Our bishop has been transferred to Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam to be the next Cardinal for the Tanzanian Catholic Church. We will miss him (Bishop Ruwa’ichi) for his support, like vision for the House of Prayer and his friendly pastoral presence.

The last couple of weeks has seen a steady increase in overnight guests, day groups and inquiries. It appears the word is getting out and more people are hearing about us. This development is very welcome and yet it comes with its own challenges, the main one being how to keep things small and contemplative.

When I first started working here in 2014 the very first thing I did was dig and build an outdoor ‘pit’ toilet. Well, after 4 years of use it is full. Time to build another one. This one will not be a ‘pit’ toilet but will have the modern style of pipes leading to two septic tanks. Development of a sort.

We have a night guard named Athmani who is going blind. For months now he has been taking medicine from a local hospital as he seeks to  cover-up the fact that he is slowly losing his eyesight. When you call him from just a few feet away he responds by trying to hear the sound by looking in the opposite direction from where you are standing.

Like many of the disadvantage here he would just endured this situation until he went blind, then he would just endure a worst situation of being blind. Well, as a night guard being three quarters blind on the way to be totally blind just doesn’t fit. A blind guard?

So Athmani got tested and discovered his problem is cataracts. Two days ago he got the first eye operated on and after two weeks he’ll have the second one done. Then he will actually see. Then he will be our night guard who  can see. Then he will have ‘new eyes’ to see the world for the remainder of his long life (he’s around 68 yrs).

Yesterday we hosted 100 youth from a neighboring parish who made an all day Pilgrimage through the streets of Mwanza, dancing, singing, praying and walking with joy.

As a policy we don’t accept more than 25 people in a group retreat; so four times more the usual number is quite a jump for us. And yet large groups are very much a part of Catholic and local culture for such a communal culture as Africa has.

They stayed with us for only 4 hours which involved a talk, opportunity for the Sacrament of Reconciliation and a closing Mass. The youth were very respectful of the Silence and chance to Rest and Reflect on the day. We used our new outdoor patio overlooking the lake that provide enough room and a prayerful setting.

So, a new possibility has opened up for us at the House of Prayer: large group retreats of up to 70 from 2pm-6pm. And why not? This is another way to truly make this an AFRICAN House of Prayer.

One of the core values at the House of Prayer is simplicity. We seek to simplify some aspects of people’s complicated lives while they are with us for a short or long stay.

One area we seek simplicity is food. For our day retreats for small groups we always serve a beans, rice, spinach, watermelon and bottled water. Not fancy or diverse but good, simple and healthy.

What matters is not so much food but our listening relationship with the Lord. Food must not be an distraction. The focus is not on our cell phones, what we are wearing, our problems or what we have to eat, instead we are focusing on our relationship with the Lord.

I mentioned this because a couple of groups have given us feedback that we need to diversify our diet, i.e. add meat. But we will not  accept this feedback because if we do, we will be moving away from the simplicity of a small moment in our lives just to concentrate on just ‘tasting the goodness of the Lord’.

By the way, we serve a diverse diet for our overnight guests of chicken, meat, fish, cooked bananas, brown/white rice, potatoes, cabbage, spinach, carrots and all kinds of fruits. With the above we focus on the ‘Desert’, withdrawal. With this we seek the ‘Sabbath’, resting in the goodness of the Lord (in this case food).

Yesterday we hosted the 12th and last Priest group for a three day Contemplative Retreat. We started these small group retreats (four to a group) in Feb of this year so it has been a long process but very fruitful. We discovered there is a great hunger for rest, reflection and prayer in an atmosphere of Silence, Solitude and Simplicity.

We are now using our new guest house for the last  two priest retreats with good reviews. The house is located away from the main house with its kitchen and normal works. It provides a better atmosphere of Solitude.

A few days ago a young woman came to meditate with us for the first time. When we meditate in the early evening we start off with praying the psalms; each person has a book that enables them to proclaim the psalms out loud.

I noticed that our new guest was looking intently at the psalm book but in the wrong places as we were praying the psalms. I said to myself, ‘She does not know  how  to read. She is pretending’.

The following day I greeted her before our prayer time and she just looked at me and did not reponsed. I said to myself, ‘Why does she not respond? She doesn’t like me?’ When she saw my discomfort she said, ‘I can’t hear’.  Then I said to myself, ‘Wrong again”.

This  woman still continues to come pray with us; now knowing her condition I wondered why she is coming if she can’t hear anything. I started to pay attention to her looking over at her at the end of 30 minutes sitting in Silence. I saw a look of deep peace on her face. She was enjoying sitting together is Silence.

Why is this? I don’t really know but my guess is she does not get many opportunities to share with others the Silence she is always experiencing.

Yesterday we hosted 22 women from a women’s group at my former parish Mabatini. The main subject of the retreat  was Forgiveness. The Forgiveness, as taught and lived by Jesus. A unique forgiveness that demands much from ones asked to forgive others who have caused much pain in our lives.

These women are facing much that need to be forgiven: grinding poverty, alcoholism, family breakdowns, vicious gossip, daily psychological and many times physical violence, along with betrayal and a general lack of traditional communal support.

They struggle to let go and forgive the unforgiveable. Their faith and courage in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds against forgiving, is just amazing to me.

They are not perfect, they harbor grudges, they want revenge, they can’t let go and yet in the midst of this struggle, they reach out and forgive.

 

We are finished with our new guest wing that can welcome up to 6 guests in our 6 self-contained rooms, each with its own view of Lake Victoria. The building goes along with our vision of Simplicity, as the Bishop said when he came to view the building, ‘simple but beautiful’.

Today I met with 5 of the men who were the core of the building crew from the start in Feb. 2018 to today to thank them for their fine work and gift them with a small token of our appreciation. At the end of our short meeting one of them said that usually the workers of a completed building never get any acknowledgment, only the high-ranking government officials and owners of the building get any praise.

This is a small way we Maryknoll Missioners express ourselves with the people. We stand with the ordinary people even at the end of a building project.

We are basically done with the new building except for a few minor works; we can start moving in the new handmade furniture in a few days. The construction site is slowly disappearing as our new guest house takes its place at the Lake House of Prayer.

Now the question becomes, ‘we’ve built it, now will they come?’. Is the culture ready for a place such as ours? Can people get off the ‘rat race’ long enough to come to stay with us? Has the word of our place/services reached enough people? These and many other questions will need to be lived into patiently in the future.

We are grateful for those who have stayed with us and now we hope with 12 rooms available where before we had only 6 we will receive more visitors who will want to disengage for awhile and come to Rest in the Silence of the Lord.

Our House of Prayer made a little communal history this week by hosting two Sisters and four Priests; making for us a ‘full house’. Or to say more clearly, two full houses, one the ‘Rock House” which holds four rooms for men and the other ‘Yellow Houses’ having two rooms for women.

The challenges of meals, Spiritual Direction, worship space and solitude were met adequately and all were satisfied. This was a good test for welcoming and serving up to 12 guests in the future when our new guest house will be completed.

As we hope to welcome up to 12 guests at time in the near future the challenge becomes not only the physical environment of ‘full houses’ but the interior environment of the staff; that would mean not so much to have a ‘full house’ interiorly but having the ‘inner space’ to provide Silence and Solitude for our guests.