Bridging relationship with Uganda parish brings mutual benefits, parishioner says
PLYMOUTH — Parishioners at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth have taken the Christian directive “love thy neighbor” to the nth degree, with that neighborhood extending all the way to the slums of Bwayiise near Kampala, Uganda.
Some of the larger projects funded by Good Counsel include helping to construct a health clinic and youth center; computers, laptops, printers, scanners and Internet access for the school and key parish personnel; helping procure a new trash incinerator and a kitchen upgrade for the school; and re-stocking the medical clinic’s dispensary.
Smaller-scale purchases such as sports equipment and games for students, tuition support for students, $200 for each of St. Kizito’s teachers to use for the classroom, providing a year of rent for the parish social services director, funding one African parishioner’s spinal surgery and another’s burial are helping to improve the lives of St. Kizito’s people.
But the relationship between the parishes is more than fundraising and charity. The people interact. The school children have pen pals and there have been visits back and forth.
“One of the most important things we do as a parish at Good Counsel is simply pray for our brothers and sisters in Uganda at each and every weekend Mass,” said Bill Tulloch, the leader of a 10-parishioner St. Kizito relationship team. “We also pray for our friends in El Salvador and Detroit,” he added, referring to the bridging relationships the Plymouth parish has with a rural community in El Salvador called Haciendita Uno and St. Aloysius Parish in Detroit.
Most of the assistance Good Counsel sends to Uganda is in the form of direct parish funds and independent donors. There have, however, been some special fundraising efforts at the parish. Former parish Deacon Don Leach slept in a makeshift shanty for a couple of weeks to raise money and awareness, and a “Quarters for St. Kizito” bottle campaign raised some $20,000 over several months. Good Counsel’s school children raised $4,700 during Catholic Schools Week.
“Funds for St. Kizito have come from a wide variety of different sources,” said Tulloch. “The team is currently investigating the possibility of grant writing as a means of growing and maintaining the relationship.”
Tulloch has traveled to Uganda to visit St. Kizito twice and saw first-hand the hardships and challenges of its people. Among their challenges are 70 percent unemployment, extreme poverty, orphans and street children, illiteracy, poor medical care and high rates of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria and a lack of clean water.
“It’s difficult to summarize or quantify all that I saw, lived and experienced during those three weeks in Kampala,” Tulloch said. “The people struggle in their everyday lives, yet never lose faith that something better is coming anytime. They have a tremendous appreciation for the relationship they enjoy with Good Counsel, not just for the tangible support, but for the realization that people out there in the “western world” genuinely care about them. It was so evident everywhere I would go that people simply wanted to have a friend, a contact or a touch-point with someone or some group in America or Europe.”
Good Counsel also paid for St. Kizito’s pastor, Msgr. John Baptist Ssebayigga, to visit his benefactors in October.
“The visit was a smashing success,” Tulloch said. “He con-celebrated and preached all five of our weekend Masses, visited with our school children and socialized with parish members at several social events.”
Msgr. Ssebavigga also toured Detroit and visited some of its least-affluent areas, toured and attended a class at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, and was interviewed on Ave Maria Radio while he was stateside.
“The best thing about this relationship is that we are now sister parishes,” said Msgr. Ssebavigga via email from Uganda. “They have visited our parish and I have visited Our Lady of Good Counsel. These visits have greatly cemented our relationship.
“During my visit in October, I had a chance to see first-hand our sister parish and I was warmly welcomed,” the monsignor said. “What surprised most about Good Counsel was the way the programs of the parish are run, how the priests and parishioners evangelize and communicate so easily and generously.”
According to Tulloch, the parish plans to continue each of its three bridging relationships. Future projects in Uganda are expected to include fully outfitting and staffing the St. Kizito medical clinic, finishing the second floor of the youth center, developing an interactive website for the two parishes, setting up a Skype (video chat) connection between the schools and finding more families to help with school tuition.
“There is no real end-game,” Tulloch said. “Our goal is to grow and nurture this relationship based upon principles of solidarity as defined by Blessed John Paul II.”
Tim Keenan is a freelance writer from Farmington Hills.
