Home, away from home; a moment of grace

Formal invitations are always received with many excitements and at times with full-blown anxieties. Anxieties in pondering the next move and what is in store as pertaining the invitation. As the D- day approaches, the feelings intensify.

When I got the angelic invitation to join the Propaedeutic year six years ago, a lot of excitements accompanied the letter.

“Am I really worthy!” my conscience wondered.

It was then that I asked the Most High to open me the way to a happy life.

Yes! I was a worthy candidate for the Propadaeutic year, a period of discernment before joining the major seminary for priestly formation.

Destined for a far land beyond the borders of my home country, like a lamb being led to the slaughter house not knowing what was awaiting it, I set off for Uganda. This was the destiny of numerous joys and hardships that fabricated my life in this foreign land.

Deeply submerged in fear and being my first time to cross the border, I totally left everything at the hands of God. The authorities at the border, having gone through my documents, made my life easy. The name of Consolata Missionaries on my passport saved me a lot! I remember one officer’s remark, ‘let the young missionary be cleared first and quickly!’ His remarks rung deep inside me reminding me that indeed I was becoming a missionary!

I arrived at my new home, Kiwanga-Uganda, late in the evening after a day’s journey. Indeed it was not a slaughter house, rather a formation house fit for human and spiritual development.

It seemed that I was born before my right time. I would have rather stayed home in Kenya and yield the fruits of my high school sweat. But together with St. Augustine, I feared Christ would pass me by making me not cultivate His love in my life.

Hours, days, weeks and months elapsed quickly and each moment in this place turned home away from home, a moment of grace. The vicissitudes came and I breathed through them in and out like air, thanks to God whose love accompanied us.

The first challenge was the language. In an African country, meet a fellow black and the inhabitants would instinctively assume that the person automatically speaks the native language. In such cases, it was a smile that saved.

Other challenges, like different cultural behaviors, artifacts and food, helped me understand the value of life that God gives us and it was through them that God’s love reached me. Like the incarnated Word, these cultural riches found value in my daily life experience with God, who created human beings in a cultural context.

During this period, I had a special pilgrimage to Namugongo shrine where the Uganda martyrs were brutally burnt to death. I saw and touched their relics, photos and other belongings. We were narrated their sufferings’ story and had time to ask fundamental questions about their martyrdom. Time and again, we could walk just for fun to this shrine, 15 kilometers from our house. What was fun turned out to be a mission that God nourished as spiritually. I increased my devotion on the saints especially the martyrs who died heroic deaths at the expense of their faith.

Back at home, we formed a small community and enjoyed various activities together, from the chapel to the garden, from the field to the refectory, from the recreation hall to the classroom!

This powerful experience of encountering God pushed me and makes me what I am today, a Consolata missionary studying theology in Kinshasa, Congo. It is my daily spiritual reference point as a missionary student. People of God, let us take a minute and think of the love of God in our historical backgrounds. Have a spiritually-filled day, will you?