SJES ROME

It is Saturday night, a night for PEACE PRAYER OUTREACH. We are on a prayerful night-walk through the lanes where migrants and trafficked women await customers at Geylang, Singapore.

I am Fr. Mauki, a Tanzanian Jesuit from the Eastern Africa Province of the Society of Jesus. I joined the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) team in Malta to consolidate the pastoral accompaniment of JRS for African asylum seekers amid migrants present in Malta.

Kyabé is located in the Lake Iro Division, in the southwest of the Republic of Chad. It is the capital of this division and is 900 km from N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. It is a rural environment where Arabic speakers live alongside the Sara-Kaba, the indigenous people of the region.

"Our lives depend on the flow of the Mekong. When it comes up to high tide during the rainy season, the waters of the river flood the riverbank. That is the right time for planting; we become farmers. When the river is in its low tide, the land is drained and there is no possibility to water the riverbank and to continue planting. Then we turn to be fishermen again."

I would like to speak about a foreign worker I tried to help. When I met him, he asked me to help him to change companies. From the first, I realized it would be difficult. At present our Korean government imposes some impediments toward migrant workers changing companies because employers want the migrants to continually serve their company.

“Will anyone volunteer to go to Bombay to help in an action research study on the eviction of pavement and slum dwellers conducted by a Social Work College?” asked my Rector while I was doing my first year of philosophy in Pune in 1985.

In the southern part of Colombian state of Nariño, we have started down the path towards local and regional sustainability, understood as a life choice in harmony with the surrounding environment.

My involvement with the Tertians – Jesuits who are undergoing a final formal period of formation before taking their fourth vow - began at a joint birthday party. The Tertian Master, Pat O’Sullivan SJ, was pleased to meet me there.

San Quentin State Prison is an iconic American prison. Over 150 years old, it has witnessed thousands of prisoners pass through its massive iron gates. As all prisons, it has developed within its walls a spirit of oppression and cruelty.

This is the story of the village of ‘Agnipuri’ (A village of Fire). When I was appointed parish priest in Darsi, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, I soon heard of a neighbouring village called Erraobanapalli, which is more than 100 years old.