SERENGETI PHOTO'S SEPT 2017

OCTOBER COMMENTS FROM A VOLUNTEER NURSE

Here is a testimony from the young nurse who just completed her Kowak service in October:

“While words can't quite capture the vast array of experiences and emotions that I felt while in Kowak, I will do my best. Traveling alone as a young, female, English-speaking college graduate, I stared out the airplane window, partially questioning my sanity. I had absolutely no idea what to expect- I didn't know if anyone would speak English, if I would enjoy the food, or if I would be using the bush out back as a bathroom. Fortunately for me, Kowak ended up being far better than anything I could have imagined. As I maneuvered through the joys and challenges of each day, I had to full-heartedly trust that God would guide me through. While in Africa, I experienced some extreme highs: I looked at a crowd of 150 students with eager eyes, wanting to learn more about ways to keep themselves healthy, I saw sick and nearly lifeless children recover after receiving antibiotics and blood transfusions, and I helped welcome dozens of babies into the world. However, I also experienced some extreme lows: I watched corpses being carried out on motorcycles, woke up to the sobs of a family who had just lost a loved one, and I put my hands on the chest of a young child, praying for the rise and fall of a breath that would never come. While it’s extremely difficult to process and reconcile everything that I have seen and experienced, there are some major takeaways that will forever shape the way I live my life. First and foremost, I have learned that when you commit your life to God, making yourself uncomfortable and vulnerable, He will always provide for you. When you stop relying on yourself and your own understanding, it allows God to do some pretty incredible things with your life. Surrendering to God does not result in a boring and mundane life, it allows for a life that is beautiful and exciting beyond imagine. A second takeaway, in relation to mission work specifically, is that when you are willing to give, you receive SO MUCH more in return. In choosing to give my time and energy, I gained valuable nursing skills, I attained a better understanding of poverty and how to advocate for those in need around the world, I received life-long friendships, I was showered with love and hospitality from complete strangers, I felt closer to God than I have in years. I left Africa in tears, thanking God for an opportunity that many people don't get to have. Tanzania has my heart and I can't wait to go back again someday. Asante sana (thank you very much), Maryknoll!"

MARANDA MILLER

BACK HOME FOR THE 2017 HOLIDAY AND MORE

        I've been back in the US since mid November after a short three months in Kowak. Christmas is just around the corner so I’m working a little on the decorations, but mostly just visiting family and friends since I returned about 6 weeks ago. I spent a few days in Louisville and Atlanta visiting my son’s.

        Kowak was a different experience this year, mostly due to the absence of Fr Conard, who I lived with the last 11 years. It is unlikely that he will be allowed to return to Tanzania except, perhaps, for a short goodbye visit next year. I have volunteered to escort him through the airports, if and when he goes. As planned, I did work on his finances this year to document where his money and the Maryknoll funds were used the first six months of the year. He departed for Kenya and then New York at the end of June. 

      I had planned to stay six months this year but found there was not much work for me after I finished the financial reports. As I mentioned in the last blog (August) we had a volunteer nurse (Maranda) from Minnesota who arrived a couple weeks before me and she stayed two months as planned. She was a real jewel and we had a lot of fun in the school, hospital and surrounding villages. She worked every morning in the hospital, mostly in the children's ward and then the afternoons at the girl’s secondary school. She fell in love with the girls and them with her, so I always knew where to find her in the afternoons. 

      We had the Silver Jubilee for the Kowak Girl’s Secondary School a week after I arrived (Aug 26th) and the Form IV (seniors) graduation Sept 30, so Maranda got to see the difference in an African vs US graduation and meet some of parents of the graduates and their families. I took video's of the Jubilee for Fr Conard and still photos of many of the 116 graduates for prints and for the school Facebook page. 

      We did have one sad event just a few weeks after I arrived. One of the seniors died suddenly a few days before graduation. Maranda and I were there when the 420 students were gathered and were given the sad news. It was devastating, especially to the other seniors who had lost another classmate just the year before, almost to the day. The student had been fine until just a few days before she died. Maranda and I stayed up late that night preparing memorial cards for the memorial Mass the next morning, just as Therese McCarthy and I had done the year before. A few days later we attended the funeral and burial at her grandmother’s home in Sirori Simba about two hours from school. About 20 students and 10 school staff joined us. It was very crowded and very sad. 

      Maranda and I made three other trips during her stay. One was to a new English-medium primary school which had been built last year buy my friend Fr Joel Marwa in his home village. It opened in January to pre-schoolers, so we were invited to meet the 30 young students, teacher and staff and have lunch there. One week-end we spent the night in Musoma with my friend Liz Mach who is our oldest Maryknoll Lay Missioner and is also a nurse from Minnesota. She celebrated 41 years as a lay missioner in Tanzania so she and Maranda had a lot to talk about. It was a fun week-end. The last trip was a short one day tour of the Serengeti Park with Liz and Maranda. We did not see as many animals as usual, but we did see a lot, and some unusually good looks at several hyena, ostrich, many giraffe and a huge number of hippopotamus. It was a fun day and night. 

       Maranda headed home in mid October, after a sad goodbye to the students and hospital. I continued to work with the new pastor, Fr Julius Ogolla, until mid November. During my stay I met several other village students and one KGSS senior who needed financial help, so I agreed  to sponsor them (5). Maranda and her parents also agreed to sponsor one of the sophomore (Form II) students for the next two years. We also both contributed to the fund raiser for the secondary school to help build a new assembly hall. I received two donations from a couple in Colorado for soccer balls, volleyballs and volleyball nets so I gave them to the secondary school and two village volleyball men’s teams and one hospital women’s volleyball team. As usual I took a lot of photo’s during this visit and distributed the photos. I distributed mosquito nets and photos and rosaries to the hospital maternity patients as I have done several years.  I paid a few medical bills including one for my older friend, Mzee Rya, who had cataract surgery after I left.

       We had three very nice visitors who stayed with us at Kowak Mission my last two weeks there. Alesha was a graduate student from the Univ of Toronto; Editha was one of her research assistants from Arusha, and Lameck was the other research assistant from Mwanza. They were all very pleasant and fun to have around at meal time. Alesha is working on her PhD for the next 3 months at Kowak and the final 3 months in another village not far away. We have two American volunteers (Jay and Kathy) coming in late January from Colorado to teach English for two months so I helped them make the contacts before them arrive. Maybe I’ll meet them, if Fr Conard is allowed to return while they are there.

       I attended several Masses in outstations with Fr Ogolla. One of them was for a blessing of the new church in Miko which Fr Conard finished building just before he departed. I took a nice video during that Mass and Blessing ceremony to show Fr Conard in November. I stopped in New York on my way home and spent three days with Fr Conard at the assisted living center (St Teresa’s) at Maryknoll. We had a very nice visit and he was able to view my video’s with the help of Fr Dick Quinn, Fr Conard’s first pastor in Africa. I also got to greet many of the older Maryknoll priests I knew when they were in Africa.

        Merry Christmas ya’all

MY ELEVENTH YEAR IN EAST AFRICA STARTED TODAY

        I was just reading my last blog from Nov 2 of how it might be my last trip to East Africa. I wanted to spend the year home with family and friends for a change while I had good health, but I made the mistake of reading a book called Being Mortal. I also planned to attend the 55^th reunion of my Chanute High School class in September since I had missed the 50^th and some classmates have died since then. But the book convinced me of the importance of spending time with the elderly in the last years of their lives and that is the case with our Maryknoll pastor, Fr Conard, in his 87^th year of life and 61^st year of mission in Tanzania. As it turned out I suspect this will be Fr Conard’s last year in Tanzania.

        I was also attracted to return by the scheduled visits of two new sets of volunteers and the potential return of one or two former Kowak volunteers. You read about them in my last blog, I hope.  The new volunteers included a retired couple from Hawaii, the Shannons. They arrived in mid-July and are scheduled to depart the mission today (Aug 19^th), so I will miss them. I certainly regret that but my return was delayed about two weeks due to a sudden medical issue the day I was scheduled to depart. That seems to be under control now. The other new volunteer is a new nursing graduate that was scheduled to travel with me, so she had to travel alone which I also regret, but God had other plans. Maranda arrived fine as scheduled.  She’ll stay until mid-October, then I’m hopeful to have a returning volunteer, Dr Jim, for two or three weeks. The lovely Therese McCarthy has family issues which will keep her home this year but we are praying for a better year and a visit next year.

        It won’t be the same without Fr Conard, of course and we are all praying he will recover and return to Kowak soon. He fell during mass in mid-June and injured his back. But the main problem now seems to be more mental and recognizing that he is back in America for treatment. His back pain is under control and he is sleeping well. I’ll be working on his financial reports for this year and his project reports for Maryknoll project money that should all be spent now, since the projects are mostly completed. My change of departure allowed me to schedule a visit to Maryknoll in NY to visit Fr Conard which I am so happy I did. He really needed me and others to cheer him up. 

        I’ve had a wonderful visit in Kansas and around the country since I returned last November. In addition to seeing my sons Adam and Kyle in Kentucky and Georgia and their lovely wives and children, they came to visit me and the extended family in June. It was a fun week. I traveled to Miami with Sr Barbara McCracken for two weeks in February as we did the previous year. It was great to see Rose Anderson and many of her friends again. Rose came to see me just two weeks ago on her way home from a Colorado vacation so that was a fun surprise for my going away party attended by 40 friends and family. I also received  over $600 in gifts for mosquitos nets for the new mothers at Kowak hospital.

        Last April I went to visit Vikki Smith in Salem, OR, for two weeks and meet many of her friends. The scenery was wonderful but meeting her sisters and friends and getting to visit the Mt Angel Abbey was a special treat. I also got to see our friend Bertha Haas in Portland and my cousin Joyce and her husband and son in Portland. A real treat was the fund raiser, Taste of Tanzania, for the handicapped children’s school in Tanzania and getting to meet one of our former Kowak volunteers, Patty Murphy, a retired PA in Portland. At the end of April and early May I made one last two week trip to Utah with my friends the Johnson brothers, David and Jim, to see several National Parks and visit former Kowak volunteers, Henry and Jean who live in Salt Lake City. Jean escorted us through the wonderful Natural History museum at the University of Utah and we three were given use of their condo for a week in Moab, while we re-visited the parks in that area.  It was a wonderful trip with a lot of video photography to enjoy when we got home. We topped off the trip with a visit to the Trappist Monastery in Snow Mass, CO  and an overnight in lovely Basalt nearby.

        The last two months of my home stay in June and July were spent at home and at church with my contemplative prayer group and listening to wonderful spirituality speakers like Sr Elia Delio who our group sponsored at Avila University in late June. Most weekends were with family in my backyard swimming, playing lots of croquet and watching the kids on the new swings and on the old trampoline. The weather was great nearly every weekend so it made for a wonderful family summer.  Thanks you all.

FINAL DAYS IN EAST AFRICA 2016

                   My year in Tanzania has now come to an end and it may well be my last for any long term work here. It has been a wonderful 10 plus years of mission work and I will miss it dearly. I will especially miss the daily activities of Fr James who his just completing 60 years of mission work in Tanzania, most of it at Kowak village parish. We had two wonderful American volunteers these last few weeks which had made it even more enjoyable and eventful that other periods; Therese McCarthy a teacher from AZ and Dr Goetz a medical doctor from NY. We all just arrived in Nairobi on our way home.

            Fr Jim went home to NY and Green Bay again this year in early June to celebrate his 60 years as a priest so I took over a few small jobs of construction in June and July. I could have done more but Fr Jim so enjoys these construction projects and is much better at it than I am. Indeed he seemed to kick into high gear after he returned and had his celebrations here with the local parish and again with the diocese in August.

            I continued my daily projects of distributing mosquito nets, rosaries and photos to the new mothers in the maternity wards and miscellaneous financial projects to keep the money and materials and school fees flowing. I finished with distributing 150 nets and 200 rosaries at the hospital and another 50 nets to the secondary school. The remaining 100 rosaries from Queen of the Holy Rosary went to people in the parish.

            Our volunteers also brought many items to distribute and they donated over 700 mosquito bracelets to the secondary school students and staff and the hospital staff. Doctor Jim also brought 10 home-made children’s dresses and 10 pair of shorts which we distributed to needy children in the Alala village near Kowak. They were all thrilled. I gave away several of my books and some reading glasses to a few families that could read English and the clothes I was not bringing home were also distributed just before I left.

            Therese and I made it into the Serengeti Park one last time after a stop to visit my friend, Fr Joel Marwa, a young priest that I have helped over the years. He surprised us by showing us the new primary school he is building in his home village. That money came from donations he received during his ordination two years ago. I helped with a significant contribution along with a Maryknoll priest that helped him for many years after his parents died. This will be an English medium school to help improve the education there in his home village. This is badly needed all over Tanzania and many pastors are starting to do this since young Kenya teachers are available in surplus at this time and their English is much better than the Tanzania teachers.

            The Serengeti trip was more of an adventure than usual this time. There were more than the usual number of animals due to the recent rainfalls and this being the migration season from the north part of the park. But the real adventure started when the car broke down about 40 miles from the park exit. The bad roads had caused the radiator to break loose and start leaking. After it cooled down we had to refill the radiator every ten minutes for the next two hours. We finally made it out the gate at 6:30 pm as darkness fell, 30 minutes past the deadline for closing the park. We went thru over ten gallons of water so we had to stop twice to refill the water jug from a ditch along the road side.  We spent the night at the gate hotel and the hospital driver and mechanic came the next day to exchange vehicles so we could drive home (2 hrs) while they made repairs.

            A few days ago Maryknoll sent a driver and vehicle to move us three and our luggage plus a visiting priest, Larry Radice, back to Nairobi to catch our flights home. The driver was 3 hours late arriving at the border so we got in pretty late after a 9 hour ride.  Another volunteer nurse, Rosemary Drew, arrives from Maryland on Nov 9 but we will all be gone by then. I depart tonight and am really looking forward to seeing the family. Therese and I had a couple days to kill so we spent one of them biking and hiking in a small national park near just north of Nairobi called Hell’s Gate. It is the only park that allows you to get out of your vehicle in all East Africa, I am told.

  

ESCORTING FR. CONARD TO NAIROBI

I arrived back in East Africa on April 5 and have been in Kowak village in Tanzania since then. I escorted our Maryknoll pastor, Fr Conard, to Nairobi on May 31^st so he could return to the Maryknoll Fathers headquarters and home to Green Bay. He will celebrate his 60th year of priesthood at the end of June in New York and then again with family in mid-July in Green Bay. We expect to see him back in Kowak by Aug 5^th. He will have a third celebration here on August 11 at his parish where he has lived the last 38 years. He is the last of his 50+ ordination classmates to still work overseas. 12 are still alive, I believe. 

             I want to thank my friends at our Tuesday Mystics prayer group in Kansas City for their prayers and generous support of my ministry and the Maryknoll ministry at Kowak hospital. They have given me over $500 for mosquito nets for newborn babies and have given Fr Conard and the Kowak Hospital over $1,000 for needs there. We were blessed to finally find and employ a young doctor on March 1, Dr Lazaro Mwikwabe; he joins our older Dr Ernest in treating the local patients in our area. We are especially blessed that he is from a village in our area and we hope to keep him here for many years. He is 30 yrs old and was just married in February to a lovely young lady, Devota, who is also from our area (Tarime). She just got her BA degree in Human Resources a few years ago.  Our new doctor is being trained by Dr Ernest in surgery and he has already done 45 surgeries in his first three months. We are averaging two major surgeries per day and about half of those are C sections. We average another 4 minor surgeries per day so the doctors keep very busy. We also have a large number of x rays and ultra sounds. Dr Ernest does all the ultra sounds. Sr Linet does the x rays.

            The Queen of the Holy Rosary parish in Mission, KS gave me 300 more rosaries to distribute among the local people and I have been doing that as well as distributing nets to new mothers. I have been concentrating primarily on mothers of new born babies at our hospital where we are averaging two births per day. In addition to the net and rosary I take their photo and give them a copy of it. They are very pleased. So far I have given out 31 nets in the last two weeks. One of my first mothers had triplets which thrilled us all, especially being the first triplets in many years at Kowak. Since she already had 7 children at home I gave her 4 nets. The following week another mother had twins so I gave her two nets. The young girl in this photo is the daughter of this mother of triplets and she is very attractive. You can see the babies usually are born much lighter in complexion.

            Our 170 bed rural hospital was recently awarded a Three Star rating by the national health survey which makes us at least equal to the District Government Hospital in this area. The best hospitals can achieve a Five Star rating.

            In addition to the daily visits to the hospital I have spent a lot of time on the computer entering the financial data generated since I departed in November. I finally issued a 4^th quarter, 1^st quarter and partial 2^nd quarter report for Fr Conard so he could make decisions on what money is available for repairs and construction over the next two months while he is on home leave.  I also prepared a budget for next year since he had to request money from Maryknoll by mid-May. We have about 4 projects totaling $24,000 that was requested.  I have been given two or three smaller projects to work on in addition to the routine repairs in the two months Fr Jim is home. We also hope to purchase a small lorry next year to haul medicines from Mwanza, four hours south. We recently got news that one foundation in Minnesota will give us $10,000 over their normal donation next year.

            One of my least pleasant projects recently was the termination of our grinding mill operator who we have employed the last two years. I had to find a new operator and train him for the last three weeks before terminating Kurwa. Lawrence has good references and a lot of experience so I hope he works out. This is a difficult job mostly due to the temptations with handling money in a very poor area.

            Fr Conard just finished construction of a large church about 18 km from our parish. We had a lovely mass and church blessing last week-end (Corpus Christi Sunday) and I took a video of it for him to take home. I just burned a few DVD’s for him and friends. I am also working on a video of the Kowak Girls Secondary senior class (Form IV). The teachers are doing most of this work and it will also be about an hour long. This DVD will be a gift to my friends, Henry and Jeanne in Salt Lake City, who volunteered at the school here in early 2013 when these girls were freshman and just learning English. Three years makes a big difference and I think they will enjoy seeing them “grown up”.

            I just finished reading a wonderful biography of Pope Francis called “The Great Reformer”. It talks a lot about his love of the poor and his joy of being with the poor of Argentina. It has really helped me understand why I enjoy being here, especially these last two or three years where I have been able to get to know the locals versus the wealthier teachers and secondary students of previous years. The poor really have solidarity and enjoy the very simple things that most of us take for granted. Some of their biggest celebrations are funerals, masses and football games. We have had a lot of all three in recent months.  I wish you could see the joy they had in this blessing of their new church last week-end; such joyful singing and dancing during the gift giving. It was a real mix of young and old but everyone enjoying the “celebration” of the mass. In many ways similar to the joy they express during the local soccer games next to my house. I heard a local recently at one of the almost daily games, who had come home for the weekend. He was telling his friends how lucky they were to get to see these games so frequently for free where he had to pay significantly to see a game in the city of players he hardly knew.

            Speaking of sports, I have really been enjoying the amazing KC Royals games these last ten days on espn gamecast on my smart phone (3:15 am to 6:15 am). The come-from-behind victories remind me so much of the attitude and skills they demonstrated last year in the post season. This year’s rookies have been super, Thank God. We really needed them due to so many injuries of our top players.  I do miss those games with the family drinking beer on the back porch.

           

      

HEADING HOME FOR THE WINTER

It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 months since my last update. I’m been at the Kowak Mission since late April and am now heading home in a few hours for the winter in Kansas City.

What a wonderful year I’ve had at Kowak. It was so different from previous years because I got to meet many of the people in our village and go to their homes to delivery mosquito nets and rosaries (donated by friends and students from Queen of the Holy Rosary Parish) and take their photos. In my spare time on weekends I would walk around for exercise by visiting some of these same areas and having a smart phone with camera I was always being asked for pictures. I would then return the following weekend to deliver the photos. Most had never seen a picture of themselves, of course, so they were thrilled. Fortunately, getting photos developed is very cheap now and only an hour away.

Since I last wrote I went to Kitale, Kenya with our visiting PA, Kathy Dunford to escort her on her way back home. I also wanted to see the Korb’s from the KC area and our long term Maryknoll Lay Missioners Russ Brine and John O’Donohue. We just missed the Korb’s as John’s mother passed away a few days before we arrived. But we had a grand time with John O and Russ and saw lots of Kathy’s friends from her previous hospital and health care jobs. I got several ideas from the head of the hospital (an Indian sister) about things to help our hospital, like odor control powder for the toilets and a unique water filtration system using a clay pot made of American design.

Kathy and I had gone up on a new mini bus (12 passenger) system and it was quick (8 hrs) and easy, so I took it home. On the way up to Kenya I forgot to lock my luggage zippers so lost several computer cords due to sticky fingers. Kathy also lost some money but was not sure how. No problem coming home and the scenery is beautiful in this southwest section of Kenya with many hills and tea plantations. We had lots of good food in Kitale and got entertained by Russ’s primary school students. They are former street children. What a great program he has there.

Fr Conard returned at the end of July from 3 months of home leave. He visited all three brothers around the country and Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Rochester who donates so generously for our hospital support. He immediately started working on building an outdoor area next to the rectory for the big Jubilee Mass for all the priests and sisters of our diocese. It was an all-day event as we had to feed most of the 1,000 in attendance. It is supposed to be at another parish next year but we are pushing the bishop to have it back at Kowak next year since it will be Fr Conard’s 60^th anniversary as a priest.

I made one last trip to Mwanza, our second largest city 4 hours south, to shop for medicine and a few items with our car mechanic, to get some repairs done and to buy a LaserJet color printer for the hospital. We hauled a crankshaft down for grinding and picked it up the next day. I arranged to have the medicines boxed up and waiting at the door for pick-up the next morning at two different pharmacies. I also arranged for the large color printer to be delivered to my hotel that evening to save me time finding parking space the next day to pick it up.  So it was a very successful trip with no punctures (flats) or breakdowns.

Of course the highlight of this last month was the wonderful baseball post-season the KC Royals had, culminating in the World Series Championship. Wow! What a team and what a season. Sure wish my twin brother had been alive to enjoy it as much as we did last year. I’m looking forward to returning home now to catch the end of those celebrations tomorrow night. I was on the bus Monday by 8 a.m. and headed to Nairobi during the last game so my friend Liz Mach was watching the game at home and texting me with the scores, inning by inning. Thank God she is a big sports fan. I feel very blessed.

Tom