February 2009
A Catholic Digest Special Report
A day with the Maasai
Cross International Catholic Outreach makes an impact in communities across Kenya
May 2007 - Newsletter (Click here)
Institute of Charity
The handover and founding of the new parish of Ewuaso Enkidongi to the Institute of Charity took place in St. Anne’s Church, Kibiko on Sunday the 25th of July 2004.
For the Institute it was a historic day in that after 17 years in Kenya and 3 weeks before the ordination of the first Kenyan member of the Institute we took on our first parish in the country.
For the people of the parish it was also an exciting day as they were finally getting their first resident parish priest and different mass stations being united in a new parish.
The intention, is that the parish center will be at Ewuaso which is close to the geographical center of the new parish spreading out in a radius of about 46kms.
This area is lowland and predominantly Maasai. It is in this area that the bishop hopes that the Institute of Charity will invest its resources in order to evangelise and build the Christian community.
The mass centres where the people gather to pray in this lowland area consist of small galvanized ‘chapels’ built by the people themselves from their own limited resources.
In Ewuaso, where the centre is to be built, the church has been given 15 acres of land. Already a priest from Ngong has built a small social hall which holds about 100 people and it is this which the community uses for their mass and prayer gatherings.
None of the mass centers have housing facilities for a priest and this will probably be the first priority for me. I look forward in the coming weeks, after I get some transport, to visiting all of the mass centres and hopefully basing myself in Ewuaso during those visits. For the time being I will be resident at the formation house.
August 2004
Plans & Needs:
Just as ‘the harvest is great but the labourers are few’ so in our parish. With six mass centres the needs are many and I thought it would be difficult to prioritise them all.
However for the representatives of all these different centres who comprise the parish council there was no such difficulty. They were unanimously in agreement that the immediate need in all centres was for catechists and then to build accommodation for a priest in Ewuaso and Kibiko.
Catechists are the backbone of evangelisation in any parish. We have three, one fulltime and two part-time. Ideally a parish the size of Ewuaso would need at least 4 fulltime catechists but we hope to have 3 in fulltime work by January 2005.
Full time catechists are men whose only employment is in catechetics within the parish they are assigned to. They are educated by the Diocese and paid for by the parish where they work. Because of our financial situation the Diocese has agreed to pay for the three catechists we have until the end of this year. Their monthly salary is 70 Euro which is equivalent to a labourers salary here in Kenya. As the catechist in Kibiko said to me recently: ‘If I had wanted to make money I would not have become a catechist’.
January 2005
Since last writing I have approached all the Rosminian parishes in UK and Ireland inviting them to sponsor the salaries of the catechists in the parish.
I have also approached a Catholic Aid organisation in the UK about sponsoring transport, in the form of two motor bikes, for catechists to be able to cover more of the areas of the parish entrusted to them.
I hope to be able to give you more information on both of these initiatives next time I write.
I have also been put in contact, thanks to Fr. General, with a US aid organisation who have expressed interest in assisting in paying for the electric fence around some of the property so that we can begin the women’s self-help project in Ewuaso. I am also going to contact another organisation for funding for the irrigation in the same project. God willing we will be able to go ahead with this project before long.
Thirty six women in Ewuaso have already begun preparing themselves to begin planting vegetables as soon as the fence is put up. They are organising themselves into groups and have already begun to bring buckets of manure for the ground. Once the project is operational the profits they make from their plots will help them in paying school fees for their children and various other things. They and their families will also benefit from the extra nutrition they will get from the vegetables.
At present it is very dry as there have only been two showers of rain since I took over in August. Gazing for cattle is non existent and so most of the people of the area have shifted their cattle great distances in search of greener pastures. This is an age old tradition, but while respecting the culture of the nomadic maasai, it is something which causes great upheaval in families as the males go off for hundreds of miles with the cattle for months on end and the women and children are left at home, fending for themselves.
The Bishop, who comes from a farming background in Holland, is encouraging us to try to educate and win the men over to silage and hay making during the time of year when grass is in abundance so as there is some food for their cattle during the dry weather.
Our catechist in Ewuaso is one person he has already won over but others are slow to change the habits of generations.
The sister’s, who are living in rented accommodation since their arrival in the parish last year, have begun building a five bedroom house on a plot of land they bought next door to the church in Kibiko. They will be using it for the sisters who are working in the parish and for their young candidates to come and gain community experience and be involved in the parish.
As Kibiko is close to Ngong town and the tarmac road it is easy for them to travel to and from their formation house in Nairobi.
They also wish to get involved in Ewuaso as soon as possible but housing there is a problem.
The arrangement I have with them is that, as they themselves paid for the plot and building in Kibiko, the parish will build the convent in Ewuaso.
For ‘the parish will build’ you must read yours truly will build. But more on that later in the year.
Easter 2005
Update on Appeals
Catechists – Salary Sponsoring
I wrote to you the last time about this and promised an update. Fr. Pierce tells me that there have been some replies and pledges. My sincere thanks to Fr. Slack, a Rosminian and parish priest of St. Jude’s Parish, Whittlesey, in the UK and his parishioners: Mr. & Mrs. I. J. Patterson, Mrs. L. M. Baker, Mrs. Tracy Bennet-Tighe, and Mrs. Maureen Brannigan for their generosity.
Also most recently Catherine Ryan, who visited the parish with the Irish Provincial, graciously offered to pay the salaries of two of the catechists beginning in April of this year.
I thank you all for your sacrifice and generosity.
The catechists at their last monthly gathering together for prayer had a special period where they prayed for you all. You will all remain in my and their prayers.
This appeal is closed for now, thanks to God and you all.
Catechists – Transport
I applied to SURVIVE MIVA UK for a grant to pay for two motorcycles for the catechists and once again the Lord intervened. According to the letter I received granting the money needed my application arrived on the 9 th of February and was approved at a meeting on the 10 th of February, it ranks as one of the quickest they ever managed.
Yamaha tell me the motorbikes will be delivered in the second week of April. I will give more developments on this in my next letter.
Ballyboy Primary School
After installing a solar panel for electric power in Ewuaso a local primary school teacher asked me if he could use the room to give tuition to some of the children in the evening time. As solar power is free I, of course, agreed.
Very soon afterwards the number of children grew to 24 and another teacher volunteered to help. Two rooms were now too small.
At that moment the Lord intervened in the form of Patricia Kelly, a primary school head mistress in Ireland. Patricia was a volunteer lay missionary with her husband Tom in Tanzania some years ago and they have remained friends of the missions and the missionaries since returning to Ireland.
Patricia and the children of Ballyboy National School said they would be ‘honoured’ (their word not mine) to help Ewuaso. Within two weeks they had done ‘a spot of bag packing’ at the local supermarkets and raised over 800 Euro for new solar panels to put power in the parish social hall.
A teacher in another school had a surplus of 400 Euro remaining from a project the children were involved in and donated it to Ewuaso.
The result is that the social hall now is used at night by 40 children divided into 3 groups with three volunteer teachers.
A wonderful development in a place where none of these children have light in their homes and therefore are unable to study at night. I am sure in the years to come we will see the real benefits of this good work of the children of Ballyboy.
September 2005
Update on Appeals
Catechists Transport
Two of the three catechists, namely Raphael Saruni and Gabriel Kamau, are now mobile thanks to motorbikes from M.I.V.A UK and consequently are able to cover much more area than they used to. Since returning from the U.S. I have had 6 baptisms and have 25 baptisms coming up in October in Saikeri and Najile. Then in Kibiko in November we will have the Bishop visiting for the sacrament of confirmation and the blessing of the Sisters’ convent.
I will give fuller updates of the benefits achieved from their having transport at a later date.
Catechists Salaries
All three are able to be paid by the parish now because of your generosity. We have also been able to take on a part-time catechist at weekends in Kibiko which, with over 800 people, is the biggest mass centre.
Women’s Self-help Project
This project in the church plot in Ewuaso will be starting very soon due to the generosity of the people of: St. Francis of Assisi Church in Seffner, Florida, Our Lady Queen of Peace in Hewitt, New Jersey, Mr. Brian Hanstein in Philadelphia, Cross International, and individual donations from many of you.
I had outlined the project objectives and costs in the 3 rd edition of this bulletin and now I have enough money to finance the first two phases.
We have already begun to fence the plot which will take some time as it is a total circumference of 2628 metres. Once this is done the Catholic Women’s Association of Ewuaso will begin preparing the land by hand and then we hope to begin erecting the water tanks.
Until later in the year I am unsure how much material we will need for drip irrigation and so have no costings for that.
To show how productive the land is I visited a man the other day after returning from the US who has a half acre fenced off and to whom I gave some packets of tomato seeds before going to the US, 10 weeks later he was getting ready to transport two wheelbarrows of tomatoes the short distance to the market in Ewuaso. I hope that the women have as good a blessing. God willing they will because of your kind donations.
Related Issue
Due to the ongoing drought in the district of Kajiado to which Ewuaso belongs, the Diocese together with the World Food Agency is targeting Ewuaso, along with another two parishes, as centres for distribution of relief food.
Our parishioners form part of the committee for this together with representatives from other churches. We agreed to the use of the social hall as a store for this food and as the centre for distribution.
Youth of Ewuaso & their Pastor !
A recent event was organised by the youth group and attended by our local M.P. who is the Minister for Education.
The youth have begun to organise different events to raise some money for projects they wish to organise for the poor in the parish. They have already begun to visit the children in an orphanage in the parish and bring them food and entertain them with singing and dancing.
As so many of our youth are unemployed or unable to afford to go for higher education there is a danger, which the Minister spoke of, that they will turn their talents to bad things if we do not encourage and help them at parish level with different projects.
Our youth spent 4 months preparing for this cultural show and invited youth from 5 different parishes to come and participate. They received some small donations from those present which covered their costs and will help them in the projects I mentioned before.
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New Projects
Due to donations I received, both from Ireland and America, and also from a fundraiser in the parish, which raised almost 4000 Euro, I have begun to ‘partially’ build a sister’s residence in Ewuaso. I say ‘partially’ as at the moment I can only afford to build two bedrooms, a kitchen and small sitting room. The rest will come in the future.
The question may be asked as to why we need 2 sisters’ convents in the parish, one in Kibiko and the other in Ewuaso…. the only answer I can give is come and visit and see the distance between the two places.
At the moment whenever the Sister’s go to Ewuaso for catechism and to give seminars to the women, they must travel back the 2 hour journey back to their place in Kibiko. With the two convents we would also hope to increase the number of sisters working in the parish from the present number of three.
Dec 2005
Projects
Women’s Self Help Project
I am happy to report that because of the generosity of the readers of this letter and the others mentioned in the last edition Phase 1, the fencing of the plot in Ewuaso Kedong, is now complete. This means that we can now plant whatever we wish without it being eaten by animals whether wild or domestic.
Phase 2 of the project is also nearly complete. A bigger pipe has been brought to the plot from the main pipe and as I write the holding tanks are being erected. The total amount of galvanised piping used so far measures 2660 feet. Once the tanks are in place the pipes for distributing water to the various areas will be installed and so we have calculated that there will be 5440 feet of those. All the above has been bought and paid for, again because of your generosity.
Phase 3 will be the installation of drip irrigation in the three different areas of the plot set aside for farming, which at present is a total of 8 acres. This phase will only go ahead when I have funding. Hopefully Santa Claus will help me out !!
The 8 acres I referred to above have been ploughed by tractor which had to be hired from a distance of 5 and a half hours away as there are no tractors any closer to us. And so I have decided to write an appeal to the Irish Government for help to buy a tractor, plough and harrow which we can use in future and which can be used by other people in the area.
Also above I mentioned ‘ three different areas’, this has come about because the ‘Women’s Self Help Project’ has now grown into three separate projects, Women’s, Men’s and Youth, the women, of course, taking the lion’s share. All three groups have begun seed beds so that when the drip irrigation is ready they will be ready.
The convent in Kibiko, which was built by the sisters, was blessed and opened at a ceremony on the first Sunday of Advent by the Vicar general of the Diocese, Fr. Kevin McGarry.
We continue to thank God for the blessing of the sisters’ presence in the parish.
Catechists
The Catechists have been busy in their different areas within the parish and this has already begun to produce results. In Najile we had 15 confirmations of boys in the secondary school. In Kibiko we have had 30 confirmations of people of different ages. In Saikere before Christmas there will be another 6 confirmations. Numbers of baptisms are also on the increase both of new born, and on the 18 th of December three Maasai women, who are in their 70’s will be baptised.
Thanks to the people who are sponsoring the salaries of the catechists we have been able to employ a part-time catechist for Kibiko and she ran a two day seminar for to train the mass readers of Kibiko church and 10 people attended. They were commissioned for one year on the first day of Advent.
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In this season of Advent, with the coming of Christ so near I continue to ask for your support for the physical and spiritual growth of the parish. Should anyone have some ‘pennies’ left over after the family’s celebration of Christmas please remember us.
Donations can be sent in the usual way. If you have any queries at all please do not to hesitate to contact me.
Easter 2006
Development
Projects & Appeals
Development is happening on many fronts and for that we thank God first and foremost.
While my appeal for money to build small tin churches in the different places received no response whatsoever the appeal for help to pay the salaries of the catechists was slightly more successful. This, combined with them receiving motorbikes, means that they have become much more mobile and active. Also as we have sisters living in both Kibiko and Ewuaso they are also involved in catechetics. The result is that we have almost 200 catechumens registered to begin their classes after Easter.
The Sisters in Ewuaso have been requested by the Christians to take over the managing of the kindergarten school which is at present run by one of our catholics. As the class for all the children takes place in the hall we have decided to build two classrooms specifically for the children. The cost to build and equip one classroom is approx. 5000 Euro. Anyone who can help is more than welcome to send donations, however small, to one of the addresses at the end of the Newsletter.
On the projects front we have been helped by Cross International again to put in some of the drip irrigation and that is underway as I write. After Easter their Africa representative will be visiting us to see the development and see if there is some way they can help in the future.
We have applied to the IMRS (Irish Government) for a tractor and implements and also funding for drip irrigation but have been put on hold until August or September. To put it mildly dealing with them has been very time consuming as they have a 13 page set of questions to answer and then they come back again for clarification with more questions. Finally we were put on hold as they had some more questions. So any Irish taxpayers reading this can feel secure in the knowledge that their government is very careful with their money. Thanks to Catherine Ryan, the Irish provincials’ secretary, who has done nearly all the work for this appeal.
I am told that the fundraising of 50,000 Euro for the multi-purpose social hall for Kibiko, is going well. They wrote recently that:
“4000 posters are to be printed over the weekend to be delivered on Tues. On Monday we have to check that Pat Shortt is satisfied with the particular content, poster and article containing his image!
Aileen, an S.N.A. at school, sold shamrock for Kibiko on St. Patrick's Day. She got no encouragement from the rest of us but still managed to raise 1200 euro.”
Other News
A s a result of something I had written in the last edition of the Newsletter, namely: ‘while my appeal for money to build small tin churches in the different places received no response whatsoever….’ Fr. John Bland, a Rosminian priest from New Zealand, was in touch and let me know that his parish are willing to make a collection to support this initiative. Thanks John and the people of the parish.
I look forward to giving you more news on this in the future.
Our needs grow daily here, mainly because of the regular requests for us to come and minister in different areas within the parish boundaries. So far only one third of the area given to us is covered. We are limited by manpower (as I am on my own) and funds. We are blessed with our catechists who are really the first evangelisers.
You might have noticed in the title on the first page that there is another mass centre added, that of Olgumi. This has come about because of the industriousness of one of our catechists and so now more people have been ‘brought into the fold’.
Olgumi lies between Ewuaso and Empaash and is at the foot of Mt. Suswa, the extinct volcano in the parish. The people are Maasai, as are most in the parish. Many of these have heard of the Catholic Church but know nothing about us and so Raphael, the catechist, has his evangelisation work cut out for him.
July 2006
Appeals Update
A big development since last writing is the prospect of Ewuaso Kedong being linked to the national electricity grid. I say prospect because poles have been erected, lines attached to the poles but nothing more for the time being. However we are very hopeful as elections are in 2007 and the run up to those is always a time of rapid development. !!
Kibiko Appeal
The committee responsible for trying to raise 50,000€ for the building of a community centre in Kibiko continue their various activities. The most recent was a ‘Race Night’ in Kinnitty, Co. Offaly. If you were not caught by them in any of their recent blitzs you can still send donations to The Kibiko Committee, C/O Scoil Bhride, Ballyboy, Kilcormac, Co. Offaly .
Coffee Morning
A coffee morning was held in Clane, Co. Kildare recently and over 400 € was raised towards the Women’s Development Project in Ewuaso Kedong. This was put towards the raising of another water tank as the ones we had were under serious pressure.
Classrooms
I explained about the need for classrooms our Kindergarten school in Ewuaso Kedong in the last issue and God has truly smiled on us. Cross International, who have already helped us in so many ways, have agreed to fund the building of these at a cost of nearly US$ 25,000. As I write the foundations are being dug and we hope to have the whole building finished so as the children can move in for the new school year which begins in January 2007.
Projects still to be tackled within the parish are as follows:
Completing the sister’s convent in Ewuaso Kedong. As you will remember a two bedroomed building has already been put up. In the coming year, 2007, we hope to be able to add three bed-rooms, a chapel, laundry and garage.
As we use the social hall in Ewuaso Kedong for mass, we now want to build a small chapel for weekday masses and as a place to reserve the Blessed Sacrament.
The Chief of the area has asked officially if we will consider building and running a refuge for Maasai girls in Ewuaso Kedong. He is a good man and is diligent in trying to protect the young girls from the negative social practices that still go on, among which are FGM (female genital mutilation) and early marriage. He is also assiduous that all young children attend primary education. However when faced with the need to remove young girls from their families he can only send them to other families to care for them. At present he has 12 girls placed in different families but is faced with the problems of having nowhere else to send other girls and the burden he is placing on the already limited resources of the families he uses. He understands that we are already doing much to help the community but has asked us to keep his request in mind. I feel that it is something important which we could help with.
Nextly I am living in, what Fr. Charles-Roux described during his visit as, a ‘walk-in-wardrobe’. Granted it is small but more than adequate for me. But I now must start thinking of building a presbytery (priest’s house) for the future, in the hope that God will send other labourers into the vineyard.
These are the challenges for Ewuaso Kedong for 2007. For the other areas of the parish, Kibiko should it get its community centre in the coming year it will be satisfactorily catered for.
The other centres are the ones where churches need to be built.
November 2006
Developments, Projects & Appeals Update
Kibiko Appeal
While in Ireland I met with the ‘Kibiko Committee’ in Kilcormac, Co. Offaly. These are a group of lively and dedicated people brought together through the initiative of Patricia Grimes to raise money for the parish. Patricia is an old friend from the time she was a volunteer missionary with her husband in Tanzania. (I can hear her as she reads this saying ‘less of the old!!’)
I spent two days in Kilcormac and met with the committee and the children of the primary school who are very involved in different initiatives for the developing world.
Seeing the enthusiasm of both adults and children and discovering the amount of energy and time they had spent on raising money and writing their projects both humbles and encourages me and I came away from there with energy for the work ahead.
With their many different initiatives, from race nights to fashion shows, from Power Point presentations to involving environmental groups, leaving families at home and going around selling tickets on the cold Irish winter evenings, surely they will deserve a rest after the target is reached, they might even decide to take that rest in Ewuaso Kedong to which they are all very welcome.
The good news is that they have raised more than 60% of their target of 50000 Euro.
Kindergarten Classrooms
The building of the kindergarten classrooms continued even when I was on holidays and will be one of the buildings to be blessed by the Bishop on the 18 th of this month. The work is being funded by Cross International Catholic Outreach and some of their representatives plan to be present at the opening. More on that after the opening.
Other News
The vegetable growing continues and below is a picture I took on my return of our catechist, James, and a porcupine that was playing havoc with the maize for more than six weeks.
I had never seen such a big porcupine. The pines were collected by the people and will be used to make necklaces and the meat was roasted and eaten by some people from Western Kenya who work in the nearby quarries.
While I was in Ireland I received the news that two parishes, one in Ireland and one in New Zealand, contributed towards the building of a new church in Saikeri. We hope to receive some more donations in the coming months and then we will be able to start that much needed building. Thanks to the priests and parishioners of St. Vincent De Paul, Marino and St. Thomas More Parish in New Zealand.
Finally more good news which I received while in Ireland was that the IMRS (Irish Missionary Resource Service) which administers the Missionary Development Fund provided by Development Cooperation Ireland granted our request for money to buy farming implements (spoken of at length in earlier editions of this Newsletter). I will hopefully have photos and more news on this when I write next.
F or now all that remains is to thank you all again for your ongoing prayer and support. You and yours will be in our prayers during this month and especially your deceased loved ones.
March 2007
Developments, Projects & Appeals Update
Kibiko Appeal
A big congratulations to the ‘Kibiko Committee’ in Co. Offaly who reached their target of 50,000 Euro within one year. My sincere thanks and those of the people of the parish go to the adults of the committee, the children of Kilcormac Primary School and others who were involved and all those who gave generously and who played their part in this tremendous effort.
The money from this Appeal has already been allocated to build a social hall in the Kibiko area of the parish. We are waiting for designs to be drawn up by the architect and then permission will be requested from the Diocese.
Farming Implements
The Tractor and plough have been very busy since their arrival. As of time of writing we have ploughed sixty five acres of land. This may not seem much but most of the areas ploughed are around one acre and are quite a distance apart. The majority of the people, being pastoral, have never farmed before and so this is a great development in the area.
Recently the tractor got another puncture and the pump broke so the driver had to leave the tractor where it was and travel back, with the front tyre, to the mission. He got a lift from a car part of the way but this car also broke down and so it took him almost the whole day to get back. The next morning I set off with him by car on what was only a 30 km journey but it took us one hour and 45 minutes to get there as the road is practically non existent.
This ‘road’ continues for another 50 kilometres until the end of the parish at Mosiro. This is an area I have not been able to cover in the last two and a half years but an area ripe for evangelisation. It will surely be a good work for my successors !!
Kindergarten Classrooms
The Kindergarten opened at the beginning of January in their new classrooms with a total of 55 pupils, 31 boys and 24 girls, two teachers and two volunteers.
Cross International Catholic Outreach who funded the building are continuing to help us with a feeding programme for the children and also to build a small kitchen for this purpose.
T he two volunteers are girls from the local community who have finished their schooling and who want to become teachers. So we have initiated a programme where two girls will volunteer their help for one year and if found suitable we will send them to a Montessori Teacher Training School in Lushoto, Tanzania run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Usambara for a two year course beginning January 2008.
If we get enough donations we hope to continue this each year for two girls and maybe even help others to train as primary or secondary school teachers…… So that is one challenge for the readers of this Newsletter !!
Meanwhile we continue to support a number of children with fees for their secondary education from money donated by a few readers of this Newsletter.
August 2007
Developments, Projects & Appeals Updates
Students Fees
One of the growing needs in the parish is fees for students. We have many requests each year from young people whose families cannot afford to pay the fees for their secondary education. These requests are first put by the families concerned to the members of their own Basic Christian Community (Jumuiya) and if they cannot help then they are passed on to the relevant Church Council. Each group tries to help as much as they can and then pass on the requests, which are beyond their means, to me.
Over the last three years these requests have been increasing, and I try to do what I can as I believe that this is a very important are that we can help the development not only of the individual but also of the community. So more and more of the money I get from individuals, like many of yourselves, is put to this use.
Web Site
Website and blog are things that were foreign to most of us and probably still are to some of us. However they are the modern ways of communication and to move Ewuaso into the 21st century it is my hope that before too long the parish will have its own Website. The first steps have been taken and when it is setup and functioning I will let you know.
Fruit Trees
Our most recent project is the starting of a project to grow fruit trees here in Ewuaso. Papaya and Watermelon grow very well here and over the last year the Sisters have proved that also hybrid varieties of fruit trees, like Mango, Orange, Tangerine, Passion fruit and even Avocados will also grow in our soil.
Through help received we have been able to buy the equipment for drip irrigation for trees and we are in the process of installing this as I write. It will be part of the peoples’ project for growing vegetables which already is in operation.
We have also allocated another part of our compound to the local people for setting up a tree nursery following a request from the Chief. He is hoping that with help the people will begin to grow trees around their homes in order to try to reverse some of the damage done to the environment by flash floods, cuttings of trees for charcoal and the like. It is a worthwhile project and dream which I am very happy to help in and to be associated with.
Goat Project
Our goat project was begun last year with the acquisition of a pure breed male German Alpine goat. The idea behind it is that interested people can bring their local female goats to be ‘serviced’ by him and thereby slowly improve the quality of the goats. ‘Quality’ meaning that they will be able to get milk from their goats rather than just meat.
