6th April 2009 - Holy Week

Monday of Holy Week and Easter is just around the corner. I hope that this week will be a blessed one for all, and the celebration of Easter a joyous and life-giving time. I was reading some things about Easter today on the Spirituality and Practise website, about how we could think about resurrection as a verb, how when we are people of resurrection and hope, we defy death, forgive, do things that are life-giving, fight death and needless suffering. When we affirm others and their life, when we treat everyone with dignity and the possibility of a relationship with us, then we are people of life, of resurrection. Anyway, enough of that fervoreno, and I wish for all of you the graces of this season.

Tomorrow I leave Arusha on the 6.00 a.m. bus to Dodoma. I have an appointment with the Bishop to discuss the possibility of ministry there and so I'm looking forward to the trip, to the conversation, and to hopefully getting a little bit more of a direction as to what lies ahead. The trip is to take 11 hours, so it will be a long day tomorrow. Hopefully the road won't be too muddy and we won't get stuck or that the bus won't break down. I'm thinking positively.

And after a couple days there in Dodoma I'll move on to Singida, probably an overnight there, and then to Nangwa and the celebration of Easter with my good friend, Bibiana, and her family. Her daughter will not be going home for the holiday, but the boys (three of them) plan to be there. Nangwa is where I lived between 1980 and 1988, and so it will be good to revisit the place. It is situated right at the base of Mt. Hanang, the third highest mountain in Tanzania which is a little over 11,000 ft. It was right out my window all of those years, and a very lovely place. It gets cold, however, and I remember times that I could hardly write on the blackboard because of cold and stiff fingers. It shouldn't be too cold yet in April; coldest months are July and August. It's a great wheat growing area, so I expect I'll see fields of sprouting or very short wheat.

More when I return after Easter.