By Terry McGuire
3 Oct 2005
At funeral Masses each month, Oblate Father Celestino Chishimba
says goodbye to four or five parishioners whove died of
AIDS.
Lacking medication and proper sanitation, they die very quickly,
said the pastor of St. Lawrence of Brindisi Parish in Zambia . We
have a lot of orphans.
As in other parts of Africa, HIV/AIDS is pandemic in Zambia , the
pastor said last week during a Seattle visit.
In fact, the parish's coordinator, James Mate Lubilo, who
accompanied the priest to Seattle, said a whole generation is being
lost to the disease, As headmaster of the local government-run
school, Mate sees many children being cared for by their
grandparents because AIDS has wiped out so many adults 25 to 35
years old. The grandparents, too old to work or relocate, struggle
to raise families of six and seven children.
It's terrible, he said of the situation.
The spread of AIDS is one of the challenges facing this parish of
1,020 parishioners in western Zambia , Father Chishimba said.
He was part of a three-member delegation from St. Lawrence making
its first visit to its companion parish, St. Benedict in Seattle,
following an almost five-year-relationship. The third visitor was
parish treasurer Maureen Mwenda, a retired school teacher.
The three joined with St. Benedict School students Sept. 21 for a
Mass in the church, then spoke to students about their parish and
culture in an assembly afterwards.
In an interview with The Catholic Northwest Progress , the Zambian
visitors highlighted some of the challenges facing their
parish.
AIDS would not mean such tragically speedy deaths if sufferers had
the medications to combat the disease, Mwenda said. But you can
have a three-combination medicine (needed), and you can only find
one, she said.
But they said the parish is doing its part to spread AIDS
education, with its young people teaching fellow villagers through
a behavior change program.
Hunger and starvation -- caused in part by poor soil conditions
that allow villagers to grow rice but not much else is another
challenge facing the parish.
Most of what comes to school they are hungry, Mate said. You
can see it from their faces. He said girls are turning to
prostitution just to make money for food.
Other challenges include establishing youth programs to keep the
young people occupied and out of trouble. There is currently
nothing for them after school, but the parish is in the process of
starting a youth center and looking for sports equipment.
Ongoing faith formation for a parish that is geographically the
size of Western Washington also is needed, the pastor said.
A native of northern Zambia , ordained in 2001, Father Chishimba is
one of two priests serving the parish. They are assisted by
religious sisters and an 18-member pastoral team.
There are no roads in the parish, he said, so travel is by off-road
vehicle. To send an e-mail, the pastor travels some nine miles away
to reach a computer.
The parish has 17 churches, each with its own church council. Some
council leaders travel for days for their thrice-a-year meetings.
During the rainy season, October through April, half the parish is
under water.
Most of the 17 outstations don't have a church building. So church
and school take place under a tree.
Mate, the headmaster, bemoans the government's lack of money to
hire school teachers. Some new teachers have been waiting several
years for their first teaching job, he said. Now they're living on
the streets.
