That original Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, which we just celebrated, was a time of a new beginning, ushering the apostles into a new future and a new time (a time of the ‘church’ through the power of the Spirit). In many ways, I feel I am living within a similar Pentecost time, marked by a number of “new” beginnings:

Sabbatical year: This morning, I head to Uganda to begin a year of sabbatical! I intend to take significant time this year for rest, renewal and remembering. No better place to start this time than the holy ground of Malube!

Fellowship at Notre Dame. The Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies has named me a Fellow in the Contending Modernities Project. Notre Dame will thus be my sabbatical year “base” as I work on a special project: “Pursuing Reconciliation in Africa.” The project will involve travel and research in select African countries.

Transitions at the Center for Reconciliation: “Co-Founder & Senior Strategist” will be my new title (as of July 1) at CFR. My colleague Chris Rice will be Co-Founder and Director.  In my new role I will continue to be deeply involved in shaping the vision, strategic direction, programs and content of the center.

As a new chapter begins in the work of the Center (“All Things New” – we have called this new chapter), it is fitting that earlier this month, Chris and I were back to the sacred ground of Trinity Center beach – where it all started, in December 2004, with the two of us walking the beach, dreaming about a center, and sharing convictions.

Looking back six and half years later, we are humbled for all we have been given!  As if we needed a confirmation, on the drive back from Trinity Center, we received a call from the director of Stewardship Foundation with news of another significant grant to usher CFR into a new chapter. Another confirmation – a week later- was the third Summer Institute, which brought together close to 130 leaders from 23 states in the United States and fifteen other countries!!

If Pentecost is about new beginnings, it is also about gifts- the gifts of God’s Spirit, both past, present and promised.  I am humbled by God’s many gifts as I am reminded of the words of Fr. Alexander Schmemann: “The young live, they do not thank. And only those who thank truly live” (The Journals, Aug 23, 1975). Speaking of gifts and gratitude, here are a few more I celebrate from the semester just ended -

• The visit to Duke Divinity and to my class on Readings in World Christianity of Andrew Walls, the famed theologian of mission. He spoke to us on “The Second Coming of World Christianity.”

• The honor of being invited to deliver this year’s Capps Lecture in Christian Theology at University of Virginia. You can read the lecture here.

Among Fellow Catholics, I read a paper on Performing Catholicity: Archbishop John Baptist Odama and the Politics of Baptism in Northern Uganda for the opening plenary of the Discourse of Catholicity at the De Paul Center for World Catholicism, Chicago, April 12.

• From Chicago, I flew to Portland Oregon to be with Quaker friends at George Fox University as the featured speaker for this year’s John Woolman Peacemaking Forum.

• And this past month, I preached at Capital Christian Fellowship, a Mennonite congregation outside Washington DC, on their International Day. You can read the sermon,”ODD Bodies“; and see some pictures of the event.

• And yet perhaps by far the most significant and certainly most delightful: spending Easter weekend with my nephew’s family in Cleveland. Their son William is the real deal!

So grateful for all your prayers, well wishes and support!

The quote reminded me (again) of the recent Great Lakes Leadership Institute, and the incredible stories o f hope (“exhibits of new creation” we called them) from leaders like Archbishop Odama (left): ‘my tribe is humanity’; Angelina Atyam: ‘every child is my child’; David Kasali: ‘baptism baptizes everything’…….

All these leaders, indeed, all the leaders I know and admire: Nelson Mandela, Thomas Sankara, Paride Taban, Maggy Barankitse ……they all have this in common: they are “pregnant with hopes that are the wrong size for this world.”  This is what makes them restless, even ‘odd’ – never able to fit in with the accepted conventions of what is ‘normal – but always searching for a more, reaching out something better, for a future not yet realized.

Moreover, they are not only (themselves) pregnant with the sort of out of size hope that Boyle writes about, they inspire the same pregnant hope and serve as its midwives in others, including those that society tends to write off.

For the good news is that “anyone in Christ, there is a new creation (2cor 5: 17) – translation: “every baptized is pregnant with hopes that are the wrong size for this world.”

What a powerful reminder with which to begin the Lenten journey! Throughout the season, I will name and claim this good news, while pondering the best ways to nurture and bring to term my own small pregnancy!

I am so grateful to each of you for your prayers for the recent Great Lakes Leadership Institute (and to the partnerships that made the Institute possible:  MCC, World Vision International, ALARM and the CFR). The Institute was a truly amazing five days (Jan 16-22, 2011) – with so much to be grateful for.

Among others:

the venue: National Seminary Ggaba, a catholic Seminary, my alma mater, on the outskirts of Kampala. With its beautiful and expansive lawns, serene setting overlooking lake Victoria, the neat chapel and clean dormitories, Ggaba is one of the best kept secrets….

…the community:  over 130 participants from 10 African countries, the U.S. and Canada… representing the most ecumenical  cross section of Christian leaders  in the region…

…five days of learning, interaction and discussion around a holistic vision of reconciliation, with morning  plenary sessions and afternoon seminars on such diverse topics as : political advocacy, social entrepreneurship, the healing of memories, building up and leading hopeful institutions…

…guided by a workbook  developed around a theological, contextual and practical methodology…

…the many incredible stories/signs and ‘exhibits” of leadership into new creation…

…shared worship and meals…

…a day of pilgrimage to St. Jude’s farm, Busense and learning from Josephine Kizza…

…a lot of fun and community building….

…and so many other gifts. Indeed, to echo the words of the Institute theme song: “To God in Gladness sing, how great thou name…”

Godfrey (my nephew) and Lucy’s wedding this Saturday!

Christmas with my 85 year-old mom and family time!

Last year's GLI gathering, precursor to this year's Institute!

Most importantly, for the first ever Leadership Institute of the Center for Reconciliation’s Great Lakes Leadership Institute. To be held at the National Seminary Gaba, Uganda, from Jan 16-22, 2011, the historical event promises a number of significant highlights:

• Close to 150 participants: Christian leaders from 10 African countries in the East African region and beyond

• Representing a cross section of Christian denominations and non-denominations (“the most ecumenically diverse gathering I have ever been to in Africa” according to one key leader): Catholic, Anglican, Pentecostal, Methodist, Quaker, Free Church, Baptist….

• Five days of fellowship, interaction and learning around the theme of “Christian Leadership for Reconciliation: ‘A new Creation….the old is gone, the new is here’”

• Plenary sessions and seminars  led by some of the most outstanding Christian leaders in the region: leaders like Catholic Archbishop John Baptist Odama (of Gulu, chairperson of the Uganda Catholic Bishops Conference; Anglican Bishop Zac Niringiye (Kampala Diocese), Maggy Barankitse of maison Shalom, Angelina Atyam, of Concerned Parents Association, Jane Wathome of Beacon of Hope Africa, Celestin Musekura of Alarm; Bishop Paride Taban of Kuron Peace Village & many others…

• A day pilgrimage to St. Josephine Kizza’s (a widow) St. Jude’s Organic Farm

• And so many other gifts

Please keep the success of the Leadership Institute in your prayers – and for my own leadership of this historical event.

Advent prayers and wishes for a blessed Christmas.

See below the review of Mirror to the Church, by my friend Mark Gornik.

Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda

By Emmanuel M. Katongole, Associate Professor of Theology and World Christianity, with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove D’06
Zondervan, 2009, 176 pages, paperback, $15.99

Reviewed by Mark R. Gornik

In 1994, in the nation of Rwanda, some 800,000 people were killed. Under the labels of Hutu and Tutsi, “Hutu neighbors were told to kill their Tutsi neighbors.” Almost all were given over to death by machete. What makes this story of genocide even more troubling, if that were possible, is that confessed Christians were killing fellow Christians. Indeed, “in a number of instances throughout Rwanda, churches became slaughterhouses.”

The failure of Christianity in Rwanda shines a mirror on all of Christianity. How are we to live in this world as Christ’s ambassadors? How can Christian identity recover its unique identity? How do we face the contradictions present in our practice of faith?

These challenges are critically engaged with prayer, tears, and hope in Emmanuel Katongole’s Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda, written with the assistance of Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. Katongole speaks from a unique intersection: He is a Ugandan whose parents were from Rwanda, a Catholic priest, a professor at Duke Divinity School, and a pilgrim in life and faith.

One of the key problems in Rwanda, as Katongole identifies it, is the conflation of Christian commitment with other forms of identity. As a mirror, Rwanda can press us to ask, How deeply are our national stories inscribed unknowingly into everyday life and faith? How can the story of Rwanda help us see our captivity to the powers of the age? What story should form us? Such questions are of course deeply connected to our remembering our histories rightly.

“A book about the Rwandan genocide must be a book about bodies,” Katongole offers at the outset. Bodies were physically broken in Rwanda, and the body politic represents a real factor in how events unfolded. It is not enough therefore, Katongole notes, to ask how Christians can make a “difference.” The challenge becomes, how do we “reposition our bodies?” That is, how do we worship God and embrace new possibilities for discipleship where we are in the world?

Following this emphasis on the body, Katongole speaks of “interruptions”—persons who in bodily form understand that keeping the gospel can also mean refusing to accept the assumptions so many take as given. An example he provides is the saint and martyr Sister Félicité Niyitegeka, who sheltered others with her body, and prayed for her killer in the moments before her death. Sister Félicité’s life and body offered a prophetic interruption, the claiming of her identity in Christ before other identities, at the cost of her life.

Discipleship, indeed mission and what Katongole calls the “prophetic posture,” will be discovered only by immersion in the “deep brokenness of our world.” At the point of crying, “How long, O God?”,  the church can be resurrected into a living hope.

With his commitment to the gospel of reconciliation, category-changing ways of describing discipleship, and passion for new creation sprouting from the ground up, Emmanuel Katongole is a theologian for our time. Mirror to the Church confirms the power of his voice, life, and insight as a singular one for the church today.

After reading Mirror to the Church, I had a vision of a particular use for this book. It is not just for college or seminary courses, although it is very much that. Nor is it just for all persons interested in reconciliation and the work of the church in Africa, although it uniquely fulfills that role. It is a book we should be giving to new Christians and believers in formation, those to whom we want to introduce and deepen what it means to have an identity shaped by the gospel. Read this book with tears of lament, but also as a call to be witnesses to the gospel.

Mark R. Gornik is the director of City Seminary of New York and the author of To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City (Eerdmans, 2002).

….(October- November): my brother Joe spending four weeks with me here – for him a time of rest and renewal (following his 25th priestly anniversary in July); and for he and I time to catch up, remember, and renew friendship (Emerald Isle, NC)

but also a time to dream….. (planning meeting for Joe’s Bethany Miracle Village)

… the honor of being selected as one of five recipients of Duke University’s Thomas Langford Lectureship Award (‘designed to provide Duke’s faculty with an opportunity to hear about the ongoing scholarly activities of their recently promoted colleagues’). At the Nov 9th lecture entitled: Pursuing Reconciliation in Africa: Stories from Bethany, I share about my research at the intersection of World Christianity and Reconciliation studies respectively.

Nov 19-22: spending a weekend down in Northport, Fl visiting Chester and Roberta Blais – friends since 1993 (Elkhart, Indian) and celebrating their 55thwedding anniversary! A simple but beautiful mass with the renewal of vows, followed by a hearty breakfast brunch with some of their close friends, is a good way to celebrate the gifts of Roberta and Chester’s friendship and intimacy.

-Nov 27: A 50th birthday anniversary this weekend (27 Nov)!

A quote from Gregory Boyle,’s Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (highly recommended) frames it all very well for me: Quoting William Blake, Fr. Boyle notes: “We are put on earth for a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love.” (xiii)

I am indeed grateful for all the beams of love these last 50 years! I am so grateful for each and all of you who are helping me to learn to bear the beams – thus, helping to return me to my true self.

I’m grateful to announce the upcoming release of my newest book, The Sacrifice of Africa. It will be due out from Eerdmans at the end of November, and is available for preorder.

Here is the publisher’s description:

“Christianity is rapidly expanding in Africa — but so also are the vexing realities of war, civil unrest, corruption and violence. What are the connections between these two faces of Africa? Can Christianity become the much-needed social force for a new future in Africa? How would such a future come about, and what would it look like?

These questions lie at the heart of The Sacrifice of Africa by Emmanuel Katongole. A Catholic priest from Uganda, born in 1960, who lived through the reign of Idi Amin and who has seen firsthand the problems that ravage his home country and its neighbors, Katonogole argues that recurring civil war, violence, corruption and instability are wired within the imaginative landscape of modern Africa, are set within the founding narratives of Africa’s inception into the modern world through colonialism and its successor institution, nation-state politics.

In the face of these entrenched political imaginations, the most critical social challenge is one of “daring to invent” the future through new foundational narratives that reflect and nurture a fresh, different vision for African politics and social life. This is the primary political difference that Christianity can make in Africa.

The stories of three African Christian leaders and their work — Bishop Paride Taban and the Holy Trinity Peace Village in Southern Sudan; Angelina Atyam in Uganda and the Concerned Parents Association in Uganda; and Maggie Barankitse and Maison Shalom in Burundi — cap off Katongole’s inspiring vision of hope for Africa.”

I have particularly enjoyed reading Jake Meador’s chapter-by-chapter engagement with the book. Jake is doing amazing work at Notes from a Small Place – a collection of notes on faith, place, and community. So far, he has reviewed the book in three installments:

Introduction

Chapter 1 (a)

Chapter 1 (b)

Besides featuring interesting writing, Jake’s blog addresses crucial themes of place and identity and their relationship. Be sure to keep reading as he posts his way through Sacrifice for Africa, and beyond!

Thank you for all who have supported me through the process of preparing this book! I look forward to the conversations it will generate.

“Welcome back home.” The immigration officer at the Minneapolis International Airport smiled as he handed me back my passport and residency card. As I walked to the conveyor belt to collect my luggage, I was relieved by the good feeling of being back “home” in the United States.

But then I remembered that I had been greeted by the exact same words, “Welcome back home” by an immigration officer at Entebbe airport on June 20 as I started my summer in Uganda. Two months at “home” in Uganda had gone very fast, between family visits, meetings, a pilgrimage and other events; and now I was back to another ‘home.’ As I retrieved my luggage, I thought about this reality of my life: the gift of having more than one home, but also the challenges and adjustments, the pain and loneliness of moving between homes, never fully settling in any one home.

A friend once told me that I have a ‘confused’ identity.  That is true, for I often find myself between ‘homes,’ living a hyphenated existence as “both- and”: African-American; Catholic-Protestant; priest-professor; scholar-practitioner. In this case, I suppose I am Mestizo –  “in-between” (this Spanish word was first used to describe the children of the violent encounter between European fathers and Amerindian mothers; neither European nor Indian, these children belonged to a new people, a people of mixed heritage).

But belonging to a new people – a mixed heritage, a people “in-between;” in a word, being Mestizo – is the gift and calling of every Christian. And as it is, it is the gift and calling of every Christian; to be Mestizo – bearers of a new identity as both-and: divine –human; here-not yet- thus ambassadors of God’s new creation.

Nobody has captured this reality as well as Fr. Virgilio Elizondo, who spoke at the Center for Reconciliation’s Summer Institute this June. (See an interview Fr. Virgilio conducted during the Institute with Faith and Leadership ) The Future is Mestizo is the title of Elizondo’s book (first published in 1984!).

“The core of our existence,” Fr. Elizondo writes, “is to be other”; is to embrace a ‘new identity’; it is to live “in between” cultures – neither this nor that but fully both (26), always straining (“journeying”) toward the fuller reality of a new humanity that Jesus himself represents.

Speaking of his own hyphenated life as a Mexican-American, and what that has taught him about the Christian life, Elizondo writes,

“Mestizo are part of both while not being exclusively either….Yet in neither am I ever considered one of the group. I am always both keen (at home) and foreigner at the same time. This “in-between” is the pain and potential, the suffering and the joy, the confusion and the mystery, the darkness and the light of Mestizo life. As I claim this ambiguity and recognize it for what it truly is, I become the bearer of a new civilization that is inclusive of all the previous ones. No longer do I carry the burden of the shameful news, but rather become the bearer of the good news of the future that has already began in us….

“This in-between, far from being negative, has tremendous advantage. I am an insider-outsider of both and thus have the ability of knowing both from within and from the outside…. I can know them in ways that they can never know me or suspect. I can truly become the interlocutor who will help both to see and appreciate themselves and each other in ways they have never before suspected….

“Furthermore, the mestizo “in-between” keeps expanding as the ‘frontera’ keeps expanding both north and south at the same time it keeps including more and more peoples, more ethnicities, and races…”  (128-9).

Not a bad way to describe the gift of new identity and the calling to be God’s ambassadors of the new creation – a gift and calling which is shaped and nurtured at the various intersections of our hyphenated existence in the world.

It was a wonderful twelve days of eating together, of traveling to different places of historical, cultural and religious significance in Uganda, of meeting different communities and leaders, and of reflecting together, using the biblical stories of Bethany, on the themes of lament and hope – all as we connected with the pain of this beautiful country and its people, but also with many signs of hope! Some of the highlights included: an afternoon at the St. Maria Gorretti vocational training schools for girls; an evening at the L’Arche community near Kampala; and a day at St. Jude Organic farm, where Josephine Kizza, a widow, has turned 3.7 acres of land into the most impressive organic and intensive farm – a model and school for sustainable agriculture! Another highlight was commissioning two bore-hole wells (below), funded by Sacred Heart Church Joliet (IL), the church to which six of the pilgrims belong.

There was also the 25^th priestly anniversary of my brother, Fr. Joe! (see below)

An incredible journey indeed! Starting off as strangers, we ended as friends, and even planned a reunion in three years. Many originally did not want to come, especially following the July 11 bomb blasts, but all left with a deep sense of gratitude that they came! The youngest pilgrim, Malcom Yap (below), said it best at the farewell debrief. With tears in his eyes, he confessed: “I did not want to come; my father forced me and my mother to come; and now I do not want to leave. I do not understand how I could have enjoyed myself so much where there is much suffering;” and then he added: “the pilgrimage has made me closer to Africa and to God.”

In the meantime, at Bethany House, life has been ‘normal’, restful but productive. A one-day consultation with the leaders of the GLI core partners (MCC, World Vision International and ALARM) has just concluded, bringing further clarity and definition to a vision 2015 for the GLI, and to plan for the Jan 2011 Leadership Institute.

From July 6-10, I hosted the 1st Amahoro Theological Intensive here: a group of 20 leaders from East Africa, South Africa and the U.S for three full days of intense conversation under the theme “Africa Through the Lens of Bethany.” For three full days we explored together a vision, imagination and gifts of Christian leadership in Africa, shaped around the New Testament stories associated with the village of Bethany. See story and pictures!

On June 28th, I enjoyed a get together with my seminary classmates for an evening and half day of reconnecting, remembering and thanksgiving for 23 years of priestly ministry. Indeed a lot to be grateful for!

And finally, meet two new additions to the Bethany family: below, two and half month old Charlotte (named by Charlotte Awino after herself) – quite a playful young fellow – and of a much different character than the five month Grace (second picture below), whom we got last week. True to her name, she is calm and graceful.

Prayer requests:

- For the pilgrims travelling respectively from Joliet, Illinois and Kuching, Malaysia to Uganda for this year’s pilgrimage, which starts July 23.

- For Fr. Joe Kakooza my brother, for his 25th priestly anniversary celebration on Saturday July 31.