Indeed, by the grace of God and the action of the Holy and Ruling Spirit, the message of Orthodoxy is carried and planted and germinates in all the widths and lengths of the African continent, always, of course, with the blessings and blessings of His Beatitude Pope and Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria and All Africa.
From the history of the Foreign Mission, of course, we know that Kenya was the centre and the beginning along with Uganda. Here, as there, priority was given to education. Schools, schools, schools and schools again! So people understood and felt that without education there can be no hope and future for man.
These days and throughout the pandemic period and permanently throughout the years I always go around and visit our schools, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools. How many countless, what to remember especially in these days of the coronavirus that unjustly and uselessly afflicts the whole of humanity! And not to forget our orphanages that also support and strengthen our unprotected children, the black angels, innocent and tormented since they know no one in the world.
But our Orthodox Church is everywhere and like a loving mother, it gathers and protects them, giving them hope and joy in their lives.
So with these and so much more, our Orthodoxy becomes a family and embraces everyone and everything and relieves pain, deprivation, injustice, doubt and proves that it is on the front line to free man from the shackles of painful injustice and the manifold needs and deprivations of our children, their pain and suffering now become a euphoria of joy and hope, since they are now convinced that the Orthodox Church is on their side and is a helper and assistant, sympathetic to the sorrows and sufferings of “beings in need”. In this way these children, even if they are deprived of material goods, know and are convinced that they have Christ Himself as their companion and co-responder, since He is the founder and ruler of everything in His Church. There is no way they can feel alone and alienated, since the Church is beside them and within them. Since next to every elementary or high school there is an Orthodox Holy Church, which accommodates them alongside their academic duties. Still our Church strives to make these children feel that here where they are being educated they must feel that they are at home, this place is theirs and behind all the efforts of the Church is Christ himself, the Father who is the companion, the brother and the hospitable one.
Along the way we experience great pain when school principals and teachers ask us for a favor. “These little children are hungry! If you could at least help us to be able to give them a simple plate of food every day, you would rest their souls, you would strengthen them even more in their struggle for survival!” What should we do? We believe, thanks to the miracles we have experienced over the years, in God’s omnipotence and mercy, so we continue.
The road we are following is uphill, but because we are on the front line, the Church opens her arms to us in order to accommodate this angelic world of little children. This thorn of the Church is always open and will never be closed, lest it dry up with love and affection for these “toiling and burdened” children who are now feeling the miracle of life thanks to the love, care and warmth that our Church offers them from the door of her heart. Therefore, in the work of evangelizing the tribes of Africa without bragging, we humbly ask for your blessings and prayers to promote and support this work in whatever way you each feel comfortable and best (a food program, a sanctuary, a school, a bicycle, etc.).
I am still trying to convey these feelings that a recent visit to one of the most remote and abandoned areas, forgotten in every sense of the word! A primary school with 700 pupils! They ran to greet us after seeing a car pull into their grounds… As soon as I opened the door and got out, they started running to the opposite side. They were scared when they saw my face and my long beard. Where would they see white in this area! Only in novels and in the pictures of the curriculum can they imagine what a white man looks like, especially as I appear in my robes and cap and beard!
And yet they are educated under these conditions, they come and go every day on foot for several kilometres… They never cease to insist on asking for some food! If it is possible in the 21st century for these children to be hungry and unable to get an education! It is what everyone is looking for in life to equip themselves to make their life and their path!
✝ The Nairobi Blessed Sacrament
