In the “Letters from Nyumbani” series of reflections, Moreau seminarian Keenan Bross, C.S.C., shares his experiences during his pastoral year at St. Felista Catholic Church, a Holy Cross parish in Utegi, Tanzania. The series title includes the Swahili word “Nyumbani,” meaning “home,” a reminder that for Holy Cross religious, “Often we must make ourselves at home among more than one people or culture” (Constitution 2 of the Congregation of Holy Cross).

———

Evangelization: First & Forever

After Mass and breakfast last Tuesday, I organized my bag with rosaries, candies, prayer books, and most importantly the Eucharist. I strapped it down to the back of my bike, grabbed some water and my sun-hat, and set off to visit the sick and elderly of one of our villages, Mang’ore. After playing phone tag with three different people along the way, I got a rough idea of where the Mzee (elder) who was to show me around lives and found him waiting for me at his home. After I greeted him and locked up my bike, he invited me in to pray. Turns out, his own brother — who has a bum left leg — would be the first person we pray for. After getting to know him and his wife a little bit, what they’re struggling with and what they’re hoping for, I began the rite and offered a short reflection on the same Gospel we always use visiting the sick – Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily-burdened, and I will give you rest.

I spent the next six hours moving from home to home, sitting down and hearing people’s stories, setting the scriptures on the table and praying with them. As the day went on, though, I was inspired by the stories that I kept hearing. As a village, Mang’ore only recently had its own church. For years — these elders explained — they had to travel to surrounding villages on Sundays. 8 km to Kowak, or 6 km to Kotwo, or most recently, 4km to Utegi. When I asked if they made it to church back in those days, they would chuckle and tell me kila siku — Swahili for every day, but really meaning “every Sunday.”

They went on to explain that, to make it on time to Mass, they would begin walking as early as 4:00 or 5:00 am to make it to Mass at 7:00 or 8:00 am. Which got me thinking — goodness, imagine what value, what wonder, these people must have had at what happened in the church such that they’d travel such distances to go there. They must have seen something beautiful, mysterious, powerful in the Catholic Mass — prayed at that time in Latin. Those who didn’t capture our faith, eventually, wound up attending the numerous churches that sprouted up closer to home. Rather than walking miles to Mass, they walked down the road for the newer Pentecostal or Adventist or Anglican churches.

In any case, hearing from these Wazee, these elders, has made me wonder about the history of initial evangelization in this area. I have read much of what’s available on the topic — including a book from our own brother, Fr. Paul Kollman, C.S.C. The first missionaries arrived in this region only in 1897. For the next 50 years, they operated just a handful of churches, most folks still living 50+ miles from a church. In 1947, the Maryknoll missionaries arrived and grew fairly quickly in the coming years to the point where most people lived within walking distance — although a 15-mile walk — from a smaller “outstation,” with the main parish church still a further distance away.

Truly, this is all recent history — in fact, much has happened just since my parents were born. But it’s still challenging to understand exactly how it went down. How did these people first hear about the Catholic Church? Why did they choose to begin attending church? Who prepared them for Baptism and other Sacraments? Why did some people become Catholic and others didn’t? What languages were being used for all of this? I hope, in the coming months, I can sit and chat with our elders and begin to make sense of this awesome history before it’s too late.

This history, though, is still unfolding before us. One of my first evenings here at the dinner table I remember clearly sitting with my fellow seminarian, Fr. Andrew, and our pastor, Fr. Innocent. We were talking about preaching and Fr. Innocent decided to remind us — you know, really, make sure to remember that what we’re doing is still First Evangelization, explaining the basics of the faith. I took him seriously. As I began writing reflections, I did so with the Catechism in one hand and the Bible in another, searching for opportunities to insert teaching moments naturally. One Sunday it was Sin & Grace, another was Discipleship, another was Vice and Virtue, another was Baptism. Personally, I found returning to the central mysteries and practices of our faith refreshing — and, practically speaking, just about what I could manage with the Swahili. For the most part, I believe it was received well. I normally heard something like mafundisho mazuri, Frateri — “good teaching, seminarian” — afterwards.

I’ll never forget on Christmas day, after giving one such reflection at one of our far-flung outstations, Kitenga, I was sitting in a village center waiting to be picked up by Fr. Innocent on his way back home. Frankly, I was a bit bummed about the turnout at Kitenga. On Christmas day itself, we couldn’t have been more than 30 or 40 in the church — for most people in that village it was just another Wednesday. As I was waiting, an elderly man I’ve befriended — Thomas — and I began to talk. We looked down the valley and across the river at the village where I had just been and he encouraged me: “You know, Keenan, you see the other side of that valley?” I said yes, I was just leading over there. “When I was a kid,” he explained, “there was not a single person baptized over there.” Truly, first evangelization is recent history, and even ongoing. Heck, I may have even given the first-ever Christmas reflection for one or two of our Christians there.

The other task that has taken me across the valley to Kitenga recently is high school ministry. Within St. Felista’s parish we have four government high schools, each with a Catholic club that prays together at least once a week and has a number of other events. With Easter coming up, Fr. Innocent encouraged me to figure out how many students at each of the schools were missing Baptism or First Communion. The next week, I went to the school in Kitenga and found that 32 of our 45 kids had not yet been baptized! They decide to pray each week at school with Catholics, even know our hymns and prayers, but never managed to get baptized. Honestly, I came away that day shocked, heartbroken, but also hopeful.

Since then I have hatched a plan and worked with the four schools to welcome, teach, and baptize as many of our students as possible. At this point, I have almost 100 enrolled in our four schools and am running around the parish on bicycle and in our 1985 Toyota pickup trying to meet with them as much as I can before Easter. So far, it’s been a joy and a challenge to teach these students the basics of our faith, putting together lessons as simple yet deep as “Who is God?” and “Relationship with God.” 

One of my most cherished moments came at the end of one of these lessons. I opened it up for questions and one of the boys, probably 16 years old, stood up and said, “You know, Frateri, I am not sure if I totally get the answer to the first question: who is God? Who is God, really?” I took a few seconds to take in the question and — having just taught a lesson on the very topic — responded that, to say the truth, I can’t give him the answer. How can I capture who God is in just one sentence? The God of endless mercy and compassion? Love and justice? Life and death?

“The quest to know who God is,” I ultimately said, “is one that will take you your whole life, and it’s the greatest journey you’ll ever take.”

Published: March 3, 2025