Comboni Lay Missionaries

Nomadic Healthcare

croppedThe mission of Dadim is located in the remote Borana zone in the far south of Ethiopia, near the border of Kenya. The name Dadim comes from “dakkaa diimaa” which means red stone and the origin is obvious after placing your foot on the bright red soil of Dadim for the first time.  The road from Awassa until the turn off for the mission is relatively good because it is the main asphalt road that connects Ethiopia to Kenya. But the final 11 km to the mission takes 1 hour in a good 4-wheel drive during the dry season and becomes impassible in the rainy season.  There are two priests here, Fr. Boniface from Kenya and Fr. Iede, from the Netherlands, and 3 religious sisters, Anila, Annie and Shirley, from India who together operate a parish, school, community centre and clinic.  Fr. Iede has spent the better part of his life here in Dadim – he arrived in 1973 upon the request of the Borana Elders to establish the first education services in the region. He slept the first two years in a tent.  Despite the Borana elders lack of formal education, they identified education as a priority and hoped that a higher educational level would prepare their children to cope better with the changes affecting the pastoralists as a group. After establishing the first school, the focus shifted to health and in 1981 the first healthcare services began.  Dadim’s location was selected since it was in a “no-man’s” land located between the grazing areas and major water points of three pastoralists ethnic groups: Borana, Guji and Ghabra. This would mean that all three groups would peacefully have access to educational and health services with school children remaining in their surroundings and therefore in touch with their indigenous pastoralist life style.

Walking into the Dadim Clinic today, after 30 years of development, we were quite impressed with the polished setup. We were however surprised to see that only 15 patients will come for treatment on any given day despite it being the main health centre in the area serving approximately 27,000 people.  This is because the Borana people are largely pastoralists (semi-nomadic animal herders) and especially now during the dry season they are moving from place to place in search of food and water for their animals.

Cattle and camels are fundamental to their way of life. In the dry season the whole concentration of the Borana centers on water and grass – two vital resources for the maintenance of their herds and consequently their livelihood. The Borana have developed complex management systems and societal rules for the access rights, control and sustainable development of the two precious resources of grass and water. As the dry season causes sources to vanish, they pack up their simple grass houses and few possessions, and simply move closer to the last valuable sources like water bore holes and hand-dug wells.  The Borana diet revolves mainly around milk – from cows, camels and goats.  The annual cycle of rainy and then dry seasons can be seen in the physical appearance (and underlying health) of both the people and their herds.  Both go from plump to withered, from vibrant to emaciated as the seasons roll on.

Given the pastoralist lifestyle, health care delivery is a challenge to say the least.  The Dadim clinic remains as the central treatment hub, but the health care program involves a massive outward deployment into community based health care.  For this reason three days a week the staff go out to find the Borana wherever they are – delivering anti natal care, vaccinations, and some limited acute patient care truly in the middle of nowhere!  Actually, it is not in the middle of nowhere for the Borana (the clinic has a set of 15 health posts with a network of community health workers who mobilize people to the posts), but it sure feels like it is.

When we were visiting Dadim, we accompanied the sisters and staff out to one of these remote outreach health posts.  It was an adventure to find the road (or rather make our own road) through the thorny acacia tree covered savannah.  Nausea was the theme of the trip as the 4WD lurched up and down over the water-chiseled landscape. When it does rain here on the savannah, it rains hard – so hard that the parched ground instantly becomes a flood zone and this violent flow of water scars the land.  On the drive we saw gigantic hares, tiny dik dik gazelles (the size of small dogs), beautiful zebras and of course lots of camels.

Finally we spotted our destination – a small collection of mud huts on the crest of a hill. We parked the car under the shade of a tree and began to unload little tables, chairs, record books, a cooler storing the vaccines and other supplies. We could see woman and children converging, ascending the hill from all directions. When some older children saw the Sisters they affectionately called out “Yoya!” which means I embrace you.  There was one vacant mud hut which seemed suitable for children’s vaccinations, another hut for ante-natal care and the acute patient care would be provided from the back of the truck.

The Borana people here are completely different from the Sidama ethnic group with whom we work and live in Awassa.  The Borana women wear vibrant clothes and large beaded necklaces, and have their sleepy sweaty-faced babies tightly wrapped in colourful fabrics.

The women came from both near and far and stayed most of the day under the shade of the tree, laughing and chatting with one another. There was a public health nurse, a local Borana man, with us and at an opportune moment when all were gathered together he gave an ‘awareness creation’ lesson on HIV/AIDS which included sharing the benefits of voluntarily getting tested.  Throughout the day, upwards of 150 women arrived for this ‘mobile’ clinic.

This kind of health care delivery is not without serious challenges, both practical, financial and clinical. Sometimes the sisters and staff end up travelling on very bad roads for up to 90 km, and then work in the heat all day, without proper lunch. Also, the costs of fuel, trucks and bonuses paid to staff make these trips very expensive. The health care quality offered through the remote outreach posts is low without a proper place to perform patient exams, limited equipment and without laboratory facilities.   The Dadim clinic is working to evolve the health care model by training a network of health extension workers (such as Traditional Birth Attendants) who actually live in the Borana communities. They are also strengthening the services offered through the central clinic. Now after decades of supporting the local people to achieve higher education in healthcare, 20 of the 22 clinic staff are local Borana.  That means that local Borana are serving their fellow people to work together to build stronger society. So as the pastoralist lifestyle inevitably changes, the Borana will be better equipped not only to navigate the change but help plot its course.

– Maggie, Mark and Emebet Banga, Comboni Lay Missionaries, Awassa, Ethiopia

A great day for gardening

Since 2010 we (Mark & Maggie) have continued our work with the Catholic University and College Students Group in Awassa.  They have an active student leadership committee with lots of ideas and energy, so we accompanying “adults” play a mentoring role.   This years’ group is particularly dynamic.  In 2014, a new Catholic centre will open up here in Awassa city which will have a parish church, a kindergarten school and the main jewel, the brand new diocesan youth centre.  We thought it would be great to start to get the young people involved to breathe some life into this construction site soon to be pastoral hub.

So we approached the student group to see if they would take on the design and planting of the gardens surrounding the church.  They loved the idea and in a flash, they were running with the project with spirited initiative.  In no time they had formed a small committee with engineering and agriculture students, inspected the site, took measurements, toured some nice gardens in the city for inspiration and sketched a design.  One student devoted an entire day to travel three hours away and select and purchase the plants.  Another student visited the site the day before and marked out the plan in the soil. And so last Saturday the students rallied their peers and over 40 came out and planted in one swoop!  We divided into small teams and with an air of controlled chaos, the work began: hoes swinging, spades digging, manure flying and saplings dropping.   We laughed, sang and before we knew it the day was done – 1,200 plants and flowers in place.   We then sat in the shade and shared bananas, bread and sodas.   Everyone was happy with the day’s good work.

Years from now when the hedges are full and the trees tall, the young people involved will look on and smile silently knowing how it all happened.  Most importantly they will have learned a gem of a lesson – we can achieve grand and beautiful things if we are willing to put in the effort and work together.

garden new church low res

– Maggie, Mark and Emebet Banga, Comboni Lay Missionaries, Awassa, Ethiopia

 

Love in Practice is a Harsh and Dreadful Thing

Catholic Worker

Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement once said: “Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.  Reality continues to confront our dreams, our hope and our ideal vision”. Day knew this well because she gave her full life to struggling in solidarity with the poor.  Loving the poor is a difficult thing. Even when we come with a sincere desire to “serve the poor” we cannot help but have a certain romantic vision of who the poor are and what we think they need. But the daily practice of this is far from romantic and I am surprised at how many times I utterly fail to love the poor when I am precisely trying to do so. This has been part of my journey as a lay missionary in Ethiopia.

But there persists a single core source of inspiration -> Matthew 25:40: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Jesus describes in Matt 25:31-46 that the inheritance of his Kingdom is based on something quite simple and attainable. Once again Dorothy Day sheds some clear light when she comments: “If Christ himself had not said it, it would seem raving lunacy to believe this. But he said that a glass of water given to a beggar is given to him. He made heaven hinge on the way we act toward him in His disguise of commonplace, frail, ordinary humanity.”

Matthew 25:40 remains both a big challenge and encouragement to me. By seeing Jesus in those around me, I begin to appreciate and care for their sufferings as well as their joy, hope and the gifts which they contribute to the world.  I begin to realize my own poverty too, accepting that as people we all share a certain brokenness and sense of loss, rejection and unfulfilled needs. I see that the real challenge is having trust in the “Jesus” in others even when I cannot see him.  Believe me, there are moments when I am rubbing my eyes to see Jesus but all I see are mistakes and disappointments.

I am also learning that contained within the act of loving the poorest is the total sphere of human virtue – patience, forgiveness, empathy, hope, perseverance and courage.   The entire demand of God’s message of Love is summed up in the obligation to love the poor because of the implicit call to authenticity and openness of heart that is demanded in practically carrying out this task in daily life (when the romantic filter is gone).

When I ponder all these things, it makes me believe that at the end of time when I am face to face with Jesus, I will only be asked one question: How did you love the poor?

– Mark

Maggie, Mark and Emebet Banga, Comboni Lay Missionaries, Awassa, Ethiopia

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The one thing necessary

Open HandsOne of the most difficult parts of this “missionary” life for me has been accepting all that I am missing out on. In my lowest moments, I think about missing my family, my close guy friends (it is so hard to make authentic peer-to-peer friendships here), my god-children, career development, saving for retirement, my familiar culture, and things like this.  It’s taken a few years to come to terms with all that I need to give up in order to be authentic to God’s invitation for me to become more loving, which at this present moment keeps me in Ethiopia.  Now, most days I feel at peace, which is a logical effect of voluntary sacrifice.  But I have learned that the most important effect is an opening of me to others, a widening of my horizons away from myself to the needs of others.  Thomas Merton’s writings, particularly from “No Man is an Island” have been a great inspiration:

“One who is content with what he has, and who accepts the fact that he inevitably misses very much in life, is far better off and more at peace than one who has or experiences much more but who worries about all he may be missing. For we cannot make the best of what we are, if our hearts are always divided between what we are and what we are not.

The relative perfection which we must attain in this life if we are to live as children of God is not the twenty-four-hours-a-day production of perfects acts of virtue, but a life from which practically all the obstacles to God’s love have been removed or overcome.

One of the chief obstacles to this perfection of selfless love is the selfish anxiety to get the most out of everything, to be a brilliant success in our own eyes and in the eyes of other people. We can only rid ourselves of this anxiety by being content to miss something in almost everything we do. We cannot master everything, taste everything, understand everything, visit everywhere, drain every experience to its last dregs. But if we have the courage to let almost everything go, we will probably be able to retain the one thing necessary for us – whatever it may be. If we are too eager for everything, we will almost certainly miss even the one thing we need.

This type of authentic happiness consists in finding out precisely what the “one thing necessary” may be in our lives and in gladly relinquishing all the rest. For then, by a divine paradox, we find that everything else is given us together with the one thing we needed.”

– Mark

Maggie, Mark and Emebet Banga, Comboni Lay Missionaries, Awassa, Ethiopia

Ethiopia CLMs: Maggie, Mark & Emebet Banga

Maggie, Mark and Emebet

Greetings to you from Ethiopia!  We are Mark, Maggie and our daughter Emebet and we are Comboni Lay Missionaries (CLM) from Canada, serving in Awassa, Ethiopia for 4 years now. The Comboni Fathers, Brothers and Sisters here in Ethiopia have welcomed us very warmly and truly we feel part of the Comboni “Family”.  We joined the CLM motivated by our faith and our desire to make more room in our hearts for God. We felt called to give of ourselves more abundantly in this specific way in cross-cultural mission. We felt this invitation as a new husband and wife, and quite simply, we were excited to say ‘Yes’. Our missionary life has been full and we are gracious to God for all the blessings he has given us.  The biggest blessing has been our daughter Emebet, whom we adopted here in Ethiopia. She is now 2 years old and we are aware everyday of the tremendous gift of Emebet into our lives, and of us into hers.

Maggie served during our first years here at Bushulo Catholic Health Centre, about 7 km south of Awassa, employing her training in Naturopathic medicine in clinical practice and public health activities. Now, Maggie is a full time Mom staying at home with Emebet (the most noble and fun of ministries!). Mark serves at the Awassa Catholic Secretariat, the main coordinating office for the diocese of Awassa which covers the south of Ethiopia. He is the manager of the Catholic Church’s social and development programs, including education, health care, water, women’s promotion, emergency response and other social services to the poorest. Together as husband and wife, we also have other ministries on the side, including working as mentors with the Catholic College and University Students Association in Awassa, facilitating retreat programs at Gethsemani Retreat Centre, teaching an art class at a local orphanage and teaching Theology of the Body.  

Where our work begins and personal time ends is blurred and we are thankful for this. This is a consequence of the missionary life – where our work is our life, our life is our work and both we’re trying to give to God. 

The environment around us is one of severe poverty and destitution with seemingly endless needs.  The demands of this context and the faces of the people living in it are real and challenging to us, and we have no ‘ready made’ answers.  Sometimes we laugh and sometimes we cry and sometimes we look at each other with wide eyes not knowing what to do.  But through all these encounters we are growing and changing as we try our best to live “shoulder to shoulder” with our Ethiopian brothers and sisters.  It is our daily cheerful struggle.  The blog posts and reflections we will share with you are the story of our CLM journey. We pray that God continues to transform both you and us into the people we were created to be.

 

Maggie, Mark and Emebet

Comboni Lay Missionaries

Awassa, Ethiopia