David Alton reports from the Turkana Desert
It is now two years since the community started planting coconut and date palm-trees in the villages near the highly saline Lake Turkana. Planting trees has involved fencing the orchards from foraging animals. There is also more to be done in educating villagers about the necessity of the daily watering of the trees. Fr Albert Salvans took me to one of the rock catchments that the mission has built across small valleys that flood once or twice a year. Since they built their first dam at Nyiburin near the mission, more than five years ago, 14 more have followed. And four others are under construction. Each dam assures permanent water supply for around six hundred people and their livestock. Previously these people had to migrate to the areas bordering Sudan and Uganda during the dry season. With the help of two new excavators they have started building sand dams in the places where the absence of bedrock prevents the construction of rock catchments. Fr Albert says he desperately needs two Massey Ferguson tractors to get on with this work.
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Like the plane they need this is about life and death. The daily quest for drinking water for Turkana families is perhaps the most poignant sight you will see in Turkana. Women are crouched in the riverbeds scooping out sand trying to find water below. It is backbreaking work and these manual wells are always in danger of collapsing. When the rainy season comes and the women's water holes are covered in sand the process has to begin all over again. Perhaps the picture of water bringing life to the arid land is the best metaphor of all for these remarkable missionaries. See more about Albert Salvans ... Their water of life, through baptism and through development, brings the only hope in the lives of countless people. So what might we do to help? A parish in North London runs a small charity, New Ways that supports the work in Turkana. Bishop Harrington told me that he would like to twin his diocese with one in Britain. Why not put that to your own bishop? Parishes can twin too, perhaps taking on the building of a dam, a well, an irrigation project, a dispensary, a school or the pastoral support of the young men and women of this exciting and vibrant community.
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They also need volunteers - single and married - to commit themselves to working in the diocese, especially as catechists , teachers, and medics. And what else? On this Mission Sunday it is worth recalling what Fr Albert told the four men going forward for ordination next year. He reminded them of what Don Bosco's mother told him on the day of his ordination: "To become a priest is to begin to suffer." But the old Irish saying that where there is no pain there is no gain can comfort missionary priests. See more about Albert Salvans ...In Turkana the Missionaries of St Paul are standing at the centre of immense suffering and pain but they are making remarkable gains. It puts our own interminable introspective concerns into perspective. We are part of a universal church and these missionaries deserve our prayers and our practical support.
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You can write to Fr Albert Salvans at PO Box 49547, Nairobi, Kenya, or e-mail him at mcspa@form-net.com This article has been published on-line with permission of Lord Alton. It will be printed in The Catholic Times for Mission Sunday, October 20th 2002.
