We are getting a lot of rain these days. The streets get flooded(poor drainage). Mud flows onto the paved roads from the dirt feeder roads so that the paved roads have a thick cover of mud, that dries into dirt later. So how does the city get the streets clean since it does not own any street cleaning machines? By poor, sometimes, old ladies.

These women wear worn out blue cotton jacks and rubber shoes as they wade out into the narrow roads to sweep up the dirt by hand with their long-handle cleaning instruments. It is dangerous work as they have to dodge motorcycles, cars, trucks, makokotenis(hand pull carts), goats, daladalas(vans) and bicycles to clean the roads for us.

Mwanza has won the reward for the cleanest city in Tanzania for the past through years. But what’s clean is the major roads, where most people live it is not clean. Garbage is piled up for weeks at a time, sanitation is not a priority for it is more fashionable to give money for AIDS but not building toilets.

These women risk their lives for $3 a day to keep our roads clear for our increasingly fancy cars. They do this with true grit coming from unsanitary streets carrying the sickness in their stomachs as they clean the streets for our cars.

I am in the final stages of completing a promise to visit all the homes of the Christians living in the area of the Lake House of Prayer. I started visiting off and on since September of 2014. Yesterday I visited the home of Teresia. Teresia does not talk. She is a young woman of 25 yrs, who from the explanation of her mother has sickle cell anemia.

Teresia has big scab marks all over her face where she poured hot tea on herself. And she doesn’t talk, with anyone. Her mother says Teresia is troubled by evil spirits. She asks me to pray for her daughter. I agreed but before I pray for her I suggest that she take Teresia to see the mental health professionals at the large regional hospital. I offer her the possibility that God can heal Teresia through good mental health practices, that God heals our minds broken through our encounters with life.

Before I prayed for Teresia I told her that I knew she was there, and listening as I could tell by her quivering lip and the movement of her breath. I said I would pray for her in the silence, just as she was in the silence. I don’t know if my prayer helped but I do hope she knew I respected her silence and that one day she would feel safe enough to speak.

When one goes to a big ‘Sikukuu’ (celebration) regardless how many people are there, and there can be hundreds of guests, everyone eats. For someone coming to these occasions it is surprising to see how much is put on one plate. Rice, beans, meat, chicken, fish and more are carefully placed on one plate as a ‘mountain’ is formed.

There is a saying here, “The poor don’t get a holiday/day off”. Many of the people who come to these Church celebrations are poor people. Most get one half-way decent meal today. The ‘sikukuu’ gifts them with the opportunity to ‘filler-up’, for the first time in a long while to feel biologically satisfied after a meal.

We are thinking of building a large water tank because of the unreliable water pressure in our area. One day you get water, the next day none. So some days will be like a ‘sikukuu’, we will fill up our big water tank. Other days, nothing. One learns to be ready when the needed object comes because one is never quite sure when it will come again. So ‘Filler-Up” whether its one’s stomach or a water tank.

For the first time since we’ve been having Eucharist under a tree, we’ve been rained out. April is usually a very good month for rains. This year the first two weeks were unseasonably hot and people started talking ‘njaa'(hunger). I don’t know for sure if the rains are too late for producing a good crop but they do bring hope.

Speaking of water, I went to the Water Dept today to take steps in the process of bringing piped water to the House of Prayer. Maryknoll has granted some funds to the project so we will most likely start building the house for the Core Community in August after my return from a Summer Course in Spiritual Direction in Nebraska.

Unfortunately the water pressure is not good where we are. The people tell me a big mistake was made when the Water Dept did not build its large feeder tank high enough on our hills. They built it in the middle so the water pressure is very weak at times for those living above the tank, like we are. One does not take for granted that water will come when its needed, whether from the skies or the Water Dept.

 

For various reasons beyond my control I have not be able to actually start building. This has been a blessing in disguise. I now have the opportunity to discern more deeply what God is calling to me in this work, to be a contemplative and to share the Practice of Contemplation with the people. If I had started pouring concrete right away I may have been distracted from the Real goal of a the House of Prayer that of Solitude and Simplicity.

We plan on planting two hundred trees in one section of the House of Prayer. This is unusual in this growing city where everywhere one looks there are trees getting cut down and cement being poured in a unplanned rush to develop every piece of land in site.

This special area of nature at the House of Prayer will be a  place where many Tanzanians will feel the healing presence  of God. In the Silence, underneath the shade of a tree. God seeks to  heal us in many ways. Why not through some trees?

Now that the rains have come and remain somewhat consistent we decided to start greening our plot more. I’ve decided that, for now, to concentrate on the western portion of the plot. We have cut the tall grass(by hand) and have started digging deep holes for the tree seedlings.

My foreman, Ernesti has started digging the holes in straight lines. I let him know  that I want to plant trees in the manner of God’s way, not in straight lines. This forest ought to be as natural as it can be as we try to follow the pattern of Mother Nature.

In many ways, if we do this right, this will  be the place of rest and tranquility, not inside the buildings. In an age of ecological diminishment perhaps we can have a taste of Eden on the edge of rapidly growing African city.

Today at the end of Mass I was given an envelope with this message: “Shukuranii yangu kwa Padri Jim kwa ajili ya kununua mafuta ya gari lake ili kuendeleza utume wake” (Thanks for Fr. Jim for the sake of buying gas for his car to continue his ministry). Inside the envelope was 10,000/ Tanzanian Shillings(around $4).

The average wage in this area is about $2.50 a day. This person probably makes more, but not that much more. The message to me is, give your all, God will take care of the rest.

The real test of a Vision is its encounter with Reality. It will only be a dream with no substance until it meets the Real, everyday life, as it is. The Vision of creating a transformation space of Silence, Simplicity, Solitude and  Spiritual Direction needs to be formed in the flow of everyday living.

Yesterday at the end of mass I spoke with the people about how much Silence would be a vital part of the future at the Lake House of Prayer, non-verbal response was good. It is these small seemingly insignificant encounters of ‘vision-testing’ that help what began in one’s own spirit to flow out into Creation.

 

The discussions on buying the neighbor’s house/plot have  taken significant steps these past few days. There  seems to be an agreement as to the price. Now some legal documentation has to be signed before money is exchanged. The process drags at times but now there appears to be an end in sight.

We have also started looking at how to get a steady supply of water. This will become be important if I start living in this house.

I celebrated Easter with the Christians in the neighboring outstation. Their joy and deep sense of celebration is wonderful to be a part of. As we say in Swahili, “Heri ya Pasaka”, have a Blessed Easter.

Fr. Jim setting up for Mass in the pre-dawn light

An elder prayers before mass

Sharing the Word with the Folks

Putting back the Mass Stuff