Wonderful response to the missionary appeal - Uganda 2018

By Frs. Arasu Lazar and Ubaldino Andrade, SDB

Palabek, Uganda, 19 February 2018 -- Last week some distinguished visitors from Rome (Missions and Social Communication sector), Fr. Camile Swertwager (AGL provincial) and the Archbishop of Gulu His Grace John Baptist Odama inaugurated the new Salesian community at Palabek Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda. Fr. Arasu was appointed as the first Rector of this community.

We are happy to have the fifth Salesian Community in Uganda. And also we are happy that three Salesians accepted the emergency appeal of the Rector Major last October-November 2017. We will be four Salesians serving over 41,000 refugees through Nursery, Primary, Secondary and Vocational Schools. Of course we will have plenty of spiritual and pastoral work. And now we are happy despite the harsh conditions.

In this place is our new community, a house for two missionaries, a house without many rooms, a single room, divided by curtains - tarps of UNHCR (United Nations Refugees Agency), thatched roof and walls and floor of mud; on one side a space for sleeping, for a bed or a plastic mat that we extends on the floor at night. On the other side four chairs with a small table that serves as an altar to celebrate the mass of each day and where we pray in the morning and in the afternoons; where we sit down to talk, plan, and evaluate the work of each day. Where we eat what is prepared in a small hut in the open air. This is also our refuge, where we hide, to wait for the storms of common sand to pass during these seasons or where we take refuge to wait for the heavy and extremely hot hours of the noon, where it is almost impossible to do something outside a covered place. In a nearby place, there is our latrine and an improvised room where we take a shower with water to be brought from the well, about 250 meters from our camp.

History tells us that the place where the refugee camp is located was the land of fighting peoples, warriors; peoples who always sought to show other peoples their warrior power. In one of these battles the missionaries intervened to establish peace, forcing the warriors to keep their weapons. "PALA" means knife, machete, etc ... "BEK" put bag, return to your bag .... "Pala-bek" - "Put bag - the knife" ... Put bag the weapon of war... In the midst of the warriors and using these words: "Pala-bek! Pala-bek!.... the missionaries managed to stop the fighting and establish peace. This is the origin of the name of the place where the refugee center is now located: "Palabek"

Please, accompany us and our South Sudanese refugees in your prayers!

Related news:

• AustraLasia 4563 (III) December 2017: Appeal for the SDB missionary volunteers among the refugees (Uganda)

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