Page 1 | July 2003 | Vol 30  No 7 | Index | Page 2

FROM THE DIRECTOR…

Dear Fellow Missionaries,

In this month's issue, we hear of the experiences of Fr. Kieran Healy, OP in Nairobi, Kenya.  The original inhabitants of the Nairobi region were the Kikuyu people.  I recently came across the following ancient Kikuyu prayer:

O my Father, Great Elder, I have no words to thank you, but with your deep wisdom I am sure that you can see how I value your glorious gifts.  O my Father, when I look upon your greatness, I am confounded with awe, O Great Elder, Ruler of all things earthly and heavenly, I am your warrior, ready to act in accordance with your will.

As you read about Fr. Kieran's enthusiasm for ministry in Africa, I am sure that you will agree with me that this prayer reflects his missionary zeal.  Thank you for your continued support of Fr. Kieran and all of our Dominican missionaries.

In Christ’s peace,
Fr. Martin de Porres Walsh, O.P.

Creating a Dominican Parish Community
By Fr. Kieran Healy, O.P.
Nairobi, Kenya

Last year was a time of movement and change for me.  In January, I attended the meeting in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, for all the Dominicans who work in the formation of students.  This turned out to be the beginning of my transition from formation work to parish ministry.  The Abidjan trip concluded with a race to the airport during rush hour traffic and a massive tropical storm with me clutching two large wonderful drums for our chapel in Karen. 

Then in February, Fr. Martin Ndegwa and I moved into a rental house about one kilometer from the five-acre plot of coffee trees that was provided by the diocese for development as a parish.  Immediately we began meeting with Small Christian Communities “Jumuia” and listening to the people’s hopes and needs.  What the people would really like is a parish church and school conveniently located near where they live.  Since our parish area is very large we would not be able to please most of the people in our area of service.  But isn’t this like the preferences of people everywhere? 

We established community prayer and daily Mass at our residence and continued our work  with  Kibagari   (Good News Center), a very large boarding primary and high school near a large slum at the very far end of the parish.  Most of the children are orphaned.  We also provide Sunday Mass and other programs for the students at the Lower Kabete Campus or the Commerce Campus of the University of Nairobi.  There are seven such campuses in the university system.  More recently we are providing a Sunday Mass at Hospital Hill High School about one kilometer from our residence.  At Kibagari there are 300+ for Mass, at Lower Kabete 200+, and at Hospital Hill about 80.

Our area is very large and includes the United Nation’s Headquarters, the new Canadian Embassy, and the new American Embassy that just opened in March 2003.    Presently, major housing projects are being built in the area, which will bring in some of the families associated with these agencies.  They will hire many local people.  About one third of these people we would expect to be Catholic, and we would plan to  serve them.  At the moment, I am pleasantly surprised at the number of young adults in our congregation.

Another important back-ground feature is that the Aga Khan Organization has purchased the coffee farms that surround us.  They plan to relocate their grammar and high school on this property.  They have excellent programs and we would expect a good number of the children that they serve to be Catholic.  We are in dialogue with them as we make our plans.  We have some very large and wealthy estates in the parish, a number of poor but effective villages, some farms, and about four slums scattered throughout the parish. 

In August...>>>