Even here in the city people raise chickens, pigs, cows and goats to supplement their incomes. One does not need an alarm clock as the roasters call out to the world, “time to wake up”. Frequently at Sunday Mass the people will bring up a chicken in the Offertory Procession(usually I get eggs, potatoes and rice). Two days ago our neighbor brought over a gift of a chicken and after waiting two days I decided to eat it.

But first someone had to kill it. First I asked our cook, she refused. Then I ask my foreman to get one of the women working in the garden to finish it off, both women refused. The I told him to kill it, he refused. So, it was on me to send the chicken to chicken heaven and to our dinner table.

I had slit the neck of the chicken years ago and tried to remember how I did it. First I placed it on the ground stepping on its wings and feet to hold it down. Moving the knife across its neck vigorously was not working. The knife was not spark enough, I swore the chicken was laughing at me. Then it got away and ran throughout the yard. I went back to the kitchen to sharpen the knife while Jeni, our cook finally ran it down.

Jeni, she’s the one who refused to do the chicken in tells me that I’m not doing it right and that I have to hold the neck while cutting away. She held the body. Well, without going into any more details, the deed was done. I’m now on my second day of eating chicken twice a day.

The Gift of the Chicken turned out to be an adventure of a comedy of errors. Such is my life here, at times.

We are in the process of planting red beans between our ‘forest’ of trees to enrich the soil for the trees and provide delicious beans for us. After overturning the soil we take the fertile dirt from our large termite hills in our area and place it over the newly overturned soil as fertilizer.

Last night thousands of Kumbi Kumbi came out of the termite hills. These are small insects that look like caterpillars who leave their termite hill in search of another hill to produce more little Kumbi Kumbi.  Unfortunately for them we human beings enjoy their taste. I’ve ate them before, they taste like a meaty potato chip after they are fired like French fries.

After morning mass today the people were gathering the Kumbi Kumbi to bring home to fry. Crows and small hawks were mixed in with the people gathering quickly the natural delicacy before it runs out.

One of the primary focuses from the beginning at the Lake House of Prayer is to give the poor access to the contemplative life of the church. I am very thankful that the poor have responded so well to our invitation to enter into this rich tradition of silence, reflection and action.

This past Saturday we had 26 of our neighbors come to join us for a day’s of silent meditation(we actually had to turn some people away because of the limited physical space we have). The day was mixture of silent sitting, contemplation of nature, taking naps after a big lunch of rice and beans, short teachings on contemplation with a Eucharist at the end.

When preparing to start Mass we discovered that our Bishop Yudea Thadea had just arrived. I asked him to speak with the retreatants for a few minutes, which he gladly did. He encouraged them to take advantage of the ‘faragha’ (solitude) of our place and encouraged them to live a life of prayer and reflection.

In the beatitudes Jesus speaks of, “Blessed are the poor in Spirit”; the biblical word he uses is ‘anuwin’ which are economically very poor people excluded from participating in society but because of their deep poverty know they can and must depend on God, for everything.

As Judy and I sat in silence with these modern day ‘anuwins’ we were inspirited and humbled by their silence, faith and humility. Their silence was profound, their faith palpable, their humility deep, deep as the African soil.

Yesterday evening we hosted our first get together for meditation and conversation. Our guests were six Maryknoll Missioners living in Mwanza. We spent the first hour in the ‘Cave’ in silent meditation afterward we went up to the ‘Rock House’ (our new house) for snacks and conversation.

We used a short email article from Richard Rohr on Contemplation to spark discussion on Contemplation and how it touches us as missioners in a ‘strange’ land.

One of the biggest challenges we have as missioners in Tanzania is to receive, as much as possible, the Reality of Life here, as it is, and not as our ingrained ‘mental filters interpret’. Putting aside culturally conditioned ways of encountering Reality is a challenge and a gift of being a Missioner. The Gift being living into God’s Reality here in Africa as IT IS. The Challenge being letting go of our ‘mental filters’ that keep us ‘comfortable’ and yet separated from the REAL.

My last post was almost two weeks ago, not my usual pattern so let me try to catch up on the goings and comings.

8 Day Directed Retreat: As I posted last we had three women with us from another part of Tanzania. It was our first opportunity to have a full house in the Yellow House (the women’s house that Judy lives in). We are blessed we their presence and were thankful their time with us was beneficial.

English Meditation Retreat: We had five people with us a mixture of Tanzanians and Expatriates, a few of them experiencing Christian Contemplative Meditation for the first time. Judy and I shared in the guiding of the day. Again we felt the blessing of people of faith sitting together in the silence.

Group Retreat with Lay Leaders of Mwanza Diocese: We played host to 25 leaders from various parishes of the Diocese we represented different pastoral groups. I gave three talks on the contemplative life as we spent the rest of the day in silence. The leaders were open to this, to them, new teaching on the inner life of faith.

Overnight private retreats, a day Meditation retreat and a group retreat, much to learn from and be thankful  for.

We have three women who are into their last days of an 8 Day Directed Retreat. They are staying in the ‘Yellow House’ for women (the other house is the ‘Rock House’). One sees by their openness to the Silence and Solitude how healing and wholeness takes place. It doesn’t take much. Isn’t that the point?

Yesterday we hosted five women from a Religious Sisters Congregation (Canossians). Of the five four are just beginning their life as vowed women in the church. The other was a professed sister from Hong Kong. They were quite a mixture of groups from Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania and China.

They expressed their delight at leaving the noise and busy-ness of the city to come and rest a short while at the House of Prayer. This is our hope to provide the space for people to rest, physically, mentally and spiritually.

At a large meeting of all the pastoral workers in our diocese the Bishop led a discussion on our current drought and the implications for our work as church people. The bishop suggested that the drought is being caused by our destruction of the environment. This set off a lively discussion.

It was mentioned the custom of paying ‘rainmakers’ money to make it rain which is a strong custom in the local tribe who are mainly farmers. Others suggested that the church should have a special mass to pray for rain. One member said that would be the same as the ‘rainmakers’. Another said even if it rained after our praying for rain mass it would still take two months at least to harvest any food which will not help people who are already dying and will continue to die as we wait for the harvest.

How ought the Lake House of Prayer respond to this crisis that is growing in seriousness by the week? Should we  have a week of prayer for rain? After all we are a House of Prayer and isn’t that what a House of Prayer does, pray for different needs?

Of course we pray for the needs of our community and world. We also open our hearts and minds in the Silence to receive God’s Transformative Love. It is this Love we believe that can change destructive ways of living on this planet. A Silent Reverent attitude toward ourselves, God and our planet can gift us with the patience to persevere through drought and the creative energy to form a new way of living that restores our earth to its original function, a wondrous home for human beings.