Dear Friends,
I have been back in Prairie du Chien 2 1/2 weeks and have given talks in churches on two weekends. Here in the US and in my travels I have been asked about my news notes. Many say that they like to read them and that they haven’t seen any for a while. True! The last one I wrote was on May 12, 2011. I will bring you up to date with this short note and my schedule while I am visiting in the US.
As expected, June, my last month at home in Nkololo, was hectic. The 11th of June 2011 was my 51st Anniversary of ordination and our first anniversary of the Dedication our the Diocesan Shrine of Divine Mercy at our St. Peter parish. This year we celebrated those special days with the baptism of 84 adults. The following day I baptized 40 adults at our Mary, Mother of God Center at Gasuma. We had 207 Baptisms in June and a total of 348 since January 2011.
I was a week later than usual getting to the US this year as the big Eucharistic Feast Day of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ) was on the 26th of June. There are two days in the year when we ask all of the people in our big parish to come together to celebrate. The first is on the Feast of the Divine Mercy on the Sunday after Easter and on Corpus Christi.
We celebrate the feast of the Eucharist by a procession after Mass. This year as usual we had a thousand or more people walking and singing as people flooded the roads that run through the town of Nkololo. This was a short safari of about 3/4 orfa mile. It is organized but not ordered. It is quite exciting, really, as well as hot and dusty! Each of our 7 Small Christian Communities prepared a place at which we stopped and prayed and sang and then after a blessing moved on to the next stop.
Along with everything else we I managed to get ready for my safari back to the States. I left on Monday after Corpus Christi, arriving in Mwanza that evening. We arrived at a house in the Pasiansi area of Mwanza to find that there was no electricity. No surprise but very inconvenient to cook by candlelight, eat and get ready for bed. On Tuesday I flew to Dar es Salaam where I was given a ride to the hostel at the Tanzanian Episcopal Conference center at Kurasini. The following night I flew out of Dar es Salaam over an hour late on KLM to Amsterdam, and then over an hour late from Amsterdam to Chicago, where I was met by my dear cousin Bob Brutvan. We drove to Janesville, WI where we stayed over night.
The next day the Fagan Dealership provided me with a beautiful 2011 black Impala to use during my travels. I have made a couple of fairly long trips and find the car to be one of the best that I have driven. I really appreciate a good car on good roads after driving four-wheel drive cars on bad roads for 51 years. It is amazing that my back has held up over the years.
MY SCHEDULE: PAST AND FUTURE
July 9/10 Spooner, Shell Lake and Sarona
July 16/17 St. Peter Lutheran, Prairie du Chien
July 23/24 Lodi
July 30/31 Rhinelander
August 6/7 Sun Prairie
August 13/14 Waunakee
August 20/21 St. John’s & St. Gabriels in Prairie du Chien
August 27/28 Bloomington, Patch Grove, Cassville and Glen Haven
I have been blessed to have these church dates. I have met 100s of wonderful people and have received support that has made it possible to do so much to help so many people.
I would be very grateful if you could take 3 minutes just to write an email and say hello. Only 2 or 3 people write emails so I am in the dark about what my friends are doing. I would love to hear from you. My address is pefagan@gmail.com
Please check out my website www.roadstolifetanzania.org You will find information regarding our hospital project as well as a site plan and some pictures of our dream hospital.
Also, for a really good look at our plans for a hospital check the web site www.wix.com/south09/songambele
God Bless you all,
Love and prayers,
Fr. Paul pefagan@gmail.com
