The first week of November our Spiritan Refugee Service (SRS) community was blessed by a visit from Fr. Florentine Mallya, C.S.Sp., the provincial of the Province of Tanzania, and Fr. Evod Shao, C.S.Sp., the head of the province’s planning and development office.

They attended two Sunday Masses, one with the Burundian Catholic community and the other with the Congolese Catholic community in the Nyarugusu refugee camp located in Makere Town of the Kasulu District in Kigoma. The faithful of both communities were overjoyed to receive our two confreres in liturgies unique to each of their countries of origin.

However, the exuberant celebrations belie their increasingly difficult daily life in the camp. Stringent measures have been put in place with the intent to bring the refugees to decide to return to their countries of origin. Those measures include closing the markets and knocking down the small shops, as well as the prohibition of motorcycles and bicycles.

Another area of serious concern to us is a shortage of international funding that has resulted in the lack of essential medicines and increasing difficulty in getting referrals for treatment outside the camp in serious cases. The shortage of funding also affects the availability of appropriate foods for the dietary needs of the elderly and people with serious illnesses like diabetes and/or high blood pressure. All these issues have serious implications for the health and well-being of those affected.

For our part, we often act as liaisons between the health services and aid agencies to request assistance, especially for the chronically ill and disabled. However, policy decisions taken concerning restrictions imposed on the refugees and questions of shortage of funding are taken at levels far beyond our own sphere of influence. For that reason, we are also exploring alternative avenues for advocacy through the existing church leadership structure.

The visit of Fr. Florentine and Fr. Evod also provided a good opportunity to reflect on these twenty-seven years of the SRS’ ministry and to look forward to the future. Over the years, many confreres have shared in this ministry. Among them, there have always been specific confreres who have served as anchors for extended periods of time. That continuity is essential in an environment where there is constant turnover in the leadership of the government and aid agencies with the resulting frequent changes in policies affecting the daily lives of the refugees.

Similarly, we have a great interest in preparing our young confreres for future engagement in our ministry by way of offering pastoral experiences, either during vacation time or for longer experiences like a one to two year pastoral engagement.

With respect to the future of our ministry, we see a long-term presence of a core group of refugees, even though the majority of them will either return to their countries of origin or be resettled to third countries, like the United States.

In addition, as a part of an outreach to the refugee hosting community of Kigoma, we are currently constructing a health facility on a twenty-two-acre plot owned by the congregation in Makere Town. The facility will be part of a permanent commitment by the Province of Tanzania to the presence of a Spiritan community in Kigoma. Together with the health facility, a Spiritan residence will be built on the same plot.

If there are any regrets we have, it is that over the past twenty-seven years of our ministry with refugee communities, we have only accepted two young men in our formation program. Concerns are often raised over the effect of life in exile on the motivations and emotional fitness of candidates from the refugee camps.
From our perspective, we are convinced that, just as God continued to accompany the Israelites throughout their frequent experiences of war and exile, so too the Holy Spirit continues to call young men and women to consecrated ministry in the church. For example, in the three camps where we have served the Burundian Catholic community in exile, there is a group on Facebook’s Whatsapp formed by sixteen priests and sisters from those camps, at least seven of whom are priests.

One alternative to explore would be to open the door to young men from the camps who have been resettled in the United States to join our congregation.

Let us close with our sincere thanks to the U.S. Province for its very generous support of our ministry going all the way back to its inception in 1995, when Fr. Paul Flamm, C.S.Sp. did his overseas training program with our Tanzanian confreres working with the refugees from Rwanda.

Our gratitude also extends to the Spiritan Office for Mission Advancement (SOMA) for funds they contributed that enabled us to build two churches for the Burundian Catholic community in Nyarugusu, and, most recently, funding for a block of toilets to be built for the health facility under construction. We are also very grateful to our private benefactors like the Bethany Foundation which has also generously contributed to our ministry since the early 2000’s.

May God bless you all
Spiritan Refugee Service
Kigoma, Tanzania
December 2022

• This story was originally shared in the Spring 2023 issue of One Heart, One Spirit. You can read more stories from the issue, here.