Our Tanzanian Mission is located in two main places, separated by over 1200 km/750 miles. One location is in Morogoro where our formation house is located.
Fr. Jim Donohue, Fr. Daniel Hinc, Fr. Yohana Kachwele, 14 seminarians, 1 brother, and 10 aspirants live here. The other location is in Musoma Diocese where Fr. Maciej Braun is pastor and director of the schools in Buhemba, Fr. Andrzej Duda and 9 novices live at the novitiate in Buhemba, and Fr. Phillip Makondo and Br. Mosses Kattikiro minister at the parish in Butiama.
The distance, the bad roads, and the ministerial commitments of our men make it very difficult to meet together on a regular basis. However, at our last General Chapter we made a commitment to try to meet twice a year. This might not always be possible. However, last summer we all met for the vow ceremonies in Buhemba. This year we decided that all the men in full-time ministry would set aside five days to meet for prayer, discussion and planning.
We met at the Pastoral Center in Singida, which is located about half way between our two locations. This is a new building that provided excellent accommodations for us.
Fr. Phillip and Fr. Maciej took the bus from Mwanza, Fr. Andrzej and Br. Mosses drove from Butiama, and Fr. Daniel, Fr. Yohana, and Fr. Jim drove from Morogoro. It took a day of travel for each group each way.
Each day we gathered for morning prayer and breakfast. Then we had two meetings in the morning with a tea break. After lunch we met for another session and then had Mass and evening prayer before dinner. We had a great meeting space with a projector and screen.
The rooms were great, each with air conditioning and a bathroom. We also had a special place for our tea breaks and for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The dining services really were fantastic. They would ask us ahead of time what we (individually) would like to eat, and then the food was ready at the arranged time.
At first I was wondering if we would have enough things to talk about, but, of course, there were more things on the agenda than we first thought. We spent time discussing our financial situation and budgets, our formation policies, and future dreams. Each person was also able to share something about his life over the past year—graces and challenges.
We also spent time reviewing the General Chapter resolutions that involved Tanzania. Of the 60 General Chapter resolutions, almost half were directed toward the Tanzanian Mission. We wanted to review where we stood after Year One and see what progress we could make on these resolutions in the next year.
In addition to our regular meetings, we took advantage of our time together to have a Formation Committee meeting where we talked about formation policies, formation personnel, “Come and See” weeks for this year, places and times for perpetual vows and ordinations, and the need for a Formation Handbook to help guide us.
Overall, it was a fruitful time together. We resolved to meet again next year, but this time, we will include some day or days of retreat before the meeting. In addition to the seven of us, we anticipate two more members in active ministry next year: Vitalis Masika and Emmanuel Ntula. They are both completing their 4th year of theology this year and will begin a year of internship and deaconate next year.
More to come on www.resurrectionists.ca
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