The Nursing Mother

On this day, July 6th, we commemorate Blessed Maria Teresa Ledóchowska, 'the nursing mother of the African missions' as she became known due to her commitment to support African missionary effort in her times, by working in the background, founding Sodality of St. Peter Claver, missionary sisters dedicated to supporting missions without going actually to mission territories itself.
Today's saint is very close to my heart. Missionary Sisters of St. Peter Claver have been very supportive of my missionary works in the first ten years of my apostolate in Kiabakari and Musoma. I owe them so much - they prayed for me and my missions, encouraged always, supported in so many diverse ways and means.

Since they were with me shoulder to shoulder from the very beginnings of my life and work in Tanzania, I decided, as a token of my appreciation and heartfelt gratitude to dedicate the pre-school in Kiabakari (a part of John Paul II Center for Education and Formation which is under construction since 2007) to Blessed Maria Teresa Ledóchowska.

At the moment my sisters, Little Servants of Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculate Conceived, working since January this year in my mission, opened the pre-school in the existing pastoral center, till we manage to complete the construction of the center itself. The pre-school (in some countries they call it nursery school, or kindergarten) started with 142 kids in three age groups - baby class, medium class and reception class (for kids preparing to enter standard one coming January). It took some effort and funds which I was generously granted by children from one of Kraków's parishes and other private benefactors, to made some necessary modifications to the pastoral center to enable the pres-school to function properly, repairs and upgrades to existing playgrounds, construction of new toilets etc.

We opened the pre-school in the first half of February. I was so glad and relieved to see our local kids dressed nicely, fed properly, taught and formated as they deserve to be. Sisters are doing a great job to run the pre-school and parents are extremely happy.

In the meantime, together with my Foundation 'Kiabakari' we started to conscientize potential benefactors about the educational adoption of our kids to ease financial burden on parents of particularly poor kids and help them to make their dream of providing a decent education for their kids come true...We have got already some positive feedback from Poland. I am hopeful that in the future we will be able to secure help from many...

My artist, Florian Ludovick Kaija, has painted already a big picture of Blessed Maria Teresa Ledóchowska which I will hang on the wall of the dining hall, the biggest room in the future pre-school premises in the John Paul II Center for Education and Formation.

Let's celebrate today's feast of Blessed Maria Teresa by praying for our kids in the pre-school, for their families and for sisters, wishing them luck and blessings in successful provision of quality education and formation of our children. Think for a while about possibility of becoming a volunteer in Kiabakari or one of the 'parents' of our kids through educational adoption. If you are interested, please contact me through my email kontakt@wojciechkoscielniak.pl or through Foundation 'Kiabakari' email fundacja@kiabakari.org. It takes only 100 USD per year to keep one child in our pre-school for a year!

Check the picture of Blessed Maria Teresa and some shots from the pre-school below.