Letters from Africa

December, 2008

Thanks be to God and the prayerful and material support of the entire Congregation, families, and our former ministries, we have completed our first year of school at Chief Wanzagi Secondary School, the newest mission here in Tanzania, Africa. There have been so many, many benefactors who have continually supported us with their prayers, encouragement and material resources. It is only in prayer that we can begin to show our gratitude.

The school year in Tanzania goes from the middle of January to the end of November. Of our 110 students in Form 1, the first year of Secondary School, 103 successfully passed to Form 2. In this coming school year, we expect to have 120 students in Form 2 and about 110 students in Form 1. If we had the room and personnel, we could easily have 800 girls for the next school year. On November 1, 606 girls took our Entrance Test and since then more who missed that test date have since been seeking admission. Over 60 girls have tested to come into the few vacancies we have in Form 2. Each day brings pressure from priests, Sisters of other Congregations, educators from other schools, government officials, politicians and many, many parents to "just take this one more girl". God has blessed us with good teachers last year and a wonderful group of first year students, so our good reputation seems to have spread to more distant parts of the country. May God be praised for all and in all! It is rewarding to hear that people appreciate the sense of justice with which the school is run in a country where corruption is so prevalent in all aspects of society. Hopefully, together with the Resurrection priests in our parish, we are participating in some small way in the renewal of society which was the vision of Bogdan Janski and the Founders and Foundresses of our Resurrection Congregations.

Each day brings many challenges. A lack of water seems to be our major problem. We needed to close the school down in August when the lack of water caused a subsequent threat of serious illness. One morning we had an early rising and had to suspend the first class so that the girls could walk several kilometers to fetch some water from a stream. We keep trying to provide more water tanks to collect the rain water. Honorable Mkono is hoping to get funding to dig a well for water at the bottom of the high hill on which the school is located. Of course, electricity will be needed to pump the water up to the school and the frequent lack of it will make that process difficult as well. In fact, the power outages are so frequent that the girls have learned to take a flashlight with them when they go to study in the library or classrooms at night. When the electricity goes off, they simply turn on their flashlights and start praying aloud or singing religious songs for it to come back on again! If that happens, one hears this great cheer go up as well as a verbalized prayer of thanksgiving.

We are slowly getting used to all the insects and animals that we encounter here. The variety of insects seem to be getting larger and more numerous with time. On a given day, one can see a snake, a rat, a turtle or a frog on the veranda. We hear the hyenas at night, but thank God, have not yet seen one. On the other hand, the weather is wonderful. One almost forgets about the snow and ice back in our home countries. The sunrises, sunsets and display of stars at night are truly awesome and breath taking. God has truly blessed this country with many natural resources.