I am pleased to see that the subject of ‘Msongo wa Mawazo” (Stress) is getting some press these days. “Msongo” is from the verb ‘kusonga’ (to gather to come close), “Mawazo” (thoughts), that is a coming together of a lot of thoughts in one’s mind.

Like many places in the world today, Tanzanians are experiencing much stress in their lives, especially people without a ‘safety net’ like millions of marginated people. Just the stress of finding enough food to eat for a day is more than enough to ‘gather many thoughts together’.

The forgotten people of society, the poor, handicapped, uneducated, underemployed, women do not have access to many stress reducing tools that the educated and economically well off do, one of the results of being forgotten. They don’t count.

The goal of the Lake House of Prayer is God but God has shown in Jesus Christ that God wants all peoples to live full lives in the God’s Kingdom. Here and Now. On this Earth. So, in the Silence, Simplicity and Solitude I hope we can create an atmosphere where the thoughts start to separate a bit and the space to experience God’s unconditional Love is there for our forgotten ones to be remembered.

Today at our Christian Meditation Group here I will give a teaching on ‘Msongo wa Mawazo’ to the forgotten ones. I pray God remembers us.

 

Next month Judy Walter, a Maryknoll Lay Missioner, will be joining me at the Lake House of Prayer. We will form a community of two (for now). Our main priority is, as a member of the Desert House of Prayer in Tucson, Arizona once said, ‘hold the Silence’. We hope through a regular prayer rhythm of Contemplation Silence, Reflection and Liturgies we can provide atmosphere of Silence and Simplicity for our guests who come here on retreat to Rest in the Lord.

Soon we will have enough furniture made for receiving guests at my house. So the signs are appearing that my many months of solitary silence, alone here are coming to an end. Being alone these past months has confirmed the vision of the need for Contemplative Silence. The challenge now is to see how this vision will unfold in Tanzania.

As a Maryknoller Missioner I hold the value of  being a ‘servant of the local church’, a value I heard of in the seminary and experienced with my elders in Maryknoll in our life together in Africa. This is quite a change from being the creators and leaders of the local church during colonial times. We are no longer driving the bus so to speak, instead we have seats toward the back.

The Archbishop of Mwanza is a Capuchin Franciscan named Yuda Thadea Ruwa’ichi. He is a forward looking Bishop with a unique pastoral sense for his people. In his letter of assignment to me to create the House of Prayer he wrote that he and I would be ‘co-founders’ of this new venture. So I find myself in the unique position of starting something very new for this local church of Mwanza, and doing it with the Archbishop.

It is not usual for an Archbishop to be interested in Silence, Solitude and Simplicity, the nature of their life’s work being necessarily very active in service to the people of God. So, it has/is been a wonder to me how the future will unfold. What shape of a House of Prayer can we create together?

Today Bishop Yuda Thadea came by to visit, as his custom. He brought me a book, “The Art of Prayer”. A book on the wisdom of the Eastern Church on the way of Silent Contemplation. Now  I am beginning to wonder, Is something special going on here?

Yesterday was an all day affair pouring the ring beam; after a couple of days of watering the beam we will lay three lines of bricks on which we will build our roof.

Today I went with the electrician through the entire house to confirm the electrical plan, switches where, how many, lights, what kind, where to put, etc.

Paying attention to the details is a challenging and important part of building. Something like prayer, one just needs to keep at it, constantly.

Today we had a visit from two government officials from the mayor’s office. We are going through a process to have the use of our land redrawn for institutional purposes, not residential and educational like the land permits state now. This could have been done before we started building, but I am thankful it is getting done now. Hopefully, we will get our Building Permit that we applied for one year ago.

The building though has continued along without any major problems to hurdle. This week we will be pour the ring beam (a thick cement column placed near the top of all our walls that will hold up the roof). It is turning into a unique and beautiful building which I hope will serve many people to retreat into the Solitude and Silence of God.

My legal status in the country is still be worked on with my papers at the Dept. of Works. I hope to have the Residence Permit something by next month.

I’m starting to call the Meditation Groups, Silent Prayer groups to give a sense of Christian Prayer that listens to God instead of the common prayer of doing all the talking to God. The group here at the House of Prayer is growing from a low of one attending to over 20 the last two meetings. The other group of mainly Missioners at the Society of Missions to Africa had 8 attending last night. I am grateful.

I am developing a Prayer Room in the house I am living in. We put up an African Crucifix craved in a nice white wood. Eventually I would like to make a round altar out of the same white wood.