Charles Lawanga Teacher's College

The two pictures are from the campus of Charles Lawanga Teacher's College which is also a part of the Chikuni Mission. The coeducation teacher's college currently serves about 300 students in a two-year curriculum. The first year is on campus and the second year involves students teaching in the field. A Jesuit serves as the Vice Principal and will assume the Principal's role in the coming year. The school is a residential campus so there are hostels for men and women students, a dining hall, college hall, chapel (lower picture), classrooms and offices (upper picture) playing fields and faculty/staff housing. This is all part of the Chikuni Mission. There are currently four Jesuits working at the college. Education is a high priority within the Chikuni mission. I estimate that there are over 2000 students educated on the mission: Charles Lawanga Teacher's College, Canisius High School, Chikuni Girl's Schools, Chikuni Basic School and Charles Lawanga Basic School.

Bert Otten's Appropriate Technology

Part of the joy of visiting Chikuni was the chance to see Bert Otten, SJ and to see some of his work. I had the good fortune to live with Bert at Seattle University before he resigned his position and came to Zambia. Bert taught electrical engineering at SU and is very interested in appropriate technology.

• The upper picture is of Monica N'Sofu, the director of the Chikuni parish Home-based Aids Care. She is holding a delicacy a large woodland mushroom that she will dry in a solar dryer that Bert helped design.
• Bert has a number of other projects in the works or in the prototype stage. He has a truck that runs on sunflower oil fuel and they are testing was that jatropha can be grown to provide the fuel which would avoid using a food source for fuel. I saw his reading lights for villages that do not have electricity. The simple light operates on batteries, led lights and features toilet paper rolls wrapped in mylar (from the inside of chip bags) as the reflectors. Bert is hoping to get a woman's group to take on the manufacturing of these devices.
• The lower picture is of a solar powered water pump. Bert works with the Diocese of Monze to establish these sources of water for communities. A bore hole is drilled for the water and the water is pumped to the surface and stored in water towers. The solar energy provides the electricity to run the pump. The pump pictured with Bert and Jim was at Charles Lawanga Basic School. The pump will provide water for some gardens a poultry farm and a school with 800 students.

Visit to Canisius High School, Chikuni

I just returned from a two-day visit to Chikuni which could be consisidered the home of the Jesuit ministry in Zambia. The above pictures are of Canisius High School.

• The upper picture is of Jim McGloin, SJ, Ron Hidaka, SJ and myself. Jim is the socius to the Provincial, a former Provincial and now the Acting Provincial during the General Congregation. Jim, a Butte native, started at Gonzaga with me in 1962. Ron is originally from Tacoma, also served as Provincial and is acting Rector at Canisius and bursar of the school.

• The middle picture shows some of the playing fields with the young men cutting grass as part of their duties for keeping the school in the excellent shape. There are 700 men students at the school in grades 7-12. About a two-thirds of the students are boarders so they have hostels, a large kitchen, dining room, and playing fields for the students. The school has strong academics and they currently have eight Jesuits in the classroom.

• The lower picture is of the newly renovated buildings. Ron Hidaka, SJ is responsible for this renovation and the school is very attractive. The Jesuits mentioned that many are very surprised to see the quality after driving off the main road over dirt roads to arrive at the Chickuni mission.

Rain, Blessing or Curse!

The rains have been relentless during this year’s rainy season. Floods in Zambia have displaced thousands of people, drowned livestock and put large numbers of children at risk from life-threatening diseases. About 1.5 million Zambians may have to flee their homes because of flooding. In the Monze district (Canisius Secondary School and Charles Luwanga College are located in the district (125 miles south of Lusaka), 500 houses collapsed and other people were trapped on an island due to rising waters.
Fields are waterlogged and crops have been damaged, raising fears of a return to the food shortages that plagued the region as little as three years ago. Zambia's government is distributing tents and food to people in its southern region, while the Red Cross is providing chlorine to purify drinking water and avert outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera, which causes severe dehydration.

Miscellany from Lusaka

This is a picture of the African pied crow. Crows similiar to this one break the dawn with their harsh "ar-ar-ar-ar" or "karh-karh-karh". I actually think that they use both of these sounds. They are quiet until the dawn starts to break and then you hear them. They are actually quiet beautiful and they do mate for life, which gives you the added advantage of having two of them nearby. They like the peak of the church roof as their day-time roost so we have them throughout the day. Another positive is that they do not start until dawn, and we do not have the sound of sirens throughout the night as in Seattle.

All of the Jesuit communities appear to have working cats. The cats do a good job in keeping the property free from rats and other rodents. The St. Ignatius cat population just increased by four. The cats are somewhat skitish around us, but they have an uncany way of arriving at the door when fish is cooked.

Today I picked some red mangos from the house garden. We have both red and yellow mangos. The flavor is great and far surpasses the green fruit that makes it to Seattle stores. The magos are quite small but delicious.

Jesuit Candidates

The picture features eight men who are applying for the Jesuit novitiate. Three of the men are from Malawi and have completed college and the other five are from Zambia. I had the privilege of giving these men a three-day retreat in preparation for their interviews for the Society.

Part of the retreat included presentations on St. Ignatius, Father Arrupe and Bishop Paul Lungu, SJ, who was one of the first Zambians ordained as a Jesuit and certainly the first consecrated as a Bishop. Paul served as the novice director before being asked to become a bishop. One of his novices, Emmanuel Mumba, SJ, gave the presentation. Paul was an amazing man and was killed in a traffic accident. He was known to NW Jesuits as he did his tertianship in Spokane. Emmanuel told stories and made him come alive, and I am certain that his life was an inspiration to the men.

The candidates remain at the novitiate for the following week and engage in novitiate life with the novices. They will have a few more presentations and will be interviewed by four Jesuits and the acting Provincial. I was impressed and I am quite certain that a number of these men will enter. The novitiate is a common novitiate with the Zimbabwe province, so a similar process will take place in Zimbabwe.

Spiritual Leadership

I have included pictures from the Spiritual Leadership workshop that I am giving with Josephine Lunga for the Ignatian Spirituality Center. We are using the framework of Chris Lowney's book, Heroic Leadership that describes the four characteristics associated with Jesuit leadership over the centuries: self-awareness, ingenuity, courage and love. We have over 30 participants and they are divided between Jesuits (8 second year novices), religious and lay men and women.

Last night we had a community sending prayer for Peter Bwanali, SJ and Charles Chalinda, SJ, who are the delegates from Zambia/Malawi for the General Congregation. Peter and Charles are members of the St. Ignatius community. The 35th General Congregation opens in Rome on Monday with the tasks of accepting the resignation of Father Kolvenbach and electing a new General for the Society. The Congregation will also develop documents that will help guide the Society in the coming years. The Oregon Province delegates are John Whitney, SJ and Pat Lee, SJ. Please keep the Congregation in your prayers. The Congregation is expected to be in session until the first of March.