Walking with the poor - notes from Uganda

MISSION AWARENESS TRIP TO UGANDA
Sept. 23 - 28, 2007

CFCA children in Uganda

Monastic drums and harmonies

We were kindly met at Entebbe Airport by Cappuchin Father Max D’Silva, coordinator of CFCA’s Busunju project, former CFCA scholar Dennis and driver Seban together with Father Prakash, Cappuchin director of formation. About half-way between Entebbe and Kampala, back off the main road, is the Cappuchin formation house and shrine of St. Padre Pio. Drums and harmonies from the friars and Ugandan postulants in the early morning invited some of our group to holy Mass celebrated by Friar Max.

CFCA serves two projects in Uganda: Busunju and Masaka. I find the terrain in this area of Uganda to be much like Kenya…reddish color and fertile enough when it rains to produce potatoes, kasava, onions, yams and other root crops together with papaya, bananas and tropical fruits. The grass in this area seems abundant enough to maintain good animals. On the road we give way to a herd of Ugandan long-horned cattle. Our group first visited Masaka, which serves 649 sponsored children and one aging. CFCA has sponsored children here since 1993.

Theresa: a sponsorship success story

Theresa explains to sponsors the process of making bricks.

Part of the rented office in Masaka is used for the weaving project initiated by a sponsored young woman, Theresa (Teddy). Teddy grew up in CFCA. She has been sponsored for years, and it shows. On weekends, she attends the university in Kampala where she pursues a degree in program development. She exudes initiative, confidence and joy. Her weaving project produces quality clothing, curtains, shawls, shirts and blouses, bedspreads, mats and heavy-duty book bags. The story of Theresa jumps right off the pages of inspiration. Sponsored for 14 years, she has grown into a lovely and confident university graduate, with a smile that can light up Uganda and the world. Teddy is an entrepreneur who has established projects worthy of emulation, currently employing other sponsored youth.

On Tuesday morning in Uganda, we celebrated gatherings with two groups of primary and secondary school children in two rural Catholic parishes of Masaka and enjoyed welcoming songs, melodic anthems honoring Uganda and their schools, poems and abundant dancing.

Income generating and community building

Mothers of sponsored children in Masaka harvest bananas and a great sense of belonging.

Under the leadership of Father Denis Ddalmulira, Masaka project coordinator, we spent most of our time in church-based settings: parishes, the home of the retired bishop, seminaries and a cemetery for priests.

Sponsors were impressed with the ingenuity and community spirit of the parents’ and guardians’ income-generating activities: improved and sustainable organic production of vegetables using compost; conserving water; respecting the earth; making bricks for construction; recycling scrap iron into useful tools, such as animal traps, bells, bicycle racks and stands; making cloth from bark; and brewing banana beer and distilling it for stronger brew.

Our group left Masaka after breakfast, stopping only once to pick up a couple of phenomenal drums. Friar Max and team had prepared a fine lunch, followed by a visit to two families and three subprojects: St. Francis Secondary School, Padre Pio Health Clinic (for HIV-positive adults and children) and the Nazareth Vocational School. Dinner was illuminated by candlelight, by necessity.

Look back with satisfaction and look forward with confidence

Bakuseera Aloysius is the articulate headmaster at St. Padre Pio Primary School. He has been sponsored since 1996. “The first shoes I put on were from CFCA. The first real house I slept in was from CFCA.” Bakuseera is excelling at the university, specializing in microbiology. CFCA sponsorship helped with tuition at all levels. He says, “It is difficult to study when one is hungry.”

A few of our challenges in Busunju include the mistreatment of students at home; the long distances from the subprojects to villages; the prevalence of diseases such as AIDS and malaria, which have left many of our children orphans; the practice of witchcraft in some communities; the increasing number of school dropouts; and the mobility and transfer of families.

According to Father Max, “Despite the unavoidable limitations and challenges, the program has never stopped offering hope and restoring dignity. Thirteen years into the program, the present state of CFCA-Busunju provides many good reasons to look back with satisfaction and to look forward with confidence.”

Participants on the 2007 Uganda Mission Awareness Trip with Masaka Bishop Emeritus Paul Lokiru Kanlanda outside his home.

The journey continues…

Thank you for traveling with us in spirit and prayer. On this our last few hours in Uganda, we were able to travel with Father Max and the sponsored children from this group to the source of the Nile, Bujagali Falls, and the monument site where Ghandi’s ashes were placed into the headwaters of the Nile in 1948 as a symbol of love and peace between India and Africa. It’s nice to see this beautiful side of Uganda.

God’s blessings. Know of our love and prayers.

Bob Hentzen
Kampala/Entebbe, Uganda
Sept. 28, 2007 (My brother and CFCA Co-founder Jim Hentzen’s birthday)

Sponsor a child in Uganda

Read the notes from other mission awareness trips