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Fr. Barbero Returns To Serve On The Pan-Africa Secretariat

Fr. Mario Barbero, IMC

Return to Pan-Africa

From October 20 to 26, 2003, I attended the Pan-African WWME meeting in Johannesburg, SA. It was kind of homecoming for me. I had already attended the Panaf, representing WWME Kenya, in the early 80’s in Harare, Zimbabwe. Now I was representing R D Congo, together with Alphonse and Honorine Tshiananga. It was a homecoming also for RD Congo: the last Panaf Congo had attended was in 1988 and, till recently, panaf had no information that WWME in RD Congo was still alive.

The generosity of the ME Word Council and the United States supported our journey and so Congo could join the 8 other ME African teams (Cameroon, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia) to share its joys and sorrows, to be encouraged and enriched by the experience of the other African ME communities. The friendly presence and enlightened wisdom of our World Team Lee and Jan Kremer (Fr. Rich O’Brian could not be with us) was a visible sign of unity with our worldwide ME family. Lee and Jan presided the selection of the new pan-African Team, Daniel and Nadege Flore and Fr. Gerard Sullivan, from Mauritius, that is replacing the outgoing Team, Felix and Winrose Mwangi and Fr. Joseph Kariuki, from Kenya. The selection process was Spirit filled.

One common note in the sharings of the various teams was the difficult economical situation in many countries and the great sacrifices that the ME people have to do in order to share the ME dream, yet it was amazing to see so much joy, hope and commitment in all the participants. To attend the Panaf meeting the Zambia team traveled 22 hours and the Malawi team traveled 28 hours by bus (on roads that are not highways). Kenyan couples and priests shared how they brought ME in the North of Uganda, in a war-torn area, defying the dangers of the rebels who are fighting in that area. We left the meeting with renewed commitment to revive and strengthen the ME in RD Congo. The next Panaf meeting is scheduled for October 2004 in Cameroon.

On a personal note, I was very glad to see Jan and Lee Kremer: they brought back many beautiful memories of the ME community of the US. It was good to meet the Kenyan team (it is in Kenya that I received the gift of the Weekend) and listen to their report about the progress of ME in that country. I was particularly touched in listening to Fr. James, the Tanzanian national priest (the couple could not attend), giving the report about ME in Tanzania. The beginning of ME in Tanzania was a kind of “family business” between my brother Thomas and me back in 1984. Thomas had made the arrangements and recruited couples and priests for the ME weekend in his parish in the diocese of Njombe, and I had sent two team couples and a priest from Kenya to present the first two weekends in Tanzania. Now, 19 years later, there are 4,577 couples 68 priests, and 48 religious who have been encountered in 10 dioceses of Tanzania, notwithstanding the financial hardships and the difficulties of communication and transport.

Marriage Encounter is alive in Africa. The New World experience is a reality and all the troubles of the “Forgotten Continent” cannot destroy the dream and the commitment for “more misadventures”.

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