For the first few years of my 30 yrs living in Tanzania when a person came up to me and said, “I have a problem with you” I would take it personally and ask myself the reactive question, “You have a problem with ME!?” What did I do to you? I haven’t ever seen you before and you have a problem with ME!? These questions would rapidly go through my mind.

What the person is really saying is ‘I have a problem and I need your help in solving it’. Yesterday after morning mass a teenaged girl came up to me and said, ‘I have a problem with you’. After 30 yrs of struggling with this I’m finally finding enough space to re-translate what is being said. So we sat down so she could explain what her problem was.

She explained that at her high school there are students who play with evil spirits and these spirits are causing her problems, i.e. pain in her arms, neck and chest. After looking at the many possibilities of what could be giving her these problems I offered  some advice on how to deal with the  dark spirits and prayed for her.

So many times one does not solve the person’s problem but  creating the interior space to listen non-judgmentally and compassionately is helpful. After all sharing one’s problem with another is healing in itself.

Our prayer community is beginning to regroup nicely after Judy’s and my absence for the last two months. They continued to meet as a small group though to keep the prayer alive here while we were gone.

We are getting a few new people who come to pray with us. Last week at Evening prayer during the time all are invited to give petitions a young woman who I never saw before prayed. She prayed that she would be gifted by God to pray well to help her with her life.

I thought of the disciples asking Jesus to teach them to pray. Myself, I have the  same request as that young woman, to learn to pray in a way I come to know God, as God is and my true self as my true self is in God.

In a land with so many poverty, developmental and political issues one could ask what is the contribution of a House of Prayer? This is a challenging question of course. I would answer, the fundamental issues for Tanzanians are interior ones (like any human being). The deep fear that resides in us interiorly can only be healed by contemplative prayer.

 

For the most part our House of  Prayer is not known to the wider public but as we continue with our preparations for receiving overnight guests after finishing the construction of the new building we want the word to get out.

Yesterday, it got out big time. I attended the Eucharistic celebration that our Bishop Yuda Tadea lead as part of his pastoral visitation at our outstation. The mass was attended but a large congregation which enjoyed a lively liturgy.

After the liturgy while sharing a meal in the church with the bishop the bishop told us that he  would like to pass by the House of Prayer on the way to the parish. I thought he was speaking of coming with his one car with its 4 passengers.  Four cars and vans came with over 50 people from different parts of the parish who were accompanying the bishop on his visit.

I was able to explain to the group the nature of our House of Prayer and take them through the house. Now we’re known and a new era is starting for us where individual retreatants and small groups will be asking to come. This is what we are here for, to share the contemplative life of the Church, by providing the space of silence, simplicity and solitude for our people. The challenge is to guard and foster this contemplative atmosphere as people start to come.

Yesterday a young girl of 12yrs came to my house early in the morning with her grandmother(a regular here) and her mother. The girl is troubled with recurring headaches and stomach pains for awhile. They have taken her to the hospital without any improvement. They have also went to the Charismatics at a neighboring parish.

When she is prayed over by the Charismatics she falls to the ground during the prayers but later the headaches and stomach pains return. They tell me they don’t know what is causing these conditions; Is it the Devil? Is it a dark spirit?

The girl does not want to talk very much. After some conversation I suggest trying another hospital for testing. Then I pray for her, with some words of God’s Love and Concern for her. I place my hands on her head and in Silence ask the Lord for healing. Everyone seems satisfied, even the girl. I hope she felt God’s Presence and Love for her. That one  day she will find relief from her illnesses.

This is the third day I’ve been waiting for TANESCO, the electricity company to hook the newly completed house with power. TANESCO gets a lot of abuse for poor service and yet when one looks at the monumental demands placed on it in a rapidly growing economy one marvels at how well it is doing.

We’re using the rain water tank in the house I am living in to supply water to the new house. It has not rained in months and the city water has been spotty at the least.

All these things, waiting, saving water, are part of the spiritual practice of living contemplatively. And for me, the harder part.

Since returning from the States I’ve been enjoying an evening walk down to the lake that passes through beautiful rocky hills with great views of the lake around each corner.

Walking, something that connects us to the ancients, just walking. That and Silence joins us to how we can live a simple humble life on this planet.

I hope we can invite the moderns who come to visit us here to engage in the ancient practices of walking and Silence.

Since returning we’ve started up our regular morning Silent Prayer of 30 minutes before mass. One of our neighbors is a poor single woman who always comes with her small child.

During the meditation I was very distracted with many thoughts of what to do for most of the time. Until, I started to hear the gentle sound of the child’s breathing on her mother’s chest. It sounded so gentle and peaceful. A good image of Silent Prayer, to rest from all the clamor, anxiety, fears and frustrations and just rest on God’s ‘chest’.

Perhaps now I need to remind myself before Silent Prayer to ‘breath like a baby’.

It has almost been two months since I wrote here. Where have I been?! In the USA. I have completed my third and final summer for a Spiritual Direction Certificate at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.

Part to the vision for our House of Prayer is to provide Spiritual Direction for our willing guests. It is my hope that the skills and wisdom I received at the Christian Spirituality Program at Creighton will help me to journey with others as they seek to follow Christ more deeply.

I was also gifted to be with family off and on during these two months. I am very thankful for the opportunity to renew my relationships with my family.

In two days I board the plane to return to Tanzania. I look forward to the next chapter in the story of the Lake House of Prayer.