Salaam Alaikum! Greetings of peace from Maban. In a context where war has been experienced for some good time, what suffers most are the social aspects of humanity, which consists mainly of the young generation. As the gurus in one of the African nations allude, when two bulls are fighting, the grass suffers the most. Hence, the young generation ends up being the victims. In such a scenario, the heart of this generation (education), remains a vision even in this 21st Century. The genius of Ignatius and his founding companions’ emphasis on education thus gets to be the never-ending precious gem in such a situation.
Maban suffers such education injustice to the children due to a lack of enough quality education facilities and personnel because of the previous situation of war from within and outside its borders. Thus, Jesuits remain essential labourers in this vineyard by raising Christ’s flag high enough through this apostolate, among others.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step! On Saturday, the 27th of October, Abuna Francis and I visited the community leaders, who were very excited to receive us. We took a small tour where the community leaders showed us several pieces of land for us to choose the one that could fit our expectations. The generous community offered a vast piece of land, leaving us to decide on the size we would make use to serve the community. The senior community members among them the Paramount Chief and the Humda were all present. In his speech the Humda begun by saying that “What we need in our community is education and development”. A meeting was set on Saturday, the 4th of this Month, to finalize the first level of signing and certification. The next step will be to survey and acquire a title deed for the piece of land.
The Month of October ended with our usual weekly meetings with the Catechists. The meeting is attended by all the Abunas and Catechists from nearby outstations since the rest of them are very far from the centre. The meetings’ main agendas are reflecting on the past weeks’ experience and performance in the different outstations, solving challenging situations, and planning for the following Sunday’s Mass route. The main recurring challenges are the need for more resources to enhance the evangelization of the Good News to the many needy and energised Christians and language barrier.
We began the new Month in union with the Universal Church in the celebration of All the Saints and commemoration of All Faithful departed. Despite the two days being working days, a good number of congregants attended Holy Mass. We pray through the prayers of so many intercessors for peace and reconciliation in different parts of the province and eternal rest to all who have gone ahead of us; more especially all victims of war. Amen. Shukrani.
