Yesterday we had the first get together of people in the area of the House of Prayer who are interested in learning about contemplative prayer. Twenty people came and sat on mats on the floor in our house’s living room.

I gave a short talk on “Taamuli” prayer. “Taa” in Swahili means Light, “Muli” can also mean ‘mulika’, which means ‘to light up’. I sought to share with the people how Taamuli  prayer can help us all bring more quality to all our prayers.

I asked each one what prayers to they use everyday. One woman wakes up at 3am to pray the rosary. Everyone had a strong prayer schedule throughout the day. This fact was inspiring to me since I know how much of their day is taken up in survival tasks such as getting enough water and food.

We spent only 5 minutes in Silent Meditation. What was surprising, and should not have been, is how everyone seemed to enter the Silence so easily. After all, they are all experienced in waiting in the Silence of everyday life as they go about making it through each day, each moment.

I am greatly consoled at God’s Presence during this first gathering for Contemplative Prayer at the Lake House of Prayer. As we make plans to start the building of the physical infrastructure, I already see we’ve started growing the Spiritual Infrastructure of the Kingdom of God within us.

There are many chores and responsibilities to attend to as I move into this part of the Journey of the House of Prayer. The challenge is to engage the above tasks contemplatively, that is from a place of REST within. Throughout the Scriptures there are hints of God’s Presence within the person as a place of REST as she or he engages in the challenges of everyday life.

Being a Contemplative in Action, for me, means to have a prayer discipline that is open to the Spirit’s grace which creates a Silence within which in turn empowers one to discern the proper course(s) to take in everyday life. One is RESTING IN THE SILENCE as one goes about the tasks of the day. I am very far from this way of being but I’m getting hints of understanding what REST really is.

The Lake House of Prayer, being by the lake, has a lot  of mosquitos, the kind that bring malaria. Part of the challenge is to claim the house as useable for human beings and not a home for mosquitos to reproduce. After spraying multiple times and still not making any progress I discovered that the left-over boxes from our various repair jobs were making perfect new homes for our tiny but harmful friends. So, out the boxes go and the spraying continues as we start to see some progress.

I have started to take my morning walks for exercise down to the lake. It is a beautiful walk through massive rocks overlooking the great expanse of Lake Victoria. I am meeting the fishermen as they pull in large nets to the shore in their morning catch of fish. Last morning they invited me to pull with them. So I did. I asked them if they ever had a white man pull with them. They said no. I guest we made some ‘history’ there.

I’ve spent three nights now at my new home. I spend a lot of time doing ordinarily easy chores which would normally take only a short time which now take more. Like water, with no running water I have to haul some from a large plastic tank to my room to put in a smaller tank. From there it goes into a bucket for use in the bathroom.

I’ve been using a candle instead of my solar light because I did not understand how to re-charge it. The side benefit from this ignorance is that I go to bed early and get up early, something that I was looking forward to anyway. By the way, I figured out how to re-charge it so I may stay up a bit more tonight.

For cooking I’m still playing around the edges of fully committing myself to it. I buy a lot of fruit and canned beans and sardines. I need to get serious though about having more of a fresh food diet.

Part of the vision of the House of Prayer is Simplicity. Well, living simply, ain’t easy.

I’ve only been back from my safari to the States for a little over a couple of weeks but I have had a sense or urgency to complete the repairs to the house we bought recently so I could start living there. Last night I moved in to a very peaceful and restful night.

There is still a lot of work to do but we have done enough in my room to enable me to move in. I don’t have electricity(I’ve bought a solar lamp) or running water (flush the toilet with a half a bucket of water) but it feels like a suite at the Hilton to me.

Next week I decide on which contractor to use to sign a contract to start the Core Community House. Now that I am closer to where things will be happening it will make it easier to get into the flow of the upcoming work. With the many challenges coming it is a blessing to be here now to witness how God’s Will manifests itself as the Dream of the House of Prayer starts to take physical form.

I am rapidly getting things in order to move into my new home over-looking Lake Victoria. The house we bought is in great need of repair. Extensive work is being done on the plumbing system including a tall tower to hold our 5,000 liter water tank. The electrical system is in disarray. Why all this poor workmanship? What we think is the previous owner did not pay his  workers and treated them badly so they started stealing and doing poor work.

I hope we can have the plumbing system in good enough working order so I can move in sometime late this week or early next. I am eating a lot of canned sardines and fruit for lunch and dinner. For breakfast I have cereal and fruit. I made the mistake of leaving the food out on the floor in plastic bags. Two mornings ago when I came to look at what I would have to eat for breakfast it looked like some kind of animal was making itself at home with the cereal. One of the workers said it was rats! I hate rats! Quickly I found a way to protect the food. Having rats in one’s cereal gets one focused and creative proto.

I’ve only been back in Tanzania a few days, but it feels like I never left. The main focuses are to repair a room in the house we purchased a couple months ago and prepare to choose which contractor we will use to build the Core Community House.

We have purchased a 5,000 liter water tank and hope to have  water  delivered by truck this morning. I am excited about the eventuality of moving into my new home when we get my room in livable condition.

Finally, later on today I lead a short reflection with some Maryknoll guests who have come to Mwanza for two weeks of visits. There is a proverb that says, “Mgeni akija, wenyeji wapone” (when the guest comes the locals get  well). The Tanzanians are well know for their “Ukarimu” (hospitality). After 27yrs. living in Tanzania I hope some of that hospitality has off on me so I can share that “Ukarimu” with our guests.

I arrived from the USA to Maryknoll’s house in Nairobi, Kenya to find our normally empty house full of people. Maryknoll Africa is hosting a seminar on Inter-Religious dialogue. Many of our guests coming for this seminar of one week are either Muslim or Christian.

Last night I spoke with a Muslim educator who is creating a curriculum that combines religious studies of Islam with secular studies. I shared with him my vision for the House of Prayer. He was very excited, encouraging me to continue on with the project because it is really, really needed. It was amazing to hear his views on what I want to do, in many cases that matched my own motivations for the Lake House of Prayer.

Finally, he shared the religious custom in Islam of the “Iikaf” which says that one should spend one hour a day in silent solitude before God. I walked away from our conversation thankful that God saw fit to speak to me through this Muslim scholar. In the Silence and Solitude the Lake House of Prayer miraculously becomes a Home for all Peoples.

I arrived in California after a 13,000 kilometers 20 hours airplane trip from Nairobi, Kenya. My first impressions are the wonderful paved roads and efficiency in which things get done. I am going through my doctor’s appointments and am amazed and thankful for the technology and kind service.

I will visit family  and rest a bit before going to Omaha, Nebraska early next month for the second summer session of the Spiritual Direction Certificate.

Gone are the days when Missioners went overseas and never returned home to visit. Now we live in a Global Village where we are connected much more closely by modern advances. The challenge is to live more from an inner grounding, especially when the outer environment changes, at times, by the moment.

27 years ago today on June 4th I was ordained to the Missionary Priesthood at Maryknoll, NY. I have lived and worked in Tanzania for all these years. I have lived in a tent in the Rift Valley following the pastoral Wataturu tribe. I have lived in the Serengeti in a parish rural setting. I have worked in a big city hospital in a Clinical Pastoral Education program. Finally, I was a parish priest in a poor urban area of a large African city.

All these years of doing have been a blessing to me, I am very grateful. Now as I enter into the ‘twilight’ years of my mission life I feel strongly the vocational call to my second vocation, to be, just to be, a contemplative in action. Whereas before doing was the focus, now Silence and Stillness is the focus that brings me, hopefully, to creative action.