OLQP ♥s OLMC

How's that for a clever title (see the post from earlier this week)?

Thank you parishioners of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish in Montecito, CA. I'll send a more formal thank you to be published for all to read in the bulletin, but wanted to take this time (I just sent your donation to the Detroit Province Jesuits for OLQP) to thank you again.

Please continue to pray for me as I prepare to move next month.

Sandawe

Have you ever heard of the “clicking” languages of southern Africa, the Khosian languages of Botswana and Namibia? If you saw the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy you certainly heard such a language spoken. Surprisingly, Tanzania has such a language spoken – surprising because Sandawe speakers are such a distance from the areas associated with clicking. You can listen to some Sandawe speakers assist UCLA scholars understand the language here.

You can hear Sr. Christina, who teaches at St. Ignatius Primary School, speak her langue maternelle toward the end of this posting by our friends from St. Ignatius High School, Enfield -- at about 5:20.

Au Courant

Tanzania is making great strides relative to connectivity. Here's a story about fibre optic cable reaching Dodoma.

OLMC ♥s OLQP

This weekend I traveled to Santa Barbara, which is about 90 miles north of Los Angeles. I lived in Santa Barbara for three years -- I did my doctoral studies at the Gervirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. During the last two years in Santa Barbara, I served as a weekend assistant at Our Lady of Mount Carmel church in Montecito. Even after moving to Los Angeles, I continued to help out occasionally. The parishioners are very dear to me, and I count many of them as friends.

The pastor, Msgr. Steve Downes, who was the pastor at St. Raphael's when I first arrived in Santa Barbara (where I presided at the Eucharist regularly in my first year and occasionally in the subsequent years), kinldy allowed me to preach at all the Masses.

This gave me not only a chance to say good-bye to the folks at OLMC but also a chance to invite them to participate in the wonderful things happening at OLQP, Dodoma. Here are the readings of the day that served as the basis for my homily. That John's account of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish was the gospel of the day was providential relative to this preaching:

So today I'm here to invite you to put on the eyes of Jesus, to look at the world with his eyes -- with the eyes of Jesus who saw the large crowd before him and asked, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” I’m here today to ask you to do what you can, asking you to share your five barley loaves and two fish, inviting you to do what you can to help this important work for our brothers and sisters in Tanzania. We know -- having heard this gospel -- what Jesus does with our generosity: he multiplies it for the benefit of the least among us. The boy in today's gospel gave what he could, five barley loaves and two fish, and Jesus multiplied them to meet the needs of the hungry.

Thank you parishioners of Our Lady of Mount Carmel both for the privilege of praying with you these last years and for your support for the Our Lady Queen of Peace Educational Centre.
Those who want to send a check (made out to Detroit Province Jesuits, with OLQP in the memo line), may do so at the following address:

International Missions
Detroit Province Jesuits
7303 W. Seven Mile Rd.
Detroit, MI 48221

And here's the website for credit card donations (where you're asked about "honor or tribute" you can put "OLQP").

Thanks -- and God bless you.

Oh, two other things:

(1) At one of the Masses I prayed St. Ignatius Loyola's prayer for generosity, and folks asked me for the text:

Lord, teach me to be generous.


Teach me to serve you as you deserve;

to give and not to count the cost,

to fight and not to heed the wounds,

to toil and not to seek for rest,


to labor and not to ask for reward,

save that of knowing that I do your will.

(2) Here's how the story of my involvement begins.

Length of Days

Folks have recently asked me about how long days are in Tanzania, given its proximity to the equator. I addressed this in an earlier post.

(Those St. Ignatius Enfield readers might use this as a point of comparison to the data re: Dodoma.)

Grade 25.25

I'm spending some wonderful days with my sister Colleen and her husband Tim at their mountain home in Winter Park, Colorado. This morning I woke up to the following email:

Dear Fr. Martin,

Many greetings from Language and Orientation School. We have received your application form and the copies of residency permit,passport, and letter to the Immigration office from Dodoma.

The registration process has started and the letter and other documents have already been taken to the Immigration office today.

So, on September 4th I begin a three-month course in Kiswahili. For me the program will amount to grade 25 1/4 -- never enough education!

More Pictures from OLQP