Dear Friends

Greetings from Ewuaso Kedong. Since I wrote to you last it looks like the rainy season has come and gone. It began well in March with some very heavy rain for a couple of days, so much that the Ewuaso Kedong river, which is normally a dry river bed, was a swollen torrent impassable to man, beast or car. I was marooned in Ewuaso until it subsided after 24 hours. Everything turned green immediately but that was it apart from a few light showers!!

Since then we have had nothing but searing sun and scorching heat and everything is dry and very dusty again. We are ever hopeful and keep praying for rain and even though it is the middle of May we hope some more rain will come.

Since I last wrote we have had the celebration of Holy Week and Easter which went very well this year and as I was helped by two other priests, every mass centre had mass celebrated on Easter Sunday. It was truly a blessing for the people. During the Easter Sunday celebrations more than 50 people, adults and children, were baptised.

Politically Kenya has settled down but serious attempts have to be made to resolve and reconcile different communities / tribes in order to avoid the same outburst of violence ever happening again.

In this picture you can see the view from my door of the
flood outside the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. Near the
wall in front what appears to be snow is in fact hail stones.

Updates:

Saikeri

The work of building a small church goes ahead in Saikeri though it is a bit behind schedule. The reason for this is that we have encountered big problems with water.

In Saikeri there is a community water project which used to operate with a windmill to pump the water but this broke down some years ago and since then the water is pumped out of the ground by diesel generator.

The water project is right next door to us, only 200 yards away. I never took any interest in it as I was just passing and had no need for water. When we started building we applied for and were granted a water connection to the mission plot. However we have been unable to get water and have had to pay women to bring buckets of it to the mission for the building and also had to travel to a borehole about 6 kilometres away to get water.

It turns out that the community water project is on its last legs. Through years of the greed of a few people which has had the result of bad management and little or no maintenance, the machines they have are almost dead and are only able to pump the water out of the ground to a holding tank beside the borehole. They do not have power enough to pump it anywhere else and so the local hospital, school and towns people must come and collect their water from the tank beside the borehole.

We began our building there in January but have been frustrated by the problems of water shortage. I have given money to them for repairing the generator but still the problem persists.

However despite all this the building continues and above can be seen how the project was as of last Sunday.

This Church is being built with financial help from the Vatican and also from the parish of St. Vincent de Paul Marino and St. Thomas Moor Parish in New Zealand.

Once completed we hope to hold a fundraiser in the parish so as to be able to buy an altar, benches and other furniture and then we plan for an official opening later in the year.

Ewuaso Primary School

This school is our immediate neighbour here in Ewuaso Kedong. Since beginning the Kindergarten School here in the mission compound many parents have been asking us to start a primary school. While this would seem like a good idea I have felt that there is no use in duplicating what is already present in the area and that it would be better to assist the Government run primary school and the people involved to uplift their school.

I wrote before in Newsletters numbers 13 and 15 about this. And now I can report that work has begun. Already the school buildings and playing field has been encircled with a chain link fence.

The Headmaster is a very dedicated man and in discussions with him their priorities were worked out. First in the list was a fence to keep animals out of the school compound and the children in during school time.

The next phase of the project is to build an office for the headmaster and a room for the staff, which the headmaster has proudly called an administration block. At present all of the staff are in a small windowless room of a building made from mud.

More news on this as it proceeds.

Lyons Tea Bonanza

Thanks once again to the children of Ballyboy Primary School in Offaly, Ireland who this time collected coupons from Lyons Tea and entered a competition where Lyons Tea would give 10,000 Euro to a charity of the winners choice. They nominated the parish and they won.

We used the money to rehabilitate the water connection to the Government Dispensary here in Ewuaso Kedong. The existing pipes had corroded and they no longer got any water, not a very healthy situation in a hospital. We were able to renew the system and now they get water thanks to the children of Ballyboy and Lyons Tea.

With the money that was left over after this we were able to complete a small hay store that had laid incomplete because of lack of funds. This hay is used for the goat project.

Bee Project

Funny how things happen. Two months ago we had an invasion of bees into the ceiling area of one of the houses. Morris, who is the farm manager, has training not only in farming but also in bee-keeping. So we invested in two bee hives and he bravely went up into the ceiling area at night and took out the queen. Both hives now have been inside. We are hoping that we will have nice pure honey before long.

Other News

For those of you who have the Internet you can now visit our Parish Website. The address is:

www.riftvalleykenya.com Let me know what you think. I take no credit for setting this up, all credit goes to Mr. Frank Walsh who did all the work. Thanks Frank and keep up the good work. I hope the next time I am in Ireland we can finally meet and I can learn how to update the site myself.

2009 Projects

Already we have begun looking towards 2009 and the projects that have to be taken up during the course of that year.

These will include the girls rescue centre, which I have spoken about before, for housing 24 girls in Ewuaso Kedong, the multipurpose community hall in Kibiko and completing the sister’s convent in Ewuaso Kedong.

All these are big undertakings and will involve looking for funding from different organisations and benefactors. We live in hope.

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A group of young girls from Ewuaso 
who recently underwent an alternative
      rite of passage rather than the 
  traditional one which involves FGM

The people of the parish continue to pray for their benefactors and especially for those who are sick. These include: Fr. Christopher Fitzgerald, Fr. Ernie Milne, Mr. Don Ryder & Mr Tom Collier

As the northern hemisphere moves into summer I wish you all a enjoyable time. I won’t be travelling this year but hope to see you all in 2009.

Keep praying for Ewuaso Kedong and me.

God bless you all.

John

As always:

Donations are always needed and appreciated for the work in the parish and can be sent to:

Fr. Patrick Pierce I.C.

Rosminian House of Prayer,

Glencomeragh House,

Kilsheelan,

Co. Tipperary,

Ireland

Tel: + 353 52 33181

Or directly to

AIB Bank 65/67 O’Connell St.,

Clonmel,

Co. Tipperary

A/c Name: IPIC Ewuaso

A/c No.: 40016297

Sort code: 93 53 79

Or in the U.S.A. to

Fr. Christopher Fitzgerald I.C.

St. Francis of Assisi Parish,

P.O. Box 1218

Seffner,

Florida 33583

U.S.A.

Tel: +1 813 689 4241