Malaria and HIV

 

                     HALLELUJAH!!!

     The World Health Organization has approved a second vaccine for preventing malaria as of today, the second of October 2023.  Oxford University has called their new vaccine R21 and it is similar in efficacy to the RTS,S vaccine which was approved a couple of years ago.  However, only 18 million doses have been produced of the first vaccine.

     This new vaccine is easier to produce and will cost only $2-4 per dose; half the cost of the RTS,S vaccine.  More importantly, the Serum Institute of India is prepared to produce 100 million doses of R21 annually with plans to scale up to 200 millions doses per year.  The vaccination protocol requires four doses of the R21 vaccine to insure adequate protection.

     This is exciting news for the continent of Africa which is burdened by 95% of all cases of malaria worldwide.  In 2021 approximately 250 million people were infected and over 600,000 died, most of whom were children under age five.

     Malaria could have been eradicated in the 1960s if the nations of the world had made a commitment to continue working together to combat this formidable disease spread by the Anopheles mosquito.  Laurie Garret narrates the sordid tale in chapter two of her masterpiece entitled The Coming Plaque.  Thankfully, we have another opportunity which is exciting and hopeful.

     Sadly, the world is still lacking a vaccine for HIV despite decades of research.  Equally concerning is the failure of Congress to reauthorize PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, for another five years when the funding ended on September 30th, 2023.  This  program, initiated by President Bush in 2003, has saved over 25 million lives.  I personally saw the benefits while working in health care in Kenya beginning in 2003.  More detail is documented in an opinion editorial written by Fr. Rick Bauer, MM and can be found at the following link...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/opinion/abortion-pepfar.html

I can see history repeating itself.  If we pull back from leadership and funding for HIV/AIDS now we may very well see a resurgence similar to the resurgence of malaria when the same thing happened in the 1960s.  Now that a government shutdown has been delayed, Congress needs to do its job and appropriate long term funding for an additional five years to continue the progress already made in the HIV pandemic.

The Sudan and more war

 

Sudan: Civil Society Needs Support to Stop War

May-June 2023

Two rival generals of Sudan’s military have agreed to a three-day ceasefire but fears remain of an all-out civil war.

The following article was published in the May-June 2023 issue of NewsNotes.

Fr. Tom Tiscornia, MM, lives in one of the most remote and inaccessible areas in all of Sudan, the foothills of the Nuba Mountains, in the southern part of the East African country. Now more than ever, the remoteness of Fr. Tiscornia’s home is a blessing, as fighting between followers of two rival military leaders has taken over the capital city of Khartoum, more than 400 miles to the north.

“The price of everything has doubled since much of the goods come from the north,” Fr. Tiscornia wrote in a recent email. “I‘ve heard that even in Juba [the capital city of South Sudan] prices are rising.” Fr. Tiscornia has lived through violent conflict in Sudan before, writing about jumping into foxholes in 2014.

When asked what he thought the U.S. Catholic bishops could do to help, Fr. Tiscornia said he hopes the U.S. bishops keep in touch with their four brother bishops in Sudan and encourage them to speak out for peace. “I only wish that the Muslim leaders would step in and say something,” he said.

The majority of the Sudanese population identify as Muslim, generally belonging to the Sunni branch of Islam. The religion has a strong influence governance and daily life, playing a dominant role in the nation’s politics.

Fighting broke out in the capital city of Khartoum on April 14 after talks broke down between two rival military leaders – Sudan’s head of the army Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (widely known as Hemedti), the country’s deputy and head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, a group known for extreme violence in the Darfur region in the past. A three-day ceasefire went into effect on April 25. At the time this article was published, the ceasefire had been renewed for three more days.

When a nonviolent pro-democracy movement succeeded in removing longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019, the international community responded by offering the transitional authority – a military-led body tasked with transitioning to civilian leadership – lots of financial incentives to invest in building democratic norms and structures of governance. But the rival military leaders remained focused on asserting their own power and dominance. In the end, the transitional authority missed deadlines to transition to civilian-led, mainly due to disagreements on the integration of the paramilitary RSF into the army.

Dr. Susan Nagele, a returned Maryknoll Lay Missioner living near Chicago after 31 years in Sudan, Tanzania and Kenya, sees the need to include civil society, women, and professional organizations in the process to stop the fighting and support their desire for a democratic civilian government.

Dr. Nagele says, while South Sudan and The Sudan each have rival military leaders trying to “solve their differences on the battlefield and totally neglecting the civilian population,” “The Sudan has a large, well organized civil society that successfully brought about a shared government with the military and were supposed to be given full authority of rule until last year when the military took over.” The Sudan has civilians who are prepared to govern, but they are being denied by the military. “I think there is more hope for good future governance in The Sudan than in South Sudan because of the strong civil society.”

“It seems to me that the international community needs to stand as one united front for democratic civilian rule and accept nothing less from the military,” Dr. Nagele said. “From my point of view, the U.S. Catholic bishops should advocate for civilian democratic rule and ask the pope to lead the way internationally, from his nonaligned position of creative nonviolence and Catholic social teaching.”

Photo of West Nuba Mountains by Rita Willaertvia Flickr, CC

In Memorium Dr. Bushra Sulieman - A US born doctor whose family lived in The Sudan was killed in Khartoum at the end of April while trying to take his father for kidney dialysis.  A robber stabbed him to death.

“You know who you killed?” another Sudanese colleague, Hisham Omar, posted among Facebook tributes from the country’s medical workers, in a message aimed at the attackers who killed Sulieman.

“You killed thousands of patients,” that colleague wrote, speaking of the impact that Sulieman — one doctor — knew he had in Sudan, and all the Sudanese he would have aided in the years ahead. “You killed thousands of needy people. You killed thousands of his students.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/30/sudan-war-americans-doctor/daabab28-e779-11ed-869e-986dd5713bc8_story.html

Sr. Ruth Greble, MM

 A Wonderful Woman and Dear Friend

     I met Sr. Ruth when she was72 and I was 36, both of us working in Sudan.  She returned to God on Easter Sunday morning, 2023, at the age of 101 at the Maryknoll Sisters' Center in NY.

     Her life story is filled with wonderful achievements, faith, tragedies and blessing.  She earned a Ph.D in geography in 1971 and served as President of Rodgers College at Maryknoll as well as in Congregational Leadership.  

     At the age of 54 she finally went overseas to Juba, Sudan to establish a catechetical training center.  After 17 years of ministry in education she was expelled by the Sudan government in 1992, along with all expatriates, because of the civil war.

     This was how I had the good fortune to come to know her.  She came to the SPLA rebel held Diocese of Torit in 1993 while I was working in Nimule, Sudan on the border with Uganda.  She became the Financial Controller of the Diocese and was essential in managing our finances from Nairobi, Kenya.  Bandits once stormed her Nairobi office and held a gun to her head, demanding money.  She gave them everything in her purse when they threatened to kill her. There was nothing else to give them. Ruth told me later that, despite all the dangerous situations she faced, she knew she wouldn't die a violent death.  This was a woman very close to God.

     Amidst the numerous accolades that fill her life story I would like to add my personal experience.  Ruth was a strong, hard working and very competent professional.  She did things properly and she taught others how to work with dignity and honesty.  In one incidence of theft from the medical funds, which I had to account for, she helped the Kenyan staff to manage the problem properly and the money was eventually returned.

     I was working on the front line of the war in isolated places.  She often wrote me short notes of concern and encouragement which meant the world to me.  When I went to Nairobi she was always fun to be with and we are celebrating her birthday in the picture above.  She also made time to listen to me and ask questions about how things were going wherever I was working.  She knew the people and difficulties that I was up against.  Her encouragement and sound advice was a tremendous source of comfort and help to me.

     There are times when I have disagreed with our Catholic church and the rules and regulations that are pronounced.  But I am eternally grateful for people like Ruth who personified the love and mercy of Jesus in the way they lived their lives and served others.  Her faith enriched my own.  She will always be a beacon of light for me in this world, especially now as Sudan is violently torn apart by military men vying for power with no regard for civilians.  The Sudanese don't deserve this.  They deserve leaders like Sr. Ruth.  May she rejoice with God and intercede for peace in Sudan.

     

A Titan of Toposaland

 

Bishop Taban, Fr. Tim Galvin, Fr. Sean Cremin
Nanyangachor, Sudan 2002
Mass for the opening of Good Shepherd Health Centre 

     The picture above is how I will remember him.  Fr. Tim Galvin was a St. Patrick Missionary priest for 45 years.  Forty years were spent in Sudan or South Sudan.  On 9th February 2023 he suffered a heart attack while being treated in Nairobi Hospital for an infection of his leg and passed away to go back to God.

     I first met him in 1991 in Kapoeta, Sudan.  I had flown into Torit to see about working there.  Unexpectedly, Khartoum withdrew permission for another plane to come back to pick us up.  I was driven with three other people to the border.  The four of us descended on Tim and his confrere, Niall Geaney, at midday just as they were getting ready to eat the stew they had fixed themselves.  The six of us cleaned the pot of every bit of delicious food.  What was more amazing to me was the genuinely warm welcome for the crowd of us with no advance warning.  In the middle of the afternoon, ten young Toposa boys came to haul water from the hand pump and sprinkle the hundreds of tree seedlings...mango, pawpaw, tamarind and neem.  Tim was way ahead of Laudato Si!  The priests' rectory had been taken over for treatment of TB patients so they were living in two rooms at the Sudanese Relief and Rehab Center.  It was dilapidated but they seemed happy to have a roof over their heads and a couple of solar lights.  We took a walk around the town and one of my confreres jokingly commented that it could only be improved by bombing!  They offered us another meal before we left for Kenya in a convoy of lorries at 9pm.

     The story of this man's life is remarkable, to say the very least.  I can narrate what I know from the time I arrived at his parish on Christmas Eve 1997.  It had been raining heavily.  Unbeknownst to me and the Development Director, Tim and Leo had sent a radio message not to travel.  Luckily, Ydo and I didn't get the message.  We took off from Loki Kenya, heading west through Narus, Sudan.  Then, we backtracked east over the Napalalang Plain.  We finally reached the newest parish in the Diocese of Torit at that time, located at a place called Lotimor, within spitting distance of Ethiopia.

Workshop Team
Lokai, Tim, Louse, Lucy
Ydo, Leo, Flora, Lopuke, Susan

Leo, Tim, Echom, Louse, Ydo March 1998

     

     These two titans of Toposaland were a marvel to behold.  They both knew the language and culture well.  They began by arranging workshops with village leaders, the civil authority and a Turkana facilitator.  Each leader had to bring another man, a woman and a youth to the workshop.  The team listened to what the people thought about the Catholic church and what they expected in the future.   People  thought the priests were a bit like God because they could read, write and find water in the ground.  They thought Leo was the church and would do everything for them.  Later, when Leo's health would fail and he had to leave, those same expectations were transferred to Tim.  When he couldn't satisfy everyone, they would falsely accuse him of totally ridiculous accusations and expel him from Lotimor temporarily. After realizing what they had lost, they begged him to return.

     The both of them were the best at trying to enculturate the message of Jesus.  There were many discussions.  They seemed keen to include my female and lay opinion, despite the fact that I knew almost nothing about the local culture.  We didn't have a church in Lotimor and the first liturgies were held in a shady clearing used for the workshops.

     On our first Holy Saturday, we began the nighttime Vigil on the far side of the river where the big fire was lit.  We didn’t have a Pascal Candle so Fr. Tim picked up a burning piece of wood.  He carried it across the river with all of us following him.  In that movement, we remembered the safe crossing of the Jews through the parted waters of the Red Sea.  At the other side, we had another pile of firewood which he lit in the same place that the goat had been roasted for the Nyakiriket (traditional Toposa prayers of petition) of the workshop.  We all sat in a semicircle facing the mountain in the east with the smoke from the fire drifting over us.  The Nyangatom always pray looking towards this mountain and so we did too.  Our small group of about 25 people included Toposa and Nyangatom from Sudan, Luhya, Turkana and Kikuyu from Kenya, an Ethiopian, an Irishman and an American.  We each took turns singing and sharing our traditional songs in Turkana, Swahili and English. After the liturgy of the Word, Fr. Tim blessed the water in a traditional calabash.  Then, George Loki, the eldest Toposa man, stood to offer the prayers of the faithful in the same way the prayers were offered at the Nyakiriket.  He proceeded to bless all of us with the new water.  During the consecration a full moon gently rose over the mountain behind Fr. Tim.  

     After Fr Leo had to leave, Fr. Sean Cremin joined Tim in Lotimor.  Not long after, several other missioners joined us and Tim became our most experienced leader.  

Lotimor - Susan, Lisa, Flora, Kathy, Tim

     Tim came into his own and was a great one to celebrate.  One November we were buying food for Thanksgiving in Nairobi as he had come to love our American tradition.  When he saw a jar of cranberry sauce on the shelf he plucked it up and put it in the basket.  I looked at the price, said it was too expensive and put it back on the shelf.  He said, "No it is not" and put it back in the basket!

     We celebrated the turn of the new millennium under the water tank in Lotimor.  While the rest of the world feared their computers would crash we were singing folk songs accompanied by my guitar under a twinkling canopy of stars.

Tim, Susan Marty, Sean, Sr. Marilyn

We celebrated birthdays....

Christine, Susan, Tim, David, Sean, Marilyn

                                                                                 Tim's 25th anniversary of ordination in 2003 

     

International Women's Day - Susan, Faustina, Tim

     Tim was a fierce advocate for women. Every year he made sure that we celebrated the International Day for Women on March 8th.

     I remember half listening to a homily he gave once to the Diocesan Annual General Assembly.  In his methodically clear English, I was only paying scant attention as he mentioned tribalism, racism and clericalism.  But he saved the zinger for the end when he landed on sexism and decried the exclusion of women anywhere and anytime.

Catechists Nanyangachor 2008

     From the very beginning of Lotimor parish in 1997, there were two women catechists among the group of mostly men.  But Tim (along with the other priests) always worked diligently to include women in the pastoral education programs.  In just 11 years I would return to stand in the middle of five women who had finished the course work and would go on to train others.  Regina Lotyem stands to my right and I am sure she is grieving his passing with a broken heart.

 

     Since Tim was so good with enculturating the liturgy I took it upon myself to keep him up to date.  My mother was the Director of the RCIA (Right of Christian Initiation of Adults) in my parish at home.  One year she informed me that the Vatican had issued new liturgical changes to the Eucharistic liturgy.  I asked the priests if they had heard of these directives.  They had not.  So, I proceeded to inform them that the priest could no longer leave the sanctuary during the sign of peace.  Immediately, without skipping a beat, Tim replied, "We have no sanctuary."  I burst out laughing as my mind's eye could see him celebrating Mass in the bush.  He would sit on a canvas folding chair in front of a small, collapsible metal table.  On the ground, in front of this table, sat a bevvy of Nyangatom women in a semi-circle.  They wore only traditional skins with their feet stretched out straight in front of them.  Some were smoking their pipes while others would occasionally spit tobacco off to the side.

     Eventually all of us missioners ended up in Nanayangacor and the mission grew and grew...

Good Shepherd Health Centre

Tim, Lometo and Nurse Joseph in red

     Modern medicine had its limits.  One year, just before Christmas, a man named Lometo arrived with a serious bleeding disorder.  I was concerned there was a problem with his platelets being too low and I didn't have any way to transfuse blood.  We put him in the car for the long overnight trip to Loki Kenya.  The young doctor at the ICRC hospital was filling in for Christmas and lacked experience.  He feared Lometo had Ebola, told the driver to take him back to Nanyangacor and sent a copy of the blood count he had performed.  Lometo was very anemic and the last item on the report was the platelets at the very end.  The one piece of information I had hoped for missed the printing at the bottom of the page!

     I went to Tim, utterly downcast.  He immediately arranged a prayer service for this very sick man.  I started him on iron and steroids and prayed with all my heart he would survive.  HE DID!!! 

Primary school Fr Aleardo, Faustina, Marta

     Gradually over the years the primary school was built to include eight grades.  A new convent was built for the Maryknoll Sisters and a small house was built for me.  More importantly, the Development Education Team worked diligently to develop the skills needed for all of these changes to be fully owned and incorporated into the social life of these people.

Dedication of St. Leo the Great Church

Fr. Tim and Fr Sean

     The church was the last big structure to be built.  The dedication in honor of Fr. Leo Traynor took place on St. Patrick's day in 2003.  It was a wonderful parish celebration with guests and visitors from all over Toposaland. Fr. Leo's family came from Ireland.  Bishop Taban officiated.  Every one had a very good time.

Parishioners and Guests

The Traynor Family

John, Leo JR, Sean, Tim

 

    I left Nanyangacor in August 2003 to begin a new ministry in Kitale Kenya.  During those years, Tim gave me a copy of Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening by Cynthia Bourgeault.  It was an excellent guide to meditation that he had read after attending one of her seminars.  As most of you know, he was a deeply spiritual man. It was just what I needed at that point in my life.

      Tim and I kept in touch over the years, especially with medical problems in the bush that they could use some help on.  He had sent me a picture of his painful swollen leg on 2nd Feb, asking if it was the same problem he had struggled with a couple of years ago during the Covid pandemic.  I confirmed that it was and asked him a few questions.  When her replied, he told me that he had decided to go to Nairobi for treatment.  It had taken him a long time to recover from the last infection, he had a good priest in the parish and it was easier to travel to another country since Covid was waning.  I was very relieved to hear of his plans and told him he was making a very wise decision.  He sent me a text from Nairobi hospital the next day saying he was admitted under Dr. Saio, a very well known expert in infectious diseases.  So, the news of his death was shocking to all of us.  It seems he had some heart problem and died of a heart attack.  Thank God he was in the hospital and Fr. PJ was with him.  He was treated as well as could be expected and no one should wonder what more could have been done.

     I can only speak to a few years about the life he lived.  I hear that the Toposa want him to be buried in South Sudan because he did so much for them.  It has helped me to go back through the pictures and memories I have.  One person asked me if I would write a tribute.  This is cursory at best and only a small contribution from one point of view about the life he lived.  But I share it gladly, hoping it helps to add to the memories.  He was an inspiration for me and many others.

Ar dheis De go raibh a anam uasal.

May the Lord have mercy on his soul.

#WearBlueDay 11 January 2023

In the United States, January is Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

Jan. 11 is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

 

MKLM invites you to join #WearBlueDay this coming Wednesday, Jan. 11. #WearBlueDay is a social media awareness campaign. 

Getting involved is simple: Just make a sign that says something like “End Human Trafficking” or “Prevent Human Trafficking” or whatever makes sense (maybe with the MKLM or MOGC logo). You could also switch it to your own language.

Wear something blue. Take a selfie. Post it in your social media and/or send it to the MKLM social media team at kbond@mklm.org and jweyers@mklm.org.

Why blue? Blue is the international color of HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS.

Patriarchy

                Women and Cows

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4a7f73a2-8227-11ed-be7b-e3d756e725f4?

     This article tells the story of inflated dowries in South Sudan and the inability of the average man to get married because he can't pay the dowry.

     At the end of the article there is one quote from a woman who has graduated from university and despises the practice as nonsense.

THE MARRIAGE MARKET WHERE COWS ARE TRADED FOR WOMEN

Cattle are high-value currency in South Sudan. Men are desperate for a
herd to use as a dowry, but their brides get little say in the matter

Louise Callaghan, Juba, South Sudan
Sunday December 25 2022, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times

In the ten years that Dau Deng has been searching for love, one factor
has thwarted his dreams again and again.

Cattle. Or rather, a lack of them.

Twice now, the university graduate has watched girlfriends be married
off reluctantly to someone else because he couldn’t raise the
extortionate number of cows and bulls needed to pay for a dowry in one
of the world’s least developed countries.

Now, he is about to lose another, whose parents have asked for 50
cows, each worth several hundred pounds.

“The time will come, and she won’t be able to wait,” said Deng, 32,
sitting in the shade of a mango tree by the Nile in Juba, the South
Sudanese capital, last week. “And she’ll go with someone else who is
ready.”

In South Sudan, which became an independent state only 11 years ago,
cattle are not just livestock. Among the peoples of the Nile Valley
they function as a source of food but also as currency and as savings
accounts. Cattle are the key to wealth, security, stability and
marriage.

Gathering, caring for and grazing them is a lifetime’s work for
pastoral communities like Deng’s. It has been that way for thousands
of years.

However, a more recent history of violent instability and natural
disaster has destroyed many of the checks and balances that kept this
society functioning. The country collapsed into civil war soon after
the formation of the South Sudanese state in 2011. A shaky peace
agreement was reached in 2018 but since then, several regions have
been hit by extreme food insecurity, exacerbated by conflict, bad
governance and flooding.

Some have profited from the chaos. War and mass displacement have
allowed a tiny military and political elite to amass huge herds of
cattle. This gives them enormous wealth and power as well as effective
impunity from international sanctions: it is almost impossible to
sanction someone whose multimillion-pound assets are grazing their way
across the country’s interior, far beyond the reach of the Swift
banking system.

“These few dozen men use cattle herds as a bank account,” said Flora
McCrone, a researcher specialising in pastoralist conflict in the Horn
of Africa. “The closest western equivalent I can think of is buying a
fleet of supercars, because they have a lot of value, and they are a
status symbol.”

When these elites want to get married, whether for the first or the
fortieth time, they’re willing to spend huge amounts on dowries, which
are traditionally paid in cattle. The result has been rampant
inflation in the marriage market.

Bidding auctions on particularly eligible women can run into cattle
worth hundreds of thousands of pounds – a process arranged by their
families, where the wife-to-be has little or no say in the matter. The
price is determined by the woman’s height, level of education and
family background.

“If a woman is very tall, big, and if she has a good family and good
manners, there will be competition for her,” one local powerbroker
told me. “But in my opinion these competitions are out of control.”

This year, a 17-year-old South Sudanese girl was sold into marriage
with a businessman three times her age for 500 cattle, three luxury
cars, $10,000 and a few mobile phones. She became his ninth wife.
Rights groups condemned the case, and said that the girl had been
auctioned off in a clear case of child abuse.

Her dowry was an incredible sum in a country where most people live
each day without knowing where their next meal is coming from. In the
last decade, average dowries in some areas have increased from around
ten to around 60 cattle, each of which can cost from a few hundred
pounds to many thousands.

The value of a bull or cow is determined by age-old classifications,
of which the most important is the colour of the coat. In a discreet
cattle camp on the edge of Juba, David Makuac, a herder from the Bor
Dinka community, reeled off a few of the most valuable ones: machar
(black), marial (black and white), and mabior (white).

“The horns are important too,” he said, as he showed off his prize
bull, which had a shining greyish red coat. “They have to be not too
big and not too small, and I prefer when one is bent and one goes
straight up, because it means it is different.”

Some are willing to pay almost any price for the perfect specimen. Two
weeks ago Deng Makuak, a businessman and former soldier, saw a picture
on Facebook of a bull that took his breath away. Muscled and lean, it
had a piebald coat and beautifully proportioned horns.

He had to have it. After a short period of negotiation, he paid 24
cows and ten goats for the bull, equivalent to about £22,000.

Last week he showed me a picture of the bull. It was wearing an
Inverness Caledonian Thistle football club scarf, because Makuak liked
the colour scheme. “I feel proud of that bull, because I can say it’s
the best,” he said.

For ordinary people, spending such sums is unimaginable. As prices of
cattle and dowries rise, some have resorted to cattle raiding in
desperation. Titas, a cattle herder, said he knew many who had taken
up arms to get married.

“The high price is the reason,” he said at a cattle market in Juba. As
we spoke, a herd of cows passed by, stirring up clouds of red dust.

Though some cattle raiding has always taken place, the current scale
is untenably high, said McCrone, the cattle analyst, and is being used
by elites to push rivals out of grazing areas, and to weaken other
communities.

The country’s leadership say they are trying to bring bride prices
down, and re-introduce caps on dowries, which were once commonplace —
and still are in some communities. This summer, the first
vice-president, Riek Machar, announced that he had accepted a price of
45 cattle for his daughter’s hand in marriage, rather than the 500
that had been offered.

Yet the impact on wider society is still limited.

As men bicker over cattle prices, a minority of women among the
educated elites are refusing to be sold for cattle.

At the Miss South Sudan competition, held in a luxury hotel in Juba
last week, a willowy university graduate said she despised the
practice.

“It’s a trade, like: give me the cows, you get my daughter,” she said,
later adding: “It’s some nonsense.”

As a new year begins, let's improve the lens with which we view women in the world!

07 November 2022 - Signs

     There are plenty of signs all over my neighborhood in Urbana, Illinois in preparation for the midterm elections tomorrow in the USA.  The reflection below  for the scripture readings this coming Sunday is a good reminder of how we might move from politics to peace by generating a bit of kindness.  Thanks to Steve Veryser and the students he works with in Mwanza Tanzania for suggesting another way to promote peace in our world!

https://maryknollogc.org/resources/scripture-reflection/thirty-third-sunday-ordinary-time-1

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Steve Veryser

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Malachi 3:19-20a/2 Thessalonians 3:7-12/Luke 21:5-19 (159) Psalms I

Steve Veryser, a Maryknoll lay missioner in Tanzania, reflects on how the scriptures relate to a student march at a school function: who are these signs for anyways?

On a sunny Saturday morning in September, students at the school where I teach marched the short walk from the classroom area to the soccer field in solidarity: hearing, deaf, and of all abilities. The almost 1000-strong group carried three simple signs – white sheets stretched between wood rods with Swahili words stenciled in red block letters. The signs read:

Lugha ya alama Mawasiliano kwa Elimu Jumuishi
Tanzania Sign Language for Integrated Education,

Siku ya kuibua vipaji vya wanafunzi wenye mahitaji maalumu
The day to visualize the abilities of students with special needs

Wanafunzi wenye mahitaji maalumu wakiwezeshwa wanaweza. Familia, Jami and Taifa Tuwawezeshe
Students with special needs can succeed, if their efforts are supported. Families, Community, and Nation, let’s support them!

The march wasn’t a protest organized by students but was part of an event planned by the teachers. The short march never left the school property, and other than the students, only us teachers read the signs. At the time I thought, who are these signs for anyways? Many of the teachers have specific training in Special Education, including sign language.

I wonder if Christ’s followers had a similar reaction to his insistence about the signs of the end of times. How many times do I have to be reminded of my own mortality to believe and act on it–to really live each day with the urgency of a life passing by? How many times, I wondered, have I heard, read, and repeated, “The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice,” as in the Psalms today (and other similar passages about the triumph of justice,) and yet still I struggle to actually believe it.

Maybe the signs the students carried really were for us. Both students and teachers need the reminders. In our inclusive education environment, sometimes us teachers slip into speaking without using signs, and explanations are thus lost to the Deaf in our classes. In addition to the signs they carried together, the students reminded us of their abilities through the activities of the event. They showed off and sold well-built wooden stools they had made in the workshop. Deaf students played a football match, and won, against a team of their hearing peers.

Today also happens to be World Kindness Day, an interreligious effort to promote peace through kindness. What a simple concept! One that I need to be reminded of constantly. When I think of working for justice, images that come to mind are of marches, civil disobedience, and mostly confrontation. That I might also think of kindness, understanding, and empathy as paths to do justice seems counterintuitive–though a bit more reachable than the upending type of activism of my initial impressions.

Extending the message of the student’s signs, we can easily get to:

• “Learn each other’s languages to understand and appreciate each other”
• “Take a day to appreciate the success of others.”
• “Spread kindness starting in our Families, Communities, Nation, and between nations!”

Just like with us teachers, in order to put these noble intentions into action, we need plenty of reminders, both in word and in action, as well as follow-through, both with diligence and with kindness, to ourselves and others.

Photos from Steve Veryser, MKLM