Dear Friends,

  It is now the last hour of my birthday before I go to bed and call it a day.  I want to thank anyone and everyone of you who sent me a birthday greeting.  I truly appreciate it, and so many of you mentioned saying a prayer for me, which I greatly appreciate.  The times of celebrations have been truly good, so enjoyable.  the big gathering was last evening's dinner, preceded by a social with camembert (spelling?) cheese and Chivas Regal to sip on, even some sliced ham and multi-grain bread.  I loved it.  Today a friend cooked me a chocolate cake, my first one in a year, my first one since arriving in Kenya last year.  It tasted really great (no icing on it however!).

  I have been working diligently on preparing my classes for a weekly course at Hekima college, the Jesuit seminary in Nairobi, starting on august 27.  The course focuses on Teresa of Avila's classic writing:  The Interior Castle, her image for the soul of a human being.  she talks about the progressive growth of the human person through rooms that go deeper and deeper, closer and closer to the center of the soul, where Christ waits to receive us.  This book so fascinates me.  And I have found a commentary on it that is just outstanding--in fact two commentaries, one the students must read along with Teresa's book, the other for me to digest and incorporate into the classes as we go along.  I have't done any sustained teaching in over 14 months and really look forward to being back in the classroom with these future priests, all Africans.  I don't know yet how many I will get.  It is an elective, that is, not a required course.  So I might get five people, I might get 20 people.  We shall soon know.

  A stunning statistic I heard on a TV news program a few days ago: In 20 years from now 4 out of every ten babies born in this world will be born in Africa of African mothers.  This continent is going to be more and more prominent in the world's future.  I feel honored to be here at this time to do my little part, to plant seeds of God's workings and leave behind some people trained and ready to take this great work of God to its next level of development.  What stories we will tell in the next life when we look back on what God did with our lives, what God accomplished with our cooperation in the hearts and minds of the people of our times.

  I need to go to bed.  Please pray for the many unemployed of this nation.  Work is so hard to find for many; they scrape by for their families.  In some parts of this country where there has been long-term drought, people are dying from starvation.  It is so tough.  And South Sudan, just to the north and west of us, is so ripped up because of that endless war, so too Syria and now the peoples of Iraq, especially the Christians of Iraq.  The world is really cruel in some places.  It has no mercy at all for the weak, for those who are different from those who have power and want to force others to live in their way and for their privileges.

  Have a blessed weekend!


Bernie Owens