Well Cardinal....better late than never right?
This last leg of the trip we went to the Kayanga diocese but we had to fly to Bukoba and Father was to pick us up from there. Actually the Kayanga diocese is only 12 years old and was split from the diocese to it's east. However in Cardinal Rugambwa's time this huge region was all the diocese of Bukoba.
When you land at the airport you fly right over the Cathedral where Cardinal Rugambwa is buried. It was our first stop immediately after leaving the airport. Fr. Novatus met us and happily brought us to see the Cardinal's tomb. I must say that I was quite moved by the experience. It left me a little speechless. It was something else to be in the home place of the man who had visited us so long ago.
I'm not sure what to say about the next 3 days that followed....
Fr. Novatus took us on such and adventure! He told me no worries he'll pick us up from Bukoba and then take us to Karagwe and it's only 100 km and there are good tarmac roads. This was true but he didn't happen to mention that this would only be the first stop; to see the Cathedral of the new diocese and meet the bishop. Actually we would make maybe 15 stops over the next 3 days and we wouldn't reach his parish until late Saturday (we arrived Thursday at noon).
Upon our return to Moshi we were telling Fr Josephat about our adventures with Fr Novatus and he laughed. He said, I thought it might be like that, we joke here that people from Bukoba must show you everything. We certainly found this to be true!
Father is involved with coordinating the Young Catholic Students and his diocese has 60 secondary schools. Public schools also have YCS groups as do the private Lutheran schools. He was determined to show us as many as possible as well as his hometown, many of his relatives, and probably about 9 parishes including the one where he is stationed.
In fact we did all these things and stayed in a different place each night. It only involved driving 6 plus hours a day LOL. And the roads certainly were mostly not Tarmac from our first night onwards. As we were bumping along Father would exclaim in his jolly way, this is African Tarmac road and laugh.
After leaving the airport we only stopped at one parish, a Lutheran school and the diocese of Kayanga Cathedral before arriving at the bishops house. It was only a taste of what was to come and I'm sure I'll mix up all the details because it was a blur!
We had a very good meeting and supper with the bishop. It was late in the evening because he was actually away at his sisters funeral. He and Fr Castor, his secretary kindly welcomed us. They took great interest in MH and told us all about there new diocese. They are few priests and there bishop and some religious but they are proud that they have been given the task of being their own diocese. Father says to us often, Priests here are working very very hard, very very hard.
Interestingly, the bishop is very interested in herbs. He served us his special herb tea that has over 100 different ingredients. He has quite the garden with tonnes of varieties of herbs and a laminated chart of herbs and their pictures on the wall in his dinning room!
A young sister was also joining us that evening. She had just made vows in the a religious congratulations founded in India under the patronage of Mary Immaculate. She had come to greet her home bishop before being stationed in Sami, which is not to far from Moshi.
After dinner we prayed night prayer with the Bishop and the diocesan sisters who live with him. Then Sleep....then our road trip adventure begins with Father Novatus. But first morning prayer and mass at 6 with the Bishop.
PS....these are the glass doors to the bishops dinning room. Super cool right? This diocese is super into the Sacred Heart. I was delighted. And in case I forget to mention a lot of the missionaries that came here were from Canada. They had names like Gannon and Lyndsay. 😊. White Father from Quebec maybe?
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