Expand your hearts and minds

The Bismarck Diocese established a mission to serve the children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic in Africa by sending four missionaries there in 1990. Since then, several clergy and laypeople have followed their vocation 8,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to continue the efforts established there nearly 35 years ago.

Bishop Kagan recently announced a new opportunity available called short-term missionary program. The Bismarck Mission will welcome people who have a desire to “come and see” the mission and share in its life on a short-term basis (three weeks up to six months). An opportunity to experience a different culture in a country which became independent from the United Kingdom rule in 1963. Our mission is located near Kissi, in Kenya, East Africa, near the equator, in beautiful highlands surrounded by fields of tea.

Missionary opportunity

Over the years, you may have read articles in the Dakota Catholic Action and watched the videos at your church when it was time for the annual African Mission Appeal. Those avenues for learning about and supporting the mission are good and fruitful, but now the possibility exists for volunteers to travel to Kenya and experience the mission on a short-term basis.

It’s a rare opportunity to be the hands, feet and voice of Christ in Kenya by serving our brothers and sisters through the various programs administered by the mission. It is also an opportunity to allow oneself to be shaped and formed by people of deep faith who live in poverty. The heart of the mission is the education program that serves over 450 orphaned and vulnerable children.    

God’s plans are always better than ours and at times we don’t clearly understand how His handiwork is interwoven in our lives. He provides challenges in our lives and our job is to identify them and meet and accept those challenges, recognizing God’s handiwork. A short-term visit may help you to discern the call to serve in a longer three-year term at the mission. Not many people can make such a long-term commitment for various reasons but for those who can and would like to volunteer for a shorter period, the short-term missionary program provides you that opportunity.   

There are many ways that one can support the mission—prayers and financial means to name a few—but it is a privilege and heartwarming to witness first-hand the effects, the fruits born, and the hope given because of the generosity of the people in the Bismarck Diocese. You get to see the smiles on the faces of the children and hear their expressions of gratitude when they are given their monthly ration of maize (corn), their small stipend or have their school and uniform fees paid. You will be able to hear delighted children when they have achieved higher school grades earning them a kuku (chicken), a mattress, cooking oil or other gifts for their Christmas or Easter present. You will experience expressions of gratitude when a family has received supplies to build a simple house or was the recipient of a bred heifer which will eventually provide milk for a family to drink. You will receive warm hugs and firm handshakes when a mama receives a bucket and water filter which will provide safe drinking water for her children or when the mission has paid a child’s medical care or for a pair of glasses that otherwise could not be afforded. You will see and witness, first-hand, the profound joy despite poverty that permeates daily life and witness the pain that poverty brings which can be very hard. All these experiences, whether painful or joyful, will help to expand your hearts and minds and deepen your relationship with God.

We invite you to “come and see.”

Support the mission

For more information on the diocesan African Mission, view this year's appeal video or donate, go to our website at bismarckdiocese.com/african-mission.

Written and shared by Kathy and Wes Pepple, our missionaries serving in Kenya, and Chuck Reichert, diocesan Director of the African Mission.