Mphangwe Prayer Centre
P.O. Box 511233
Chipata
Zambia

From: David Cullen <ddavid@zamtel.zm>
Date: November 2010

Dear Paul,

Greetings; I hope that all is well with you and all the family, as also with all Pelicans. How are the Pelicans faring these days?

I wanted to keep you and the Pelicans updated on life here. I fell and broke my leg in April and had to spend 4 months in England getting a hip replacement. The Lord has his ways of bringing good out of disasters. I broke the same leg in more or less the same area of Zambia 30 years ago. The problem was not discovered in time to do anything about it; consequently I lost two and half centimetres of leg and have been wearing built-up shoes since then. The surgeon who operated on me for the hip replacement also fixed that previous breakage so that now, after 30 years I can walk into a shoe shop and buy off the counter.

Pelicans, either as individuals or as a group, have been very faithful contributors to what we try to do here at Mphangwe which is both retreat centre and a small parish, as well as being a Marian shrine. Just to let you now where the money good people like you send me goes, recently I took communion to a lady born in 1922 named Christine who cannot walk and lives in a grass-roofed house in a small village. Fortunately her son has paid money for a new brick house with a corrugated iron roof, the superior kind of dwelling in this part of the world, though it still needs a door and some ridges. One day I will have to take Christine to the nearest hospital, some 20 miles away this week and buy what is still needed for her house. Whilst it won’t have any mod cons it will at least protect her from the rain that is coming shortly and which would make short shrift of the grass roof through which already you can see quite a bit of sky. Christine needed a new rosary as the rats had eaten the beads of the one she had.

Tomorrow, Zambia is celebrating Independence Day. We’re going to celebrate it here with a simple feast for all the members of our ‘Support Group’, that is, those who are afflicted with HIV/AIDS. There was formerly an NGO that gave help for this kind of event, but it has fallen away. However for about £80 we can find enough food for a big crowd that will surely be pleased to have a meat meal and be entertained by our parish youth. We have a good body of helpers for the Support Group in the parish, about 60 in all, and some of them will come and do the cooking. We have bought a lot of sacks of Soya beans that make the basis of a nutritious mix to strengthen those who are HIV positive and are on ARVs and so need nourishing food to cope with the medicine. Often too I have to buy tins of milk for the mothers of babies who are HIV positive as they cannot breast feed their children.

Just at the moment we have a visit of three women from my old parish of Kabwata, Alice who was our cook for many years, together with Elizabeth and Joyce who are experts in sewing such items as cushion covers. They have been teaching new skills to two of our teachers of the girls who want to join our youth project. For the boys who dropped out of school without any skill we teach carpentry and for the girls tailoring and sewing. On December 10th we shall have a graduation ceremony for three youngsters who have completed a course, two young men and one young woman. We will give a few basic tools to the carpenters so that they can launch out on their own and pay half of a sewing machine for the young lady so that she too can hopefully earn her living. When the rainy season is over, probably about March, we shall begin another course for those who would be keen to learn and persevere in coming to learn.

The parish continues to keep us busy. Last week we had a parish council meeting that lasted 6 hours, a bit less than the previous one. The key issue was the election of a new executive committee, chairperson, secretary, treasurer and their ‘vices’, plus 4 for the development committee. One of the tasks of the development committee is to ensure that each of our 12 Small Christian Communities comes to bake 10,000 bricks each. This is in view of the diocese’s wanting to build a house for the staff of the Centre and parish, with our present accommodation being turned into what it is meant to be, a hostel for retreatants. So far 4 of the communities have done their job. Now we are urgently getting the bricks baked before the rains come and destroy all the good work done.

Again because of the approaching rains I have had to give soft loans to two of our out-stations that have built their own churches with mud-baked bricks and corrugated iron roofing, the pattern for all our locally-built churches. One, St Joseph’s, was in good condition, but a whirlwind came and did a lot of damage to the roofing. The cost of repairs comes to about £450. St Joseph’s Out-Station will raise a third with the maize that they harvested this year from their field. The other out-station, St Michael’s, began building a new church last year but did not complete it before the rains came, with the result that it collapsed and so this year they had to start all over again. Now though, with a loan from me, and with quite a bit of the cost they themselves raised, beams and iron sheets have been bought and all should be well.

Amongst other projects going on here at the Centre is the construction of steps up to our Marian Chapel which we renewed this year and were able to install the Blessed Sacrament in it. Many visitors coming here ask for the key to go and pray there and those coming for retreats especially find it a very prayerful place. Then we are about to start making shelves for a library that we have first to repair and paint. There will be some more painting needed in our parish buildings, but the parish collected about 225 by 50 kg bags of maize from the parishioners this year which will give us quite a bit for helping with parish expenses. On the strength of that the parish council took the decision to give an allowance to we 2 priests, Fr Mark and I, as well as Br Simon to keep us going, but being a small parish they cannot manage what the bigger parishes are meant to give. Still, we’ll get the handsome sum of about £12 a month each!

Though the harvest was quite good this year, most people have not yet been paid by the government and still they need money to buy fertilizer and pay for school fees. Again we have to help with loans for fertilizer and school fees as often children are sent home in their last term before important exams and without fertilizer our sandy soil gives a very poor yield. Already those who did not have fertilizer last year are without food and we try to give work to as many as possible to buy food, especially the basic stomach filler, maize.

And then too there are the emergency cases. Vivien is 27 years old and has four small children in her care. Her husband infected her with AIDS. He was convicted of robbery and spent 3 years in prison. On release he was ill and was kept by Mother Teresa’s Sisters in their hostel in Lusaka. Vivien came to see me on the Saturday I arrived back in Lusaka. She asked me for help to pay 5 months of rent arrears as also give some help to re-start a defunct small business. She also asked me to go to pray for Jackson her husband and came early on Monday morning for me to go with her to the hostel. When I saw the condition of the husband I thought it better to baptise him as he was clearly near the end. A week later she phoned me to say that Jackson had died and she had to use the money I left her to pay for a coffin and other expenses. I again gave her about £200 for business as, being Congolose by birth, she can travel to the Congo and buy cloths that are of a quality much desired by Zambians. A neighbour will care for her children whilst she’s away.

I didn’t get this off at the time I’d hoped. We have now had our day with the HIV/AIDS group. I hope they found it worthwhile. The youth and children helped with the entertainment, as did the ‘Helpers’ from several areas. We also had very powerful testimonies from several of the victims, how they tried the witch doctors even from far away and eventually found that ARVs (Antiretroviral drugs) were the answer and were enabling them to live positive lives.

Straight from the celebration I had to go to Chipata together with, amongst others, Mijere, a man whose arm was severed at his workplace in a local grinding mill. We went to the compensation office where we paid about £40 for the processing of his claims for state compensation and will be given £5 per month until his death. Since it costs about £8 bus fare to collect that money, it might be worthwhile going about once a year to collect it. The people in the office will also try to get something from the owner of the mill, but whether that’s going to work or not we have to wait and see. A one-armed man in a rural area like this where everyone depends on farming the small areas they have, has problems. We’re helping him with fertilizer as, even with one arm, he is able to do quite a lot on his mini-farm and his wife will help him as do all the women here.

We’ve recently had a massive invasion of members of the Legion of Mary, from all over the diocese, here in their hundreds. We had a problem of accommodation and even had to take the Blessed Sacrament out of the church and use that as a dormitory.

A week or so ago there was, in Chipata, a week-long rally of members of the Charismatic Movement. I had to take a group from our parish there. I was very impressed to hear how they spent two of their days going from door to door in different parts of the town to share their Christian convictions with the different households and inviting people to join the Church. It seems that there was a lot of positive response.

Last weekend we had a group of young ladies aspiring to join one of the local congregations of nuns. It’s good that many of the groups in the diocese make use of the Centre. We have just received a request from a nun to come and make a personal retreat later this month. With our wide open spaces all around it’s the right place for that too.

This weekend too we have a large gathering of the Diocesan Council of the Laity. In fact there are far too many for our capacity and we are having to find space on the floor with the few extra mattresses we have, and then reed mats.

I have had misery since coming back with emails, but hopefully one a fellow White Father installed on my computer is going to prove OK: davidcullen6@gmail.com. It has begun quite well though does not always comply with my instructions.

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

Sincerely yours,

David Cullen, w.f.

Mphangwe Prayer Centre
P.O. Box 511233
Chipata
Zambia

From: David Cullen <davidcullen6@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2011 21:14:56 +0200

Mphangwe
Sunday, 16 January 2011

Dear Robbie,

Many thanks for your very welcome card and the assurance of more books on the way. I’m hoping that within a week or so we can get down to the job of setting up our library. Our carpenter seems to be caught up with his farming at the moment, this being he heart of the rainy season, but I’ll try to nail him down to a time schedule this week.

Although getting a bit distant now I hope that you all had a very
blessed Christmas. Here, as usual, the celebrations began early, with choir, altar servers, Stellas (our dancing girls), a large group of youth and others arriving already on 21st December to prepare for the feast. Having 3 big parish rooms we can accommodate quite a crowd. On the 23rd we had a day’s retreat for 3 different groups, the children, the youth and the adults.

Our ‘Midnight Mass’ began about 7 p.m. but with a snag to which we get very used, the cutting off of the electricity. By the time though that we got to the gospel, which means here with all the singing about an hour later, the lights came back in time for the nativity play put on by the youth immediately after the reading of the gospel. The Mass lasted about three and half hours, as did the Mass the following morning, celebrated at 9, both Masses having a choc-a-bloc church full.

After Mass we entertained about 300 to lunch, this being an occasion to say a small ‘thank you’ for the services rendered throughout the year by the altar servers, Stellas, choir as well as the youth who also did a great job in decorating the church, besides being another dancing group during the Masses. Our benefactor for the occasion, Ken from Blackpool, asked us also to invite a few elderly and poor from the parish, so we asked each of our 12 Small Christian Communities, to send two for the lunch. Fortunately the expectations of what constitutes a Christmas meal here are not quite what they might be over there, and for about £200 we were able to provide for all. The
cooking was done by the ‘matrons’, the women who, from different parts of the parish, look after the Stellas and a children’s apostolic group
called the Holy Childhood.

Having a Sunday the day after Christmas has its problems for us
priests, as probably for others, with another homily to be prepared on Christmas Day itself. Anyhow we did have another worthwhile celebration on the Feast of the Holy Family. This being the Year of the Family in the diocese, we celebrated a special Mass for a number of families at which there was a renewal of marriage promises and then a meal together after Mass. Then, at the vigil for the New Year, about 50 members of our parish Charismatic Group spent the whole night in prayer.

Now we’re back to our normal life in parish and Centre. Apart from everything else last Saturday week we had a parish council that lasted a mere 7 hours. Saying it briefly is not one of our local characteristics. I tried to persuade the parish chairman to adopt the British parliamentary system of the guillotine, but without success.

During the holidays we gave work to as many secondary school children as we could manage, more than 30 in fact, at least to lessen the burden for the parents and ensure that the children can stay at school. We’ve tried especially to help orphans for whom the parish itself tries to offer extra help by planting a field of maize and the orphans themselves have been doing some work on it. Schools have now re-opened and I’m being flooded with requests for those chosen to begin post-primary school.

We also have many other poor to care for. Recently I went to what I can only describe as a rented ‘hovel’ here in Chipata where I come every week for shopping, getting money from the bank and doing a few other jobs. It is the home of Brenda, a
women I knew and used to help when I was in Lusaka. She stays there with Mabel, her nine-year old daughter and a small baby of little morethan one year. The father of the small one is in jail doing 2 years for stealing a cell phone and the relationship seems in any case to have broken up. Brenda’s home contains no bedding whatsoever, not even a reed mat on the floor, no washing or toilet facilities, no electricity; just a couple of tatty chairs.

How people like her survive is a mystery of God’s Providence. As Mabel had not started school I asked Brenda to try to get her in somewhere, promising to pay for school uniform and shoes. I also told her friend and neighbour Linda, who lives in much the same conditions, that if they could both come up with a reasonable mini-business project I will try to help. In fact I met them last week and fixed them up with what they needed, about £80. Also Mabel has begun school.

I also came to Chipata recently with a man from our parish named Mijere. He lost an arm as a worker in a local grinding mill. The state will pay him about £5 a month for life, but a group here is trying to get compensation for him from the mill owner who understandably is resisting. What has compounded things for Mijere is that the family of his wife are putting pressure on him to pay what is still required as part of the bride price, in fact about £60. Being like almost everyone else around, a subsistence farmer, especially at this time when there is so much work in the fields, life is not easy for a one-armed man. Anyhow we’re trying to help.

Every week when here in Chipata, about 40 miles from Mphangwe, I buy 5 blankets for the St Vincent de Paul group in the parish, plus often some other items such as clothes and cooking pots. One of our parishioners, Patricia, with tears in her eyes, asked me the other day if we could get a blanket and reed mat for her elderly mother at present sleeping on the floor.

Almost every week too I buy milk powder for the children less than six months old whose mothers are HIV positive as also a good nourishing porridge that the White Sisters many years ago concocted for those children over six months.

This is not a good time of the year for many people as their stock of maize, the staple diet here, has run out and food is very short. We often have to give a soft loan or, what people generally prefer, offer the possibility of work to earn something for food. We also have to help with what prove to be very soft loans money for fertilizer as without the crop is very poor as our soil is very sandy and overworked. Most weeks I have to buy fertilizer, and very recently 4 sacks, two of them in fact for the field that has been planted by our
St Vincent de Paul group to help provide for the needy. We have a dedicated group in the parish, but the help needed, especially for the
hungry, those who need the bus fare to get to the hospital some 20 miles away, those whose homes have collapsed and for others with very real problems has largely to come through me.

Our first retreat of the year was for a group of about 20, Anglican
priests and their wives coming for 3 days. We have several very
reliable cooks from the parish we call on for occasions like this, but I have to do the buying of food on my weekly visit to Chipata. A weekend or so ago we had 3 members of the Charismatic Movement from Chipata for a short retreat. They are men with good jobs and asked for only one meal a day and for the rest they spent the time praying, using especially our Marian chapel on the hill which is very quiet. I was very impressed with them. Today in fact we are expecting a good number of catechists from the 4 parishes of the deanery for a five day retreat.

Anyhow you get some idea from the above where the help goes that people like you send us and which is very much appreciated.

With a wish and prayer once more for the Lord to keep you and all the family in his loving care, and may you keep me and all of us here in your prayers,

Sincerely yours,

David Cullen, w.f.

Mphangwe Prayer Centre
P.O. Box 511233
Chipata
Zambia

From: David Cullen <davidcullen6@gmail.com>
Date: June 30, 2011

Dear Robbie,

Many thanks for two parcels of books that arrived last week. It’s very good of you. We are very much in the process of setting up the library. I’m just writing out an agreement with the carpenter for the work.

Of the books you sent, could you kindly send me a personal copy of 'The Challenge of Jesus’ by E.P. Sanders, Pelikan? Having at times to give biblical courses, it would be a help.

There is though another request I wanted to make through you to all the Pelicans if possible. At the beginning of October I shall be moving out of Mphangwe to go to where we have a White Fathers house in Chipata, some 40 miles from here, where in fact I go weekly for shopping, post, bank, matters dealing with the diocese as also to keep my link with my fellow WFs. Chipata will be my ‘final fling’ here in Africa. How long it will last the Lord alone knows. Apart from the inevitable wear and tear of someone close to 80 years on this earth I’m blessed with good health, so that I hope still to be able to offer some services to the Church here in the diocese, though thankfully our house of oldies in Chipata does not have any responsibility for
running institutions or parishes as I have here. That will be a relief even though I shall miss both the people and the place here in the Mphangwe hills.

The problem I have though is that I shall need a change of vehicle. My Toyota Hilux that I’m still using is now in its fourteenth year and, like its owner, is definitely experiencing wear and tear. I’ve had two costly breakdowns this month and my weekly visits in Chipata when I don’t have to take it to the diocesan garage for some kind of repair are the exception rather than the rule. The roads here are really for Scotch carts rather than cars and still I have to go for Mass along tracks with such hazards as going through streams, sand, avoiding
stumps and trying to manoeuvre round and through very rough passages.

I keep going with my pick-up because in a rural area like ours we are often the only car around to be of help for the poor. It has had babies born in the back on the way to the hospital; served as an ambulance and a hearse, still carries weekly those needing to go Chipata for one reason or another and takes parishioners to various meetings in neighbouring parishes, the nearest being about 20 miles away.

Wisely or unwisely I have used all my personal resources either to help the all too many poor in our midst or to build up the Centre and parish, but when I go to Chipata I really will need a replacement for my Hilux. I need to raise enough money to buy a second-hand reliable and sturdy small car. Whilst Chipata is a town, I will surely at times be called to help in rural areas so need preferably a Toyota as they have proved themselves the best thing for our roads.

What I’m told I’ll be expected to do in Chipata will be retreat work, biblical formation, chaplaincy work and who knows what else. The WF I’m replacing is presently chaplain to the government hospital in Chipata. There is a possibility I’ll be asked to take his place. I’m the ‘spiritual father’ of a congregation of Brothers in the diocese and am also what the bishop describes as the diocesan chaplain of Marriage Encounter. And of course there are plenty of poor in Chipata and already I help several families there and doubt very much that leaving Mphangwe will mean leaving those I’ve tried to help here, especially in the area of education. I’m still asked by people for help in my old parish of Kabwata that I left 6 years ago.

So if any of the Pelicans were willing to give me a helping hand, however little in these difficult economic times and with probably a host of other good causes to support, to look for a replacement for my Hilux I would be most grateful.

We had our Corpus Christi Mass and Procession here last Sunday. Being out in the bush we can have a good long procession without having to bother about such things as police permissions. We had a good crowd from different out-stations in the parish for our three and a half hour celebration. These days too I’m going to even the most remote of our Small Christian Communities for what we call ‘masika’, the offerings of maize that the people have harvested. Some give very
generously and we sell what we are given, this being the chief source of income for the parish.

We have 12 Small Christian Communities and as two or three gather for Mass about every six weeks at one of the 6 Mass Centres we go to, this masika Mass is for some of the more remote Communities the only Mass they have during the year. Today we should have gone to one of the most difficult to reach, but were told to delay as there is a funeral in the area, and here that means that everything else comes to a halt. My pick-up has again to serve the purpose of getting the sacks of maize back to the parish.

Every Thursday our SVP come for the poorest of the poor and bring me the list to see what I can contribute. Someone came early this morning telling me that his smallest child had accidentally set fire to their house with its grass roof and caused a lot of destruction, also hurting herself. He’s one of many!

Once again many thanks for all your help as also to the Pelicans who have given me support in the past; may the Lord bless and be with you all,

Sincerely yours,

David Cullen, w.f,


davidcullen6@gmail.com


We also have many

Once again many thanks for all your help as also to the Pelicans who have given me support in the past; may the Lord bless and be with you all,

Sincerely yours,

David Cullen, w.f.

davidcullen6@gmail.com