Eagle Has Landed

Not exactly an eagle, but me landing safely in Warsaw on Thursday and then proceeding to Kraków by train, arriving home in the evening. It is quite difficult to say home to an apartment in which there is nobody waiting for me. No parents nor Grandma living in here anymore. Gone to receive their rewards in Heaven. What is left in here is just emptiness and silence.

This space is too vast for me to fill it. Even with my prayers. Impossible. There will always remain a vacuum in here. Three vibrant personalities creating this place for many years. Not anymore. I won't even try, just occupying my little corner and trying to spend these days of my stay in Poland as bravely as possible. And go back to where I belong.

Homing In

As the day wakes up, so are our expectations. This is going to be an interesting day, a homing in day. Our Foundation Kiabakari two new volunteers, Agata and Karolina, have arrived safely to Nairobi yesterday and were met at the airport by Sarafina, our 'envoy', escorted to the hotel and taken care of. Two visiting doctors from Poznań, Wiktor and Adam, arrived yesterday to Nairobi as well, in the evening, and were met by Sarafina and put in the same hotel. Today all five will travel by bus to Sirari border Kenya-Tanzania crossing and further on to Kiabakari. I will fly to Musoma from Dar es Salaam today and, God willing, will reach Kiabakari before the Nairobi detail to get ready to receive the arriving guests. Indeed, a homing in day for all of us. Prayers appreciated as usual for us so we can travel safely and meet happily in Kiabakari. God bless us all!

Home Run

The last Sunday in Poland before I fly back to Tanzania. How proper it is that I spend it in the midst of my own folk, in my home parish. Having spent the whole month on medical checkups and treatments, taking care of this and that, visiting and planning for the imminent future, now it is time for home run...

Home, Sweet Home

So good to be back home with my Dad, the family and my best friends. Priceless! I'll spend some time with them,  visiting also here and there and undergoing a medical checkup for my troubles. All in all, it is a welcoming change in this year's hectic schedule and I am very grateful to the Almighty for giving me this chance to rest and recharge my inner batteries...

Safari Njema!

Marjanna and Marija are at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam, checking in for their flight back home to Split via Doha and London. On behalf of the whole community here in Kiabakari I wish them safari njema (bon voyage), safe flight and happy reunion with their families back home. May God reward them hundredfold for their selfless service and wonderful time we shared together here in Kiabakari and may their work bear long lasting and abundant fruit. Asanteni sana na Mungu awabariki sana! Kila la kheri!

Coming Home

Great feeling having my people coming back home. Our sole seminarian from Segerea Major Seminary in Dar es Salaam (there are no diocesan major seminaries in Tanzanian Catholic Church, only inter-diocesan major seminary in four facilities - two philosophical seminaries in Kibosho near Moshi and Ntungamo in Bukoba; and two theological seminaries in Segerea, Dar es Salaam and Kipalapala in Tabora) coming home after finishing another chapter of his theological studies, with one year only left before going for pastoral year and finally in 2013, God willing - diaconate in January, then ordination to priesthood in Kiabakari in July. Augustino Mapambano, the seminarian, reported to me this afternoon, and will spend his holidays with us till the end of July, upon which he will go for one and a half months of pastoral exercises in Musoma Cathedral Parish, as he has told me...

Home

I laughed out loud a moment ago, when I opened an email from a friend of mine from Toronto, who sent me this video link on YouTube. I've been looking for precisely the same video for some time now, searching on YouTube, but in vain. Now, I got it! I love it, I love it, I love it! One of the best, if not the very best, short summaries of who we are as the Catholic Church. Whenever I watched it a year of two ago, it gave me goose bumps, and today, when I watch it again, the feeling is the same... Watch it, save the link and enjoy as much as I do!...

Feminine Touch

This will be the final step in the renovating and refurbishing efforts of St. Martha House and St. Robert Bellarmin House. For those of you who don't get these names - a translation into more approachable terms: St. Martha House is a small guest house near the mission compound, which initially I built in 1992 as an  employees house, for the housekeeper and the family, while St. Robert Bellarmin House is the rectory...

Back To Base

The flight on board of Boeing 737 of Precision Air was abnormally normal and on time. Landed in Mwanza at around 11.30am, Father Andrzej Duda, CR, was magnanimous enough to pick me up at the airport and drive to Kahangala to his confrere and my friend - Fr. Andrzej Mądry, CR, where we had a nice chat and a tasty lunch. Then drove to Kiabakari where Andrzej dropped me and after having a quick cup of tea and a piece of freshly baked cake by my sisters, he drove back to Butiama, and myself started to unpack...

Countdown

Since the day bishop of Musoma passed by shortly before Christmas and we were able to set the date for the opening of the St. Gemma Galgani Convent in Kiabakari (which I've been 'doing' since I returned from my North American fundraising trip, the time I live in now is nothing but a countdown to that day, April 10th. Living under one roof with a multitude of sisters is difficult enough for anyone, living with them for more than a year is a heroic feat, believe me. I am aware this time was difficult for sisters themselves as well. I hope Merciful God has pity on me and help me to finish this project as soon as possible and make sisters move to their new house. I hope too He considers this time spent together with sisters in my house as a sufficient equivalent of Purgatory and grants me a straight access to Heaven after being able to withstand the pressure and challenge of living together with this flock. Countdown continues... The day of freedom is coming...

MasterCard

Having breakfast this morning in silent ambiance, alone at the table, for the first time since January 2010 (all sisters gone to Musoma Cathedral for the celebration of World Day of Consecrated Life) - priceless!

H2O

So, the inevitable that was looming over my mission has happened. We ran out completely of water in our main house tank (not the new one, which is not operational yet and anyway it will not supply water for house consumption). What lies ahead of us now at home is hauling water from Musoma 3 or four times a week, 500 liters at a time. I will start on Monday, unless there are healthy rains today or tomorrow which will fill up the tank a bit at least. And knowing that Water Authority have not paid their debts to Tanesco, we may be facing a long period of struggle to survive - both at home and in the construction works. Not mentioning pre- and primary schools which need water as well. Please, pray for rains! And for some sanity for Water Authority officials and the intervention of the government to rectify the situation! How can you live without water???

Wee Hours

I am very excited and happy that my life and rhythm of the 24 hour cycle of the day is coming back to normal. I love when I wake up in the middle of the night startled by an idea or a thought, an urgency to note a breakthrough in writing a book or solving a serious problem... This is what happened right now and I don't feel tired, rather content and creative...

Sentinels

Two days before I arrive back home in Kiabakari, it is high time to dispatch sentinels announcing my arrival to relevant parties and people involved and asking several persons to do this and that and to provide me with info I need... The last 48 hours before I get back home are the time of the most intense communication between me and people in Kiabakari and Mara Region at large...

Bureau of the Mission Security

Yesterday evening I had a wonderful time with a group of people who I call fondly the Bureau of the Mission Security...

Home, Sweet Home!

I'm back home in Kiabakari. Eventually, our plane departed at 3pm from Dar es Salaam and after uneventful flight which took some two hours (watching Mr. Bones movie all the way onboard), we landed safely at gravel airstrip called Musoma Airport, right in the middle of the Municipality. I always get stressed when approaching Musoma by air. There usually are quite strong crosswinds in evening, blowing from west, northwest, making for a bumpy descent. The runway is made of gravel, poorly maintained, so i always wonder how pilots keep plane straight, feeling how it shakes and wants to go sideways. It scares .... out of me, to be honest! This afternoon at least it was not so bad and - because I was busy taking pictures of Musoma and the Lake Victoria, I didn't pay to much attention to what was going on with the aircraft...

The Better Part

Today's Gospel on Jesus visiting the house of Martha, Mariam and Lazarus, made me remind those occasions I visited my relatives and friends while on holidays at home in Poland.

My Briefest and Most Memorable Catechism Lesson

I always knew my Dad is an early riser. Heard him so often in the morning when he was getting himself ready to go to work. He used to wake up around 4-4.30am and still does...

Being a little kid, I didn’t know what my Dad was doing exactly at that early hours of the day...

One morning, when I was around 3 years old I ventured out of our room which I shared with my grandma and my younger brother, and braved to go and see for myself what my Dad was doing there in my parents’ room...

He did not notice me entering the room quietly...what I saw stopped me in my tracks and froze me as I was startled and astonished seeing my Dad on his knees at the parents’ bed...praying silently...

He spread various holy cards in front of him with his prayer books and was so focused in prayer that he did not notice my presence...

I rushed out of the room with my heart beating fast with the picture of my Dad on his knees praying imprinted in my mind and heart forever...

I never needed anymore anyone to explain to me the importance of prayer in my life. I knew already...for the rest of my life!

My Dad – without a single uttered word and without even knowing this – gave me the best ever, briefest ever and most memorable ever catechesis on the importance of prayer in our lives.

Thank you, Dad!

 

 No wonder, Jesus did not need any teachers of prayer in His childhood. His Mum and Custodian taught Him everything...and it is always the best and most memorable catechesis for us, kids. Kids do not need catechists and catechesis at school if their parents understand that they are the best ever catechists and get involved totally in the religious formation of their children...

Parents, remember this, please!

My Parents on their wedding day

Moments I cherish...

This day today was quite a tough cookie to chew on...

An early start to the day - as always on Saturdays in Kiabakari. Confessions in the Shrine, Holy Mass with Eucharistic adoration, then meeting with catechumens from primary schools in Kiabakari to go through their files, check their data, correct mistakes, ask some relevant questions, finish the office stuff and give them a green light to proceed for last steps before their Baptism on last Sunday of May.

Then after a quick lunch with Chairman and Secretary of parish council along with a Chairman of Board of Catechists in the parish, we set off to Mwibagi outstation, the last one before you get to bridge on Suguti river, which is a border between Kiabakari and Bunda parishes.

It's only 11 kilometers from Kiabakari, and the early afternoon was quite pleasant with rays of sun warming damp countryside after yesterday's fury of thunderstorm.

In Mwibagi we met catechumens from three outstations constituting the Kyanyari center in our parish - Mwibagi, Nyamkoma and Nyakiswa. Altogether more than 130 catechumens- children, youth and adults.

We went through the same process as in Kiabakari, then after three hours of painstaking scrutiny, we concluded with a Holy Mass of Ascension Solemnity which we celebrate tomorrow in Tanzania. It was a wonderful celebration, though I was completely exhausted mentally going through proofreading and correcting the misspelled names which is quite common feature around here. But it is so important as people - especially parents of those young Tanzanians - tend to forget how important it is to get the data right from the very start. So many problems are caused later on with wrong names, bad spelling, or messed data, when they want to get job, go to school or get a passport.

Ask volunteers who worked in Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati Health Center what I mean! It is a world of pain to get registration system right and file people's names properly. Mission Impossible IV (or whatever the correct number of the sequel is)...

Got back home late in the evening and now, after spending the whole day with impressive number of people, I can cherish the moment I like so much and it is so rewarding...sitting alone in a sofa, sipping cold water, enjoying calm evening and lower temperature, watching Genesis playing live in Rome on DVD, immersing myself slowly in memories and thinking lazily how to tackle efficiently and professionally the very next day...

Saying I sit alone does not mean you are not welcome. To the contrary...Come and join me, I may even get up and find for you - in a secret place in the fridge - a bar of chocolate which is there waiting precisely for an opportunity like this...

Oh, how I love this song...it cleanses me and washes away all of my tiredness...Shhhhh....listen....