   We’re hoping to start some literacy classes this month and have had 3 of our parishioners trained to teach by the local council. We are also planning, hopefully again with the help of the local council, to hold a short course for girl school dropouts in knitting and learning to make the fritters, scones etc from a stove that can be used in the bush without electricity. We hope it takes off, and again we have found several parishioners willing to do the teaching. We hope in ways like these to help the girls to find a way of self-help, earning a bit and doing something more to enhance their own lives.  

Someone said to me recently that trying to cope with the needs of the poor here in Zambia is trying to fill a bottomless pit. It does seem like that sometimes and it can be wearing to have so many ‘madandaulo’ as they put it in the local language, literally ‘complaints’, financial problems. This time of the year is the worst as regards food. Supplies from last year’s harvest have run out and it’s still a few more months before harvest time. Also what is really a great handicap is that those who sold maize to the government stores after the harvest last July have not yet been paid and those who sold their cotton got a pittance.   Quite a few have asked for help with food, either as a loan or in many cases, through our parish St Vincent de Paul Society, as an emergency supply for those who are really needy, the crippled and elderly often living on their own.              

The depth of poverty is often beyond anything we can visualise in our western societies. A few days ago we had about 25 baptisms of children. Going round the parish I’ve found a lot of unbaptised children and the reason given is that the parents cannot afford to pay the ‘mtulo’, a kind of annual church tax. Though we have to try to avoid ‘selling’ the sacraments, it’s a more or less understood agreement that when you come for baptism or marriage your mtulo payment should be up to date. This year it’s been increased to about £1.20! The bishop is very hot on people paying up as he says, quite rightly, eventually the Church here must be self-supporting. It was in Kabwata, but then there in town there are many with jobs and businesses. For many of the poorest here the mtulo seems to be an enormous obstacle. I’ve been telling people that if they bring a chicken I can buy it for those who come to the Centre for retreats or sessions. And that’s helped. For others we offered them the possibility of doing a bit of ‘piecework’ as they call it here, a bit of casual labour, usually working on our road to keep it passable. I pay what we usually pay for others who come to ask for ‘piecework’ into the parish fund. They’re very grateful for that possibility.


We in fact have many asking for ‘piecework’, men, women, youths and children. We can’t find work for everyone but do what we can. At least the people show they don’t want a handout but to help themselves. When we have a session at Mphangwe we always need cooks and women to wash bedding and towels and clean the place up. I have a long waiting list of these.              

We gave a lot of piecework over the Christmas holidays for children needing school fees, uniforms, shoes and books, work on our road. Quite a number are orphans, but those who have parents were also very grateful as were the parents who find it an enormous burden to pay for all their children’s schooling and other needs. Others I’ve given soft loans to, with the promise of a return when the cotton harvest comes in. If I get back the loans I shall be a multi-millionaire, at least in our local currency where £1 fetches 8,000 kwacha.              

Where too we have to try to help is with those who come with the problems of transport. They’ve received a message that their child is sick in hospital and they have not money to travel the hundreds of miles to get there, or it’s a close relative who has died and someone has to go and fetch the orphaned children and bring them back here. Usually this is another soft loan though in some cases I just have to give as there is no hope of their ever finding the money to repay. Also we have to help victims of HIV/AIDS to pay for transport to the hospital every month to pick up their ARVs, the hospital being some 30 km away. Again those helped are willing to come and do some work for the money.              

The Centre too demands a lot of money. We’ve just finished two projects, putting anti-mosquito netting on over 80 windows and building a house for our cook. He was occupying a room in one of our hostels for retreatants which couldn’t go on, more particularly as he got married several months ago. As the house, solid and quite large, even if not exactly a luxury mansion, but built according to the design used throughout the diocese for staff, is at last ready for occupation, he and his wife can move out of what we had to give as a temporary bridal suite, a room that we hope eventually to turn into our library.              

Last week we had a group of 25 ‘azimai a pa mtondo’, literally ‘ladies of the mortar’, that in which the maize is pounded, coming for a 3-day session. They are a kind of umbrella group for all the lay organisations and quite a powerful body. We had the leaders from different parts of the diocese. The other day I met with a couple of Anglican priests and they would like to come here for a retreat. Just now we have a tired-out nun who finds this place very restful and wants to stay for a month. We have a 3-roomed small house as you start climbing the hills from here and we use that for nuns who come for retreats or for such a need.              

The first Sunday of Lent we had a big ceremony of about 30 or more catechumens who are due to be baptised at Easter. We also included a ceremony of the enthronement of the bible, something that is encouraged in all the parishes as part of our diocesan ‘year of the bible’ efforts. We began late as some of the catechumens had not come to register and it took time to get through all that so that Mass eventually began towards 11 a.m. and finished about 2 p.m. Luckily here people are not very time conscious and the Masses are always very lively. I don’t think the youth over there could complain of Mass being ‘boring’ if they were here. Long certainly, but not boring.              

I have to say once more how much your help is valued by us here. Just this morning I helped a secondary schoolboy, an orphan, as his aunt, besides her own children, has two nephews at secondary school that she has been taking care of since the death of her sister. Anyhow I offered to pay for one for which she was very grateful.              

I saw a photo in the Petit Echo of a group of Pelicans at the Generalate in Rome. May the group remain ever strong and continue the good work you’re doing.            

Wishing you the Lord’s loving care in all your needs and concerns,              

Sincerely yours,               Fr David Cullen, WF
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Mphangwe Prayer Centre
Box 511233
Chipata
Zambia

September 25. 2007

Dear Robbie,

Once again many thanks for the stream of valuable books coming through your kind and generous services. I'm finding a lot of personal help from what you send and am stocking everything carefully for the day when we can open our library.

At the moment, through the help of a Trust, we're in the process of building a block for the parish some distance from the Centre. It will comprise dormitories, classroom and conference room space and offices. It will mean that the present buildings that now have to be shared between parish and centre can be used exclusively for the original purpose of making Mphangwe a place for the spiritual strengthening of the members of the diocese as also for others wanting to use it. We're even getting requests from Religious in the Copper belt, some 900 km from here, to come for a retreat.

One of our first priorities when the buildings are completed is to make a decent library and reading room. We have structures but at present they are often used as dormitories, as when for instance last week we had over 500 Legionaries of Mary from all over the diocese here for a two-day retreat.

Since coming back three weeks ago there's been plenty to do, the retreat, seeing what had to be done for the buildings, the usual parish work and having to cope with the heavy load of the poor coming for all kinds of needs. This year has not been the best for the local subsistence farmers particularly because of unexpected late torrential rains that did a lot of damage to the maize of those who were a bit late in planting as also to the cotton growers.

The climatic change in the world at large is also adversely affecting us here. When food should be plentiful at this time of the year there is a lot of hunger about. Also people need to buy fertilizer to ensure a good harvest for their staple food, maize, and there is the continual problem of orphans.








We often have to help with transport costs those whose daughter or sister has died in one of the distant towns and the orphans have to be brought back here to the rural area for care. Last week we had two such requests.

Then those who took seed and dressing for their cotton crop and had a disastrous harvest are being threatened with imprisonment if they don't repay their loans. We've already had to rescue one elderly lady from that fate and two others we're hoping we can help with a loan to avoid a useless prison sentence. Then too there is the constant problem of keeping children at school and already we've had to help a number who had been sent home for not paying fees. When they are orphans we give them priority. Many of the loans given last year for school fees and fertilizer have not yet been repaid and many probably won't be. I don't think it's due to bad will or reluctance but the disappointing harvest. Quite a number have paid back though it's not uncommon for them to reappear for another loan!

The parishioners have been giving a lot of help with the new building. For a start they moulded 50,000 bricks and four days out of five come from different parts of the parish to help. Yesterday we had 16. Yet still we need others who come for piecework, to crush stones, dig out sand, carry bricks and find firewood for burning the bricks and so on. Whilst we are overwhelmed with requests for piecework we can offer it to a lot and this helps them with their basic needs.

Keep us all in your prayers as I do you and all the other Pelicans and with best wishes to them all,

Sincerely,David Cullen, WF




































From: David Cullen (ddavid@zamtel.zm)
Sent: 02 June 2008 11:43:22
To: Paul West (the.pelicans@hotmail.com)

Mphangwe

Thursday, 29 May 2008

Dear Paul,

Thanks for your e-mails. I hope that the meeting at Bishops Waltham went well. If there is a Pelicans meeting next year when I’m on leave I’d be pleased to be there, provided of course it’s during my time in England.

I’m not in Mphangwe at present but am preaching a retreat, in Tanzania in fact, to ten of our future White Fathers and am at a retreat centre called Emmaus run by Franciscan nuns and have a bit more time for letter-writing than when I’m back home so thought I would take advantage of the extra time to catch up on neglected mail. I’m also doing what you asked: sorting out a few photos. I thought it better to send you a disc with photos on plus some explanatory notes and have been working on that these days. One fine day it will reach you.

These young men will be taking their final commitment in August and will then be ordained deacons. We thank the Lord that he still sends us young men wanting to become missionaries. We may not get the numbers as in the days of old, but still there is a steady little flow that tells us that the time of the White Fathers is not over. I’ve been very impressed with the seriousness of the group. Where I was in Lusaka at one time we were 3 WFs all over 70. At the latest reckoning all the members of the community were under 40!

The retreat centre at Mphangwe continues to be used. We had a retreat before I left for Tanzania of 15 young novices from a Canadian-founded Congregation of nuns that runs, amongst other good works, some much-appreciated girls’ secondary schools. Since I left too some 50 catechists were there for a 3-day workshop on the pastoral theme of the diocese for this year, evangelisation in the footsteps of St Paul.

June will be quieter unless we get some more bookings, but in the parish we will have a busy time going to our 12 Small Christian Communities for a special Mass we call masika. At that the local communities make an offering of their maize harvest and this is in fact the largest source of income for the parish, people finding it easier to offer something in kind rather than hard cash. At the same time we will have a mini-workshop on the same theme as that of the catechists. We can’t go on for too long though; otherwise we’ll start getting complaints of ‘njala’ (hunger) as everyone will have to go home for their meal except us who are always fed by the local community after the session.

The building program that will put the parish offices, dormitories and large classroom at some distance from the Centre is still going on. The buildings should have been finished by the end of this month, but it won’t happen. Hopefully we’ll get the roof on, but then there will be plastering, painting, building some outside latrines and so on, plus we hope, provided our donor can give a bit more, at least some basic furnishing.

We want then to start a few programs for youth especially. As we are thought to be the only ones in the area that can get a youth club going, we have been given some material by the local council for a sewing and carpentry course. We want also to help some of the girls, especially those who have dropped out of school or never went to school, to learn some cooking skills that they can use in the bush to make fritters and what have you and so earn a bit of money. Then too we plan to get someone from the local council to give advice to the farmers in our area to help them improve their produce. My fellow priest, Mark, hit on the idea of inviting the local chief to come as, if the people hear he’ll be there, they’ll come in great numbers. He’s supposed to have gone to visit the chief with several of the local elders last week, taking a goat as a gift before stating the purpose of the visit. I hope that it worked out.

 

As over there the Easter holidays came to an end a few weeks ago. The big problem parents and guardians of orphans had to face was school fees for this new term. Providentially we were able to offer what people here call ‘piecework’, casual labour, to quite a number. The problem though is that there were many more wanting to work than we could provide for. We gave preference to those in their final year of secondary school and to the most vulnerable. There is a youngster called Sonyezani who came on crutches from about 10 miles away to ask for help. I have helped him before and am trying to get a Dutch organisation called Liliane that helps disabled children to take him on, but always forms, photos etc are required and it all takes time. We have about a dozen other handicapped children that we’re trying to get onto the books of Liliane but in the meantime we have to keep them at school.

During the Easter holidays a group of our youth were at a deanery rally in the next parish about 20 miles from here and before that were doing a lot of work on the 4 km dust road that links us with the main road and which had been badly devastated by the rains as also in helping the building of the parish block to earn enough to take food with them. They were also practising the week before with songs, football, bible quiz, sketches and so on. They are good at all that. When I got a report of the rally I was pleased to hear that the first day was given to a day of retreat and that they were also given several talks about the dangers of HIV/AIDS.

We have many HIV/AIDS victims around whom until recently needed to go to the hospital some 30 km from here to collect their ARVs monthly and for the most part lacked transport money. The healthier ones were offering to come and work for the bus fare but a large number are not strong enough for it. Fortunately this problem has been greatly reduced as the local hospital has now made Mphangwe one of their outreach centres and a group of hospital personnel come once a month to help the several hundred afflicted with AIDS in our area. The parish has a group of trained Carers who do a good job with the sick and we get some help from the diocese in terms of drugs, beans and other items. We also have a nurse who comes once a week. However there remain many others who have to get to the hospital for various reasons and 30 km is a long walk when you are sick.

We have a group that is especially concerned to help the poorest of the poor, our St Vincent de Paul Conference and it goes on pretty well. They planted their own field of maize this year to raise funds to help. There is a full monthly meeting and every time we seem to increase in numbers, members coming from quite distant out-stations. Every Thursday too a small group comes to deal with the clients who are in particular need for food, transport money to hospital, blankets, clothes, emergency journeys to sick or deceased relatives, payment of a fine to stay out of jail and a good many other problems.

In these and other ways that we try to help gives you some idea where your much-appreciated contributions go.

Wishing you and all the Pelicans the Lord’s continued loving care,

Sincerely yours,

David Cullen, WF


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July 2008

Dear Paul,

Greetings to you and all Pelicans.

I have a CD with photos plus an explanatory list, but do not have your home address. Could you kindly send it?

As usual here we are not underemployed. Today we have had the monthly visit of a group of nurses from our nearest mission hospital, St Francis, about 20 miles away. I know I mentioned before that they now come once a month to examine the sick and distribute arvs to victims of HIV/AIDS in a fairly wide area around us, something in the region of 200 now I believe. It’s a great blessing because more take advantage of their coming who might not so easily go to the hospital and, apart from everything else, I was having to pay the bus fare of so many to get their month’s supply. There are still a few who have to go to the hospital for special examinations from that group, and then there are quite a number of others who have to go to the hospital for other reasons. We give those going to the hospital priority but ask them to bring a paper from the nearest clinic allowing them to go there and we also ask them to bring back a report from the hospital and then collect their registration card which we keep until we get that report. If we are to believe what some people tell us it seems that we have been taken for a ride at times finding that, having collected money from us to go to the hospital some either go to the clinic some 7 miles away instead or get someone to take them to the hospital on the carrier of a bike. The vast majority though are genuine and quite a number offer to work for the £3.50 the bus costs.

Tomorrow we have another event, someone from the local council who is an expert in farming methods coming to help our local farmers to improve their crops. He has been before and we’ve had good reports from those who came to listen and put into practice what he taught them. We hope to have a good crowd. We tried to persuade the local chief to attend as that would draw really big crowds, but he declined.

This has been a poor year for farmers due especially to the heavy rains at the beginning of the rainy season. If too they don’t have fertilizer the crop is very poor. We gave a lot of people loans for fertilizer and it’s this month the loans are supposed to be returned. Many won’t be because of the poor harvest, though some will repay and many will surely come for another loan. I fear that there will be a lot of hunger in the months to come.

The bishops of these countries are meeting just now and one of their great concerns is the lack of investment in the rural areas. I find that it’s true. Whilst the official price of maize being sold has been raised this year, the price of fertilizer is to be doubled. What the people around do feel are the effects of the rise of oil prices, petrol now getting on for £2 a litre with diesel a bit less. It is especially the cost of transport and food that bear the brunt of the oil rises and that’s where it hurts the people here in the ‘bush’.

On Thursday we shall have a prayer service for the sick together with our nearest Reformed Church in Zambia congregation. They are actually the local version of the Dutch Reformed of South Africa who came to set the Church up here many years ago. Always at these services we get some (invariably women!) who believe they are possessed by evil spirits and tend to collapse, shake and squirm on the floor. Our charismatic group is very good in handling them.

One of the things I’m buying tomorrow with the money I receive from over there are blankets. There are many people who literally are sleeping in sacks on the floor and it’s mighty cold at night during June and July. We target the elderly and children especially.

Then there remain the emergencies such as deaths of sisters or daughters in faraway towns with the orphans having to be picked up; relatives seriously ill and there’s no money for transport to go to them; children sent home from school for non-payment of fees, particularly distressing for those in their final year of secondary school; also a lack of school uniforms, shoes, pens, pencils and books.

It doesn’t happen very often, but a week or two ago I was woken up about 5 a.m. with a request to take a woman to hospital. She was giving birth to her first child and there was a problem as the baby was not appearing. On the way, perhaps because of the bumps on our 4 km road that links us to the tar road, she gave birth in the back of my pick-up, thankfully with a canopy. I didn’t have to go to the hospital fortunately, the 20 mile journey, but to that nearest clinic only about 7 miles away. There the nurses went into the back of my pick-up to finish off whatever had to be done and then the women who had accompanied the future mother gave it a clean out as so that was that, mother and child both OK.

These last few weeks we’ve been saying a special Mass in all our 12 Small Christian Communities, what we call ‘masika’, an offering of something of the maize harvest gathered by the people. The so-called roads, often no more than a pathway through long grass were not exactly a pleasure to drive along even if the scenery around is very picturesque. For some of the more remote Communities this is the only Mass there during the year. Otherwise the people go to the nearest out-station of which we have 5 in the parish. I think we are probably the only ones who go to some of these areas by car. It would not be possible in the rainy season. These Toyotas are tough but I have to say mine still spends quite a lot of time in the diocesan garage.

The people find it easier to give in kind that hard cash, and although they do give generously we have not collected as much as last year because of the poor harvest. The heavy rains at the end of last year were very destructive causing a lot of flooding, all part of the climatic upset throughout the world. Anyhow we still have well over 150 sacks collected. This is sold and the proceeds in fact are the biggest parish annual income. We also gave a bit of instruction at the same time on the pastoral theme of the year in the diocese, ‘evangelisation’.

The week before last we have about 40 people at the parish for a week’s instruction, what we call ‘ciyanjano’, ‘reconciliation’. This is the custom here for those who have in some way rather badly slipped up, for instance those who married without going through a church ceremony and those who left the Church and now want to come back. At the end of the week’s ‘revision’ the people received the sacraments of reconciliation and Eucharist, although those who wanted to have their marriages blessed had to wait for the two week-ends preparation for the marriages we blessed yesterday. We also included in the preparation several youngsters who want to get married, this being the season for marriages when people have a bit of money from the harvest.

Last week I was called to a new pastoral experience, baptising the father of one of our faithful Christians who was born in 1902! His hearing is not of the best, but he still gets around more or less.

We’re still trying to set up buildings for the parish separate from the Centre, a Trust helping us for that, and then we shall have to do quite a bit at the Centre. We are also still constantly trying to improve the quality of the Centre, these last weeks putting in more shelves and coat hangers in our 24 rooms available for retreatants. When the parish eventually moves we shall have to do a lot of restoration to the conference room now used both for all kinds of instructions, retreat sessions and so on, but also as a dormitory for the men of the parish when they are here for different meetings and instructions. Also the dining complex will need a lot of attention, used as a dormitory for the women and girls amongst other things. We shall also have to set up a library. We want too to improve our small Marian chapel up on the hill that retreatants are fond of.

Anyhow we are pleased when people come to make use of the Centre. We had a large group of charismatics last week from all over the deanery. They make a very good impression. We shall have another smaller group of the charismatic leaders coming for a planning session in a couple of days.

I’d better stop, but once again many thanks for your on-going concern and support. May the Lord bless you and keep you all in his safe and loving care,

Sincerely yours,

David Cullen, WF



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