Mission Team 2: Kisumu

We left directly from our visit to Little Prince School and Kibera slums for Jomo Kenyatta Airport for a late afternoon flight to Kisumu on Lake Victoria in Western Kenya. The following morning, Friday, we received a formal reception at Our Lady of Grace School, where we were to help conduct the UZIMA! Eucharistic youth retreat. We were welcomed by an honor guard of scouts who apparently thought that Br. Joachim was our leader, since one of them went right up to him and asked him to inspect the troops, which he did very ceremoniously.

Our Lady of Grace is sponsored by the East African Vice Province of Dominican Friars, and is overseen by an American friar, Fr. Martin Martiney, OP, who also serves as spiritual director of the school. Our Lady of Grace is a boarding school for disadvantaged students, most of whom would not be able to study if it was not for the cost free opportunity that they receive there. The students come from difficult and painful family backgrounds, and many have lost one or both parents. The retreat was a joint effort of our team and local Dominican Friars and Laity, who conduct several of these retreats each year in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania; it was a privilege and a joy for us to serve alongside them. Music was provided by the St. Philomena Youth Evangelization Team.

The youth were extremely receptive and responsive from the outset, and the mood of the retreat was jubilant. St. Philomena’s provided beautiful worship music in both English and Swahili and the youth sang, swayed and even danced with the rhythm that comes so naturally to Africans. The healing service was particularly powerful as the wounds of these beautiful young people came in contact with the mercy of Jesus. The retreat culminated with the closing Mass at which I was privileged to baptize and give First Holy Communion to seven of the students. Our time in Kisumu ended with a late afternoon visit to Hippo Point on Lake Victoria, before catching our return flight to Nairobi.