The MSOLA WORK WITH
THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIESS

Kangemi: small christian communities
for a Church-Family

Sr. Elisabeth Villemure

Kangemi is a slum area in the outskirts of Nairobi. Sr. Elisabeth Villemure (Canadian) has worked there with the small christian communities. She shares her experience in this apostolate.

"The small christian communities of Kangemi were born out of a "drama"... The mother of a family with 8 children dies as consequence of hunger.... Her neighbours, "good catholics" had not seen the suffering at their door. Questions arise: What can we do to know the needs around us? to help one another? Then the parish is divided in 14 communities gathering 20 to 30 families. Leaders are chosen... needs come out... and solutions are found inside the communities...

Today the christian community visits the sick, takes care of the poor, the refugees, the liturgy, the catechism of the younger ones, they help the couples living difficulties, the AIDs patients....

Sr. Elisabeth is in charge of the formation to the different ministries... which increase continually... She asks for volunteers and the answer is excellent! Women, mothers, discover they are able to teach and to witness through their life... They feel the need to know the Bible, and they have the courage to spent their Sundays at the Pastoral Center... All the preparation to the sacrements is made in the family. At home is the transmission of faith, the witness of life..

Africans are very close to the Word of God. Thier structures are: life, sharing, meeting the others... The missionaries living with them marvelled at them... They have helped me to live the mission as I desired it: living with them as a family. They are for me Christ's face, the suffering Christ, consoling, loving, Christ taking flesh in the word of the women and men, the youngsters and children.

Small catechumenal communities have taken shape, and there are a few catechists and volunteers. The Christian community is composed of 'Burkinabe' civil servants, foreigners to the region.

Sr. Alma Maier tells us:
"Every two or three weeks I go off for three days to three 'Gourmanche' villages, as repeatedly requested by the women of these small village communities, some 65 kms from Dori. Most of them are farmers, among whom are catechumens; the first Baptisms occurred only six years ago. All the women, still illiterate, express the desire to learn in order to live a better life, to be more secure in their role of spouse and mother in the village, and also in that of Christian. We share on themes they themselves have chosen : hygiene at all levels, nutrition, health, the place of the woman and the respect that is her due, (excision, for example), family life. Through this sharing, I invite the Christian women to deepen their faith in the daily life of the family and to provide a Christian education for their children. The seed of the Good News finds good earth to sprout and to grow there.

I also invite the Christians to open out and to go towards others. That is why, every afternoon, three or four women come along with me to visit the people in other 'Gourmanche' villages and in the 'Peul' camps. It is sometimes through simple gestures, but so meaningful, that we discover how the Spirit is at work in hearts, enabling them to be filled with reciprocal respect and esteem… like when a young Muslim woman called on a Christian for the delivery of her first child. Little by little, an opening towards the other makes its way, the prejudices fall, the joy of knowing one another better grows and gives rise to reciprocal confidence.

"The glory of God is the human being fully alive (St. Ireneus). Nothing is too small, everything is great for God, if that helps us to grow in His image. "