Yesterday I noticed that my spare tire was low on air so went to the garage that I always used when I was at Mabatini Parish. The owner of the garage Renatus was a former parish leader. He promptly took off the tire and sent it by foot to a local gas station to be worked on. Then the wait began. I was given a chair to sit among torn apart cars and parts.

Others were waiting also at various sections of the garage trying to find some shade from the warming sun in a place without a waiting room. No one shows any impatience as we wait for various things to be done to our cars. One never complains when waiting. One realizes that in this culture the need to be patient when waiting is important because there are many reasons things take longer to get done here.

After one hour I began to nod off to sleep on the chair(that night I did not get enough rest). Right away someone tells me, “wake up, don’t fall asleep” with a smile. But the message was heard by me. You need to wait with patience and class, so don’t get tired and be alert. Yes, waiting is an art here.

I think now is the time to make a prayer commitment to the land of the future House of Prayer. One does not need a building to start praying with the people. My idea is to make a small table built close to the ground for the altar. We would have ‘mikeka’ (woven mats) for people to sit on the ground. I already have a place picked out, under a large tree.

Now this would be the traditional setting for African prayer but it seems that people are taken up in modern buildings. I asked a woman yesterday what she thought if we had Mass under a tree. She laughed and said we have a church(not completed), so why pray under a tree?

Well, I have a good excuse, at the House of Prayer site we have no buildings so we have to pray under a tree. So the preparations continue, we need to level out the area under the tree since it is on a slope so people could be level with the ‘altar’ when they sit.

This has the chance to be my happiest time at the House of Prayer, just praying underneath a tree in the early African morning with Lake Victoria below us. Things have a tendency to get domesticated when one has buildings to take care of. Just having the beautiful African land be the building is enough. I think God would be pleased.

After 3 years I needed to renew my Tanzanian Driver’s License. I went down early to the Tanzanian Revenue Authority and climbed to the third floor. When I entered the room I sat in a cubicle and received the Christian greeting, “Tumsifu Yesu Kristu”(Let us praise Jesus Christ), the woman working there was one of our Christians. She told me that she need my passport (which I did not bring).

I came the next morning with my passport, early again to try and avoid the lines. I was served by another woman whom I didn’t know. She took my information and my picture and told me to go into another room to speak to another man who would call Dar es Salaam to confirm all was fine with my passport info. I struggled to get by the long line for another desk and found my man. He took my passport, made a copy of it, gave it back and told me to wait outside while he makes a call to Dar. I go outside to wait, and wait and wait, 45 minutes pass. Then another woman sees me and says “Tumsifu Yesu Kristu” and I reply “Milele Amina”(Forever Amen).

She take me to her office, takes my paperwork and asks me for 40,000 Shillings to pay the fee. She gives me her phone number and tells me not to worry and go on about my business because it could take awhile for the phone call from Dar to get back to us.

The next day (today) I called to find out that I gave my private tax number three years ago, not my passport number. This confused many things. The fee wasn’t paid, my pictures didn’t match up, the police did not approve all levels of my license. Poor Imelda had to run back and forth to the third floor(and she is an overweight woman/no elevator) several times to finally get things in order.

I still don’t have my license I have to get to the bank early tomorrow to pay the fee (I got the money back from Imelda). I tired to today but the lines were so long and I did not have 3 hours to spare. Imelda said to return in two days. So hopefully when I return, I’ll have my payment receipt, I’ll take another picture, probably wait another hour, then, again hopefully someone who knows me will come up to me in the waiting hall and say “Tumsifu Yesu Kristu” and hand me my new driver’s license.

I’ve lived in Tanzania for 26yrs now and it is still amazing to me how easy it is for me to lose the plot. The plot being visiting the people in their homes is the most important part of the story of being a missioner in Africa. One loses the plot in allowing ‘matters of consequence’ to flood into your life and overwhelm you. Meetings, going to the bank, shopping, more meetings, answering your emails, getting sick, just being plain lazy, fears, more meetings, goals, objectives, more meetings, celebrations, getting distracted, and on and on and on. One (I) can go months without having step into a ‘normal’ person’s house.

Last year when I first started serving the Sunday liturgies at the Ibanda outstation I promised to visit everyone’s home (if they were there on the day I passed by). We finished one section of the outstation Mtaa wa Mlimani (The Street of the Mountain) and two days ago we started on Mtaa wa Ziwani (The Street of the Lake).

I enjoyed it very much and discovered a lot. I always thought this area was only inhabited by well off people. To my surprise as we climbed around the many big rocks into the plains before the lake there is a whole village of poor fisherman and their families. We even went to one part of the shore where the fisherman were pulling in their nets for a catch (of fish). They welcomed me warmly. I would have bought some fish (I love fish) but it was getting dark and it looked like they would be pulling their nets for awhile.

For a Maryknoll Missioner it is important to never lose contact with the grassroots, with the folks. The demands of starting a House of Prayer are many and must be attended to. But the Kingdom of God is already present when us ‘normal folks’ get together and just enjoy each other’s company.

Why would someone want to build a House of Prayer that focuses on Silence and Solitude in a place like Africa when the needs of health care, the economy, politics, education, the family, social cohesion, fighting corruption and understanding between religions is so very great? A philosopher(can’t remember name) once said that all the problems in the world come from our failure to sit still in a room by ourselves. If we cannot learn the ancient practice of silent contemplation all our busy efforts to save the world will ultimately fail.

The source of all authentic progress/creation is the Divine and the entry into the Divine is Stillness and Silence. It is from the sacred space of Divine Stillness/Silence that creation happens, a creation that brings real progress for humanity.

I think I’ve already quoted the Jesuit Karl Rahner who said, “The Christian of the future will have to be a mystic, if he/she wants to be a Christian”. In a world gone insane with mindless activity and noise there is a need to answer the question, “Why Contemplation?” by saying that first, we contemplate to keep ourselves sane and secondly to participate with the Divine in bringing New Life to our planet.

As we start the new year there are many possibilities for our Lake House of Prayer. We are in negotiations with our neighbor to purchase his house and plot. If the negotiations are successful I will be able to start living on the site (after making repairs on the house). Plan B would be to purchase a shipping container and make it into a ‘house’ in which I would live. Plan C would be to use the limited funds I do have at this time to at least start building the foundation from the future staff housing.

It is important to keep some natural momentum on projects like this. One tries to avoid getting stuck because sometimes getting stuck can mean a long delay. So the need for alternative plans.

Salome came up to me as I was getting to leave the House of Prayer site. She was holding a young child. She asked me if I could give her some work cutting grass. Salome lost her husband by a boat accident on the lake. She has 4 children and has no other support.

There are many many Salomes in Mwanza. So many women alone in their poorly built unstable homes without any men around. Many have died for different reasons. Others are far away because of job possibilities. What used to be a family friendly culture is changing into an oppressive money driven one.

So yes, I gave Salome a temporary job of cutting the grass by hand with a metal stick with a knife-like end. It’s not much help but for her, she may be able to feed her small children more than once a day.

This is a shot of the bougainvillea we planted to ‘green’ the fence. The lake is in the background

Today I returned to Tanzania from Nairobi by plane. It was interesting to me to see the contrasts between Nairobi airport and Mwanza airport where I live.

Nairobi airport has had its difficulties with a large fire not long ago. I remember having to go through check-in and the departure in large army-like tents. Today I passed through their new modern addition Terminal 1A. It was like passing through an airport in the West with all the latest equipment to get the passenger to his/her door of destination without little trouble.

Mwanza is different but like Nairobi we have to take a airport bus from the plane to the terminal. When we reach to terminal we have to pass through Immigration where things get ‘tight’. About 50 passengers are squeezed into a tiny room, so tiny many of us filled out the forms outside sitting on the steps. Next we hand our passports over to the officials who are in another tiny room. After the passports one needs to find up where the bags are which is difficult because there are no signs, so asking around I find another tiny room where my bag is. Lastly, one passes to yet another tiny room where Customs officials inspect your bags. Finally, one needs to ask where the exit is and passes a woman sitting tired at a desk who looks like she is supposed to check your baggage tags but she stares ahead as you finally departure into the sun and air.

Travelling in Africa still can be an adventure of sorts.

The Jesuit Karl Rahner said that to be a Christian in the future will mean one must be a mystic. We live in a very troubled world. We just recently witnessed the terror attacks in Paris. We are facing global warming, wars, financial meltdown and more. How does one live in such a world with hope? By being a mystic.

By mystic I don’t mean the false stereotypes one reads of people floating on air or not eating for days on end. But a person who can live in peace in the midst of chaos. One who can discern God’s Presence in the whirlwind of history and bring hope where hope cannot be found.

The modern mystic or should I say contemplative must appropriate the tools of contemplation of stillness/silence and discernment. One must be able to SEE God’s Presence beneath the terrible forms of a chaotic world. The modern mystic must be able to paradoxically take up the Cross of living in this troubled world and absorb its pain and allow God to Transform the suffering into the New Life of the Resurrection. I hope the Lake House of Prayer can be a place that invites this kind of Transformation.