Diocesan Synod

The Bishop of Musoma, Rt. Rev. Michael Msonganzila, announced his intent to open diocesan synod on July 12, 2012, on the day of the priestly ordination in Musoma Cathedral. He elected 28 members of the preparatory committee. I found myself included. Today we had the very first meeting of the committee, chaired by the Bishop himself. I must say that it was a very interesting experience and I felt the presence and the work of the Holy Spirit himself. Synodal works were set in motion, various small theme committees were established. I hope and pray the Holy Spirit will firmly guide us and keep us focused on what is important for this time in the Diocese of Musoma. I have high hopes after this meeting. Please, put this important ecclesiastical event which will last till 2014 in your kind prayers! God bless the Synod! God bless the Diocese of Musoma! God bless us all!

Silver Jubilee of Priesthood

Yesterday I had a unique opportunity to see and feel how it may look like next year when I will be celebrating my silver jubilee of priestly ordination. My sisters, Denise and Thomas, frater William and the chairman of the parish lay council, together with myself - drove to Kigera-Etuma village, some 20 km beyond Musoma, in Nyegina parish, to the home village of Father Godfried Maruru, a priest of Diocese of Musoma and my friend, who celebrated yesterday his silver jubilee of priesthood...

Home Page

Just to let you know that I have just begun to work on my home page www.wojciechkoscielniak.pl which has been left hanging by me for a few years now. I had no focus strong enough to sit down and take care of it, but I feel as my Silver Jubilee of priesthood is approaching, I need to have this home page done and fully functional. I hope this intention is not a short lived anymore and with the help of pros it will be become a nice online place to visit. A hub for all my other websites, blog, audio and video sites, photo galleries etc. Please, keep your fingers crossed that this initiative lives till the final success.

Liturgical Calendar In Songs

Radio Interviews

Kiabakari On SoundCloud

This is the link to the group I have created on SoundCloud - a home for any kind of audio creations by people related to Kiabakari in Tanzania, East Africa.

 Kiabakari

If you are one of them, I would be very happy if you could upload your sounds from Kiabakari to this group. Cheers!

Yesu, Nakutumainia!

And this is the first fruit of my painstaking uploading efforts using internet speed as it is in our area. It took more than 48 hours to upload all of these twelve tracks, but I am happy that the patience paid off. So, with joy I welcome all of you to click on the link and listen to the first album on Divine Mercy, recorded by my choir of St. Faustina back in 1995. Enjoy!

Yesu, Nakutumainia!

SoundCloud

I have added a new feature on this blog. SoundCloud service may be well known already to many of you, for others maybe not so much. This is an internet service where you can upload your sounds, share with others or listen to other people's audio creations. I must admit it adds quite a new perspective to the social communication among people. It adds also a new dimension to my apostolate and relations with my friends and readers. The ability to upload sounds - be it a homily, church song, sounds from real life, audio productions etc - opens up for me an excellent opportunity to share with you audio treasures I have saved on my HDD already and to upload in the future new creations. You will find a SoundCloud upload button in the right sidebar below my personal links. If you wish to share with me your sounds, you are welcome. Please, mind though, that all you want to share with me must not be of an offensive nature of any kind - and it must bring a positive message of high moral standards. Welcome then to SoundCloud! You will find me and my sounds here.

Hate For Life

St. Lawrence feast today. Astonishing words of Jesus in the feast's Gospel: "Whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life." (Jn 12). Hating owns life and at the same time preserving it for later, for eternal life. Quite a difficult idea to grasp and comprehend. What does it mean actually to hate one's life in this world? The Hindu saying comes to mind - 'Only fool builds a house on a bridge'...

Reality Check

Yeah, the day was quite a productive affair. But time comes for reality check. When I need internet most, it gives up on me. Vodacom is gone this evening, now Airtel is dying. I wonder if time will come eventually when we will enjoy internet speed like in Mwanza or Dar es Salaam. In our case, it gets from bad to worse. It sucks big time!

Lake Malawi/Nyasa Row

Reading comments to this article in Malawian newspaper, makes my blood chill. Is this another war in making? Is this border dispute between Malawi and Tanzania opening a frightening Pandora's box? So much hatred, contempt, derogatory opinion, cliche comments. People, stop this insanity!

Lake Malawi/Nyasa row: Time to show strong leadership | Malawi news, Malawi - NyasaTimes breaking online news source from Malawi

Recycling Education

I would like to share with you quickly a remarkable story of a lady in my home parish who relentlessly goes around people's houses collecting papers, magazines, newspapers for recycling. The money she gets from the recycling center she collects until it suffices to support one child in my pre- and primary school in Kiabakari through the educational adoption program of Foundation Kiabakari. So far this year she was able to adopt educationally four children already. Amazing effort! Recycling for education. Recycling wasted paper to give it a new meaning - a hope for quality education for underprivileged children in rural Tanzania. Hats off to the wonderful lady! I applaud her effort as I send a thanksgiving letter to her today for the donation of the fourth adopted child in our school.

Postmortem

I had a strong resolve to gather myself and drive to Musoma as there were things on the to-do list to be taken care of. But after yet another short sleep night, waking up this morning at 3.30am for the pilgrims' from Dodoma Holy Mass before they left driving back home, I found my pool of strength to be so much depleted that I felt it was not prudent to force myself to drive to Musoma and do the list. So, the plan B kicked in - staying home and doing postmortem of the pilgrimage and planning ahead what next. So this is precisely what I've been doing since morning and I must admit it was a wise choice to remain focused at home. A good and productive day. I feel very content and satisfied!

The Dark Lining

"As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant."

New Volunteers

I expect to welcome two new volunteers in Kiabakari, coming from Germany, through the same Internazionalen Bund organization that sent Denise and Thomas last September. Franziska and Tobias Breitfeld will replace Denise and Thomas who will be going back home after a full year of genuine commitment, hard work, dedication, going beyond their duties and showing remarkable talents, skills and sense of responsibility for our children and the ability to blend in perfectly in our parochial community. It is my hope that new volunteers will follow in their footsteps, building on the solid foundation of priceless legacy that Denise and Thomas will leave in Kiabakari.

Our new volunteers have just started blogging. This is their Kiabakari experience blog: http://breitiandfraegokiabakari.blogspot.de/

On behalf of the whole Kiabakari community I wish them God's blessings in their preparations and every success in their voluntary work for the benefit of the young generation in Kiabakari.

So Sad

Read carefully the Gospel of tomorrow's Eighteenth Sunday of the Year B. The follow up of last Sunday's Gospel. But this time we do not ask ourselves if we follow real Jesus or prefer to create a fake Jesus according to our expectations or convenience. This time we ask - what are we looking for in our life of faith? Do we look for Jesus and the truth He revealed to us? Or we follow Him because He gives us something - food, money, things we desire... "Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled."

No Job For Old Men

I'm getting old. It feels and shows clearly in particular in times like these, when we receive pilgrims for long and rich program in Kiabakari. A busload of pilgrims set off yesterday morning from Dodoma. They were supposed to reach Kiabakari by 8-9pm last night. We waited and waited. They arrived finally at 1am this morning! My people were really tired and disenchanted by this long wait...