Plymouth parish supports medical clinic, school to help poor Christians in Africa

Since 2011, parishioners at Our Lady of Good Counsel have lifted children out of poverty, illiteracy in Kampala, Uganda

PLYMOUTH — In the 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus commands his disciples that "whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."

For Christians living in Plymouth, Michigan, the "least brothers" aren't always nearby; in some cases, they're 8,000 miles and seven time zones away.

For a handful of parishioners at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Plymouth, serving their brothers and sisters in Kampala, Uganda, is a way to put their common faith into practice.

The road to Kampala isn’t one the average Michigander will take, but the Holy Spirit has paved a path across the ocean and into the slums where the poorest of the poor live, said Bill Tulloch, one of three Our Lady of Good Counsel parishioners who made the original pilgrimage to St. Kizito Parish in 2011.

Our Lady of Good Counsel's pastor at the time, Fr. John Riccardo, challenged Tulloch and Deacon Don Leach to explore ways to reach out and build a relationship with a Catholic community in Africa because, Tulloch said, “Africa is where the Catholic Church is most alive and growing.”

At the time, Deacon Leach was working on a documentary on global poverty and had visited the Archdiocese of Kampala in the mid-2000s. Tulloch said it was then that the Holy Spirit answered their prayer and showed him St. Kizito’s.

Deacon Leach, who died in 2017, visited the community and found what it needed most was not another church, but a medical clinic.

St. Kizito Bwaise Parish was started in 1987 in the central region of Uganda. Tulloch said the parish is made up of 10 sub-parishes, hours apart, serving 25,000 people. One priest, Msgr. John Baptist Ssebayiga, and one associate priest travel between the sub-parishes, offering pastoral care.

“They didn't have any urgent care,” said Chuck Salter, who promotes the ministry locally. In a poor community without medical care, Salter said, minor wounds can quickly turn to gangrene. “They, in some cases, lost their legs over something that was or could have been handled so easily.”

The effort quickly got under way to build a medical clinic. It took about two years, but the Plymouth parish was able to raise $300,000 to construct a three-story building, Salter said.

Because of the value of the dollar being so much higher than the Ugandan currency, the money raised by Our Lady of Good Counsel went even further, he added.

“I'd always tell people, the general rule in Uganda is — it all depends on what you're buying — but money goes about 10 times further than it does here. So our $300,000 was like putting a $33 million building up,” Salter said.

And the parish is not finished yet.

Another Our Lady of Good Counsel parishioner, Jasmin Walker, who has been to St. Kizito said two floors of the medical center are finished, and funds have been raised to support medical staff, supplies, and an ambulance. The third floor is not yet complete, but construction is finished a little at a time as funds are raised.

In addition to the medical clinic, Our Lady of Good Counsel's generosity also supports a school, Walker said, including a scholarship program that allows children to graduate not just from high school, but to attend trade school or college.

“The cost of tuition is a fraction of the price we pay in the U.S.,” Walker explained. “For elementary-age children, it's like $255 a semester, and that includes room and board, because all the children we sponsor board at the school.”

No matter where a child’s family lives, they board at the school, and their tuition covers books, learning materials, a place to sleep, and food, Walker said.

“The kids do better if they board at the school because they get four meals a day," Walker said. "I’m not talking fancy meals; it’s beans and rice, porridge for breakfast, and porridge for a snack.”

The system is set up to help at least one child in each family, and the boarding school means they are in a safe environment.

“If they go home a lot of times, they have to take care of other kids in the home, so they don’t do their homework, or there’s no electricity at home, or they’re not safe at home,” Walker said.

The lack of electricity and infrastructure is not only a problem in the children’s homes, but also in school. Salter said Our Lady of Good Counsel wants to purchase laptops and tablets for students, but “they don't have electricity to keep them charged at their house.”

More important than laptops and electronic devices, the school aims to combat a generational problem of illiteracy, both Walker and Salter said. A great majority of the children in the school don't have a father at home.

“Out of 117 kids, to my knowledge, there is not one dad involved,” Salter said. “It’s all moms, aunts, or grandmas that raise these kids because the dads — as soon as they find out the woman’s pregnant, boom, they’re gone.”

Walker and her husband sponsor several young people, and have seen the fruits of their effort.

“We’ve sponsored six kids in the program,” she said. “One gal graduated and went to vocational training as well as midwifery school.”

They’ve been blessed, Walker said, because they’ve been able to see that child complete her education, “and now she’s working at the health center giving back to the people who have supported her.”

Over the past decade and a half, a lot of work has been done in the Ugandan community, but there is much more to be completed. Walker and Salter continue to be on the front lines of fundraising and promoting the effort, even among the Our Lady of Good Counsel community.

The effort is supported in part by the 200-member men’s prayer group at Our Lady of Good Counsel, but “there’s a ton of people at OLGC who still don’t even know what St. Kizito is,” Salter said.

Among the projects on the horizon, the pair hopes to bring Fr. Ssebayiga to Plymouth for a visit soon, but a September visit this year had to be canceled.