"You are to feast on all good things
Yahweh has given you,
you and your household,
and with you the Levite
and the stranger who lives among you"
Deuteronomy 26,11
In the Bible, there are three categories of the poor that are under God's immediate protection and they are the stranger, the orphan and the widow. "You must not pervert Justice in dealing with a stranger or an orphan nor take a widow's garment in pledge... (Dt.24,17-22).This number of Stand Up is dedicated to children. They are the future of humankind and have the God given task of being better people then we have been. Events have unfolded recently that demand our attention. While preparing to give the retreat to the Comboni Sisters in Chiswick it struck me how much Comboni stressed that his missionaries should take up the challenge to educate new generations of African children. This is self-evident in the foundation of his two institutes in Cairo, and by the life experience of our Sisters: educating the young generations has been their mission, no matter where.
- Gesualda was first a teacher at Omdurman, a mission of Comboni, in a secondary school for girls and then she went to teach in Lira. "My school girls could not go out on Sundays because the boys of the school run by the Fathers were having their outing. I intervened and faced the Fathers : "I do not want to keep the girls secluded, tell me which side of the village your boys go I will take my girls on the opposite route". Also in the church I found that the boys were sitting in front and the girls behind. I intervened again to make them sit on opposite sides but on the same level.Ida spent many years in a London kinder garden with children of 2-4 years of all nationalities. "Children are innocent and do not see the colour of the skin".
- Olimpia worked in a maternity ward at Kalongo Hospital, talking to mothers of the new-born babies and in daily contact with the youth.
- Maureen was a teacher in Egypt on an island in the Nile both to Christian and Muslim children. "In the schools, by law, the headmaster had to be Egyptian and half of the class Muslim and half Christian. Thus the school children grew up to be friends. On the day that the Mother General came to visit the school, I composed a hymn to mark the occasion and I chose six musically gifted children to sing, but they were all Christians. Someone pointed it out to me and so I had to choose some of the Muslim children".
- Anna Philippe for 25 years took up teaching in the senior school of the Sacred Heart in Gulu to 12 classes of girls of different tribes, "I was pleased to see the same girls return to be teachers in their turn. The dream of Comboni of saving Africa with Africa was being fulfilled".
- Rita in her early days in the Sudan worked in schools under the British system of education. There were only few Sudanese girls in school - parents disapproved of the idea of educating girls. "There was no rain and the Elders organized three days of prayer on the mountain and offered their sacrifice but it still did not rain. So I called on and gathered up the children to make them pray and after two days it rained. The adults were puzzled."
We, as Fathers, may also have our memories of our personal experiences in the missions of the education of the youth. I know it is difficult to take the gamble of working again with them here at home, but if we do not, then we will have no future!