with Emmanuel Katongole
Following the Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope, it was time to welcome another group of visitors , from St. Michael’s church in Cary and Sacred Heart, Pinehurst: hosted by Share-the-Blessings. The highlights of their visit: launching two water projects and attending ordination to priesthood of more than ten young men. Two close friends of STB, Sebastian and Steven, were ordained to the Diaconate.
A week later, a group of 16 Duke students and staff joined their first group of visitors on a ‘Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope’ to Uganda and Rwanda. In Rwanda, we met survivors and church leaders, and visited genocide sites, where the memory of genocide is still too fresh.
The most memorable challenge came from the Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini; Talking about the church’s failure during genocide, Kolini noted: ‘how do we form Christians who are capable of saying no to killing. We were simply baptizing but not educatiing.”
First, the Dean Greg Jones and his family responded tp my invitation to ‘come and see’ Africa. He was joined by my collegue, Chris Rice and his family. The highlights of their stay: a visit to my home and school; a day at our Lady of Lourdes parish in Nakasongola, where two DDS students spent a summer of Field Education; a day with Emmanuel Cardinal Wamala, who hosted us to a sumptuous lunch on a boat cruise; an evening of stories of pain and hope from leaders working in the conflict in Northern Uganda.
