Good afternoon, Friends, I write on Friday, December 1, on a day with temps in the mid to high 70s and I am surrounded by blue skies and lots of flowers. So different from what many of you are now experiencing. It is a stark reminder for me of how life is in the southern hemisphere of the world. Our hottest months will be the next three, the heart of summer for us. I had planned on making my annual retreat (8 days mandated for every Jesuit every year) in Mombasa, a port city on the Indian ocean abut 250 miles from here during Christmas week and the first few days of January. But some Jesuits who visited there recently said, "Wow is it HOT^ there and humid too." That comment made me change my mind right away. I cannot do any work at all, let alone pray and make a retreat, when my skin is wet and I am perspiring so, which would be the case in that city. It is great for tourists. Many Kenyans who have at least modest money will take their children there over Christmas time to play in the water, which is truly wonderful I am told. So, like the last four years I am staying here for my retreat and have whatever resources at hand I will need. Besides, this setting is really beautiful for making a retreat, especially if you can be under a tree during the middle of the day. I have just finished leading 17 people through an 8-day retreat in which I gave the talks, two a day, and made myself available for numerous one-on-one conversations with any of them who needed that. I had many, many pages to xerox and staple. I established the theme for each article, then gave it to them as a summary and points/topics to pray from. The entire retreat was about who is the Spirit of God, what does that Spirit do in each of us and in the world. It seems many Christians have little or no knowledge of who is this Holy Spirit, so to provide instruction on this fundamental of our faith -life seemed fitting, reflected in how glad people were to get instruction and be able to pray much more deeply in regard to the Spirit. They loved the retreat from what I can see, but wow, was I ever tired when we finished yesterday. This past month of November has been a demanding one for me. Besides the retreat I was host, taxi-driver sometimes, and tour guide for part of two weeks for three American friends. The highlight of the two weeks was the four of us going to Masai Mara, the spacious game park in western Kenya, a 6 hour drive from here, an hour and a half of it over very bumpy roads. IN two full days and parts of two other days we saw so, so many wild animals. In one day we saw what are called the big five: lions, elephants, leopard, water buffalo, and rhinos. All in all, we saw 31 lions, all of them up close (maybe 40 feet away from our four-wheeler), some 25 feet away; 14 giraffes (so elegant!), one hyena, one rhino, countless water buffalo, wildebeasts, heartebeasts, and zebras, a few crocodiles, a dozen or so cheetahs, countless antelopes, gazelles, impalas, guinea-fowls, baboons, and many, many hippos, two of which came to the back area of our lodging and were so loud when munching grass. I woke up at 4:30 AM two of the mornings we were there because of the noise thinking it was an elephant up close to my bedroom window; instead it was a mother hippo with her baby munching in a rhythmic manner. What a site. They were probably 35-40 feet away from me. One of the most dramatic scenes was two female lions eating a wildebeast. We had come upon this scene maybe 20 minutes after the chase and kill. One lion was the mother of the other; she was gorged and lying almost on her back sound asleep. The daughter lioness, maybe 2-3 years old, had the wildebeast on its side and was feasting on the rib cage area and then worked hard to turn over the victim to get at more of the flesh yet to be torn off and eaten. One of the wildebeast's front legs was sticking straight up in the air while being worked over by this pretty large lioness. All of this happened in the middle of a shallow river; the wildebeast was lying on a sandbar and part of its body in the stream with the water running by gently. For me a bonus was the enormous vistas one gets at that park. I think it must be 50-70 miles in all directions; you can see in all directions over very gently rolling meadows with some mountains that form boundaries at opposite ends, 80-100 miles away. Very few trees over these vistas. It was so impressive to spot zebras, water buffalo and herds of elephants at different parts of the park at great distances. Binoculars really helped. One other very impressive scene was a herd of elephants up close with a baby elephant perhaps 2-3 weeks old. It was so interesting to watch the baby stick very close to its mother and be on the other side of her away from us. We would stop, turn off our engine, and stare for like a half hour. A moment of great humor came when I spotted on the side of our road in the park what is called a dung beetle. It is about the size of an adult's thumb. It rolls into a ball the dung of animals in the area, like that of the impalas and antelopes, and pushes with its rear legs this ball while pivoting off its front legs. It was hilarious watching how vigorously this beetle was pushing, doing its job to provide food for its eggs. I need to go, friends. Another batch of retreatants comes in this evening, so I go back to work with six people to guide in one-on-ones conversations each day. A blessed Advent and Christmas to each and all of you. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, It is November 2, the day Roman Catholics especially remember in prayer the deceased members of our families and friends. It is a tradition taken from many centuries, more than a millenium, to intercede with God for those who have passed on but, we believe, may still have issues and ways of relating that indicate their not being in complete union with God and their neighbor. In other words, there is still need for some purification of their past, something that needs "correcting" and realigning with God's Spirit before they are ready to be with God face to face. When we appreciate what is needed in the human soul before it is ready to be with God, it becomes immediately obvious how many of us upon death probably do not meet the minimum state of interior freedom and purity of heart necessary to be with God. How God does this purification and completing his work of transforming us in Christ so that we are in complete harmony with Him, God alone knows. In any case today is special just for this reason and for caring for those who have gone on in the Lord. ................................................................................................................................ In an hour I leave for the Nairobi airport to meet three American friends who are coming for a two-week visit. The four of us are planning to go to the famous game park, Masai Mara, next Monday through Thursday. I am really looking forward to this--to drive in a truck next to a group (pride) of lions or near the giraffes, etc. It is such a special place in the world. Right now it is raining and leaving everything very green. Spring is in the air, the flowers and trees in bloom add abundant color, a feast for the eyes. The jacaranda trees with their light purple bells in clusters are for me the most spectacular display of nature's colors at this time of the year................................................................................................................................. The repeated election, held on October 26, is over, the incumbent declared the winner, and the political jousting continues. The loser in this second election is a big source of pain to most in the nation. Most just want the economy to get going again. It has been stagnant for so long. Many want to go back to work. At the same time some major structural changes are needed in the way government is run and the elections are conducted. This is a young nation with many growing pains. Some observers are of the opinion that the next generation is needed to come into power before the old crony system modeled by the British dies; the Brits ran this place for more than a century as one of its colonies. So much favoritism toward the few families who own most of the land. this makes bribery and embezzelment easy for the way of operating, and staying out of prison while you can continue committing money related crimes and an occasional assassination or elimination of a political foe. There is a small middle class, too much unemployment still, which make for the seeds of violence and thievery. Thank God for the Christian churches, especially for the many nuns who run so many of the institutions that show care for the ordinary citizen and then the very poor, not-so-ordinary citizens. There are so many orphans and abandoned children, idle men and alcoholism. I sense many parallels with where the USA was after the American Civil War and into the 20th century. ...................................................................... I feel good about having predicted from the beginning of the baseball playoffs who would be the two teams in the World Series and that Houston would win it all. I am also glad that Justin Verlander finally got his World Series ring after two failed attempts with the Tigers (in 2006 and 2012). The trade that sent Verlander to Houston last July 31 made a huge difference for Houston getting to the WS. As a Tiger fan I must admit I have great hopes for the Tigers picking some great talent during the next couple of years and being back in competition in the not too distant future. ................................................................................................................. Will the government of the USA ever calm down? Will our populace ever calm down and show respect and be ready to listen to the other perspective for what truth is in it, if any? It seems we have so many who have adopted a "me-first" attitude and ready to accuse the other. Our culture is experiencing the ferment of men and women using each other through lots of sexual misbehavior so that those involved can become very rich and live the wild life. If anyone is exposed, they have an excuse and then point the accusing finger as if they have nothing from which to repent. Is it possible that a truly competent, inspiring leader emerge and get elected? Will Christian voices that are not fundamentalistic and capable of speaking knowledgeably to the injustices in the USA political, economic, racial, and cultural realms get a platform so that they are heard as widely as the standard media are able to be heard?...... .....................................................................................................................I continue to make good progress on my new book. I am presently toward the end of chapter 7 and hope to have the entire first draft done by June. God bless. I need to go to the airport now! In Christ, Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, I have been remiss, yes. Too many other things getting my immediate attention, especially the time I have been putting in on writing the next chapter of the book I am writing (five chapters done with the part of the book I am most interested in yet to be written! Book-writing can be all-consuming, and after a while I don't think of anything else.)......................................................................................................................................... What is this book about? I am showing the various stages of spiritual and psychological, emotional growth possible in a person's life, if they deeply connect with Christ as the greatest discovery of their life and develop a deep friendship with and love for him. (So many do not really know Him; they know about Him but do not know Him!) I am using many sources to explain this but principally the framework of Teresa of Avila and some of the great insights of John of the Cross. Both of these people are Carmelite saints of the 16th century and so perceptive. I discuss why it is that most people do not grow beyond a certain relatively early point in the spiritual journey and miss out on realizing the greater, richer possibilities we have in becoming truly happy and fulfilled. What I seek to show in the latter half or third of the book some of the richer experiences available to us in these latter, more mature stages of life. It all depends on our taking a few basic steps to open up to and receive those deeper gifts of God. The problem is: like the Rich Young Man in the Gospel, so many of us don't want to take those few steps but would rather stay in our comfort zones and pretty much settle in to a certain level of growth and there live out the rest of our lives. God still loves us as we are but there could have been so, so much more for us if we had sought guidance and learned more about the possibilities available to us all, if we had made more courageous choices. So, I hope readers in the coming years will find my book to be like a map and guide to a richer, much happier life................................................................................................................................................ While I live far from the USA, I do read from the internet each day a quick summary of the news of what is going on in the USA. Like so many US citizens I feel concern for the deepening disunity in the US, great distress at the deepening godlessness of many elements and how the media reflect an implicit atheism in the politically correct values they approve of, then the fighting and disrespect shown in public speech and behavior, and the unthinkable consequences of a war that would be fought with the weapons now in the hands of nations who keep threatening each other. It all leaves me feeling rather powerless and praying urgently that God spare us lest we end up like Sodom and Gomorrah consumed in sulphuric fire. We so need credible, articulate voices that will witness to and proclaim in a public way a basic humble and grateful attitude, rooted in a deep faith in God, and a new dedication, especially in marriages and families, to live such values. Something has to be done to counter the hypocritical philosophy or system of values praised in the last two weeks by the media when Hugh Hefner died. The media were filled with testimonies to how he was a champion of and trailblazer toward a new freedom from repression. (Yet one twitter sent in said, "I think it safe to say this is one guy who is not in a better place!") But the media treated his death and his long life as a great contribution to a better culture and better USA, even though it acknowledged that Hefner in some interview early in his career of promoting his infamous magazine and the objectification of women admitted that women are objects (for the pleasure of men.)..................................................................................................................................... Then what struck me as so hypocritical of the media was their present obsession with and condemnation of Harvey Weinstein and how he has used so many actresses for satisfying his own addiction. I ask: is there any essential difference between Hugh Hefner and Harvey Weinstein?? Why is one so praised by the media and the other so heavily condemned? Is it that one is supposed to look and fantasize but never touch?? I ask that cynically! This moral rot is killing many spiritual lives, destroying people in their hearts to indulge their ego-centric passions and live without any intent to keep any promise or vow that would inconvenience them. They lie to themselves, helped by the media, when they claim that living this way is the new freedom, is the way out of repression and joyless living. Yet when you see the fruits, the results of their choices and lifestyles, the fury of people who counted on their being faithful and trustworthy, you say, "how can that be freedom?" I have had to listen to too many people who bemoan their addiction to pornography and their loss of freedom (yes, there is that word again) and enslavement to habits of lust. Such is the legacy of Hugh Hefner and others like him; I am sure Harvey Weinstein fed his fantasy life with the garbage that Hugh Hefner and others like him dumped on America from the early 1950s till our day. ................................................................................................................................................... With the ugliness of lust there is closely connected violence and rage, like the attitude shown in Steven Paddock, infamous forever for his murdering so many people in Las Vegas. Along with his successful gambling and spending money and time with the whores of that city he indulged his furious, bitterly angry attitude toward who knows what. Sex and violence together make for a never ending source of fascination. twisted curiosity, and perverse entertainment. (I have learned that getting hooked especially on porn makes people hide from God, hide from their true selves, and often lie to others close to them, also to stay at a pretty superficial, self-focused level of life.) Too many people in our nation are expressing their contempt and fury at someone (e.g., two years ago toward little children in a Connecticut school) by turning guns made for military combat on them. ..................................................................................................................................... Why am I so interested in this area of what troubles our nation? Because I anticipate spending the last years of what is left of my life helping teens and their parents look at their lives as a gift from God to do something God needs from them, something that will make their lives really meaningful, rooted in love and friendship with Christ and His Father, and contribute to the betterment of other people, to find their joy and fulfillment in living out of these values and cares. To think first in terms of living out a call from God rather than thinking first and foremost of choosing a career to become financially well-off (One is focused on God, the other on self): I want to give the rest of my life to precisely this and to confront the powers of evil and twisted values fostered by ex-Christians and unbelievers of other backgrounds like Hugh Hefner and other egocentric failures of our society. ......................................................................................................................................... Please pray for Kenya. We face a national election next October 26. Right now on this 15th day of October, things are very fluid. It seems the election will go forward, but who knows what will happen soon after it? I have three friends coming from the States a week after the election. We are staying in safe places, not going downtown Nairobi, and will be going to the famous game park, Masai Mara, a six hours drive west of here (on November 6-9) to see the lions, giraffes, antelope, hippos, water buffaloes, crocodiles, leopards, etc. Ironically, it will be more secure to be with the animals and some of the violent people who live in the big cities of this country!!................................................................................................................................... All for now! God bless America! May God raise up some truly great Christians in our land to live the Christian faith and be the leaven in a new dough God will create to regenerate our nation. We need a new politics, a new dedication to the family and to fidelity in marriage; we need men and women who will come not to be served but to serve and give their lives out of gratitude to Him who laid down His life for each of us, Christian and non-Christian, with no exceptions. See the second letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 8, verse 9 and his letter to the Galatians, chapter 2, verses 19 and 20. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, Greetings from Nairobi on a grey, chilly, damp, overcast Sunday morning. I am trusting that by noon the sun will break through and we will enjoy a nice afternoon like we did yesterday. (Spring, yes, spring cannot come fast enough here; I miss the warm days.) I spent yesterday morning doing some long-awaited weeding and tilling soil in a large patch of roses that I had extensively pruned two weeks ago. The roses are beginning to assert themselves, some more than others, and promise to be fully grown by late September and full of blossoms again. It is such a gift for me to get outside and not look at my computer screen and forget the writing of my next book, which I am almost in the middle of. Writing for me can become compulsive; I wake up thinking about it, I go to bed thinking about it; the desire to finish the book and get out of me onto the computer all that is going on in my mind, heart, and spirit can be all-consuming. This is why working in the dirt with something that will be beautiful, enjoying no pressure nor time constraint, is truly relaxing for me. ............................................................................................................................................... I have waited a full week to write this letter while anticipating sharing with you something of the results of the Kenyan election. Perhaps you know that the loser in the election appealed the election results to the Supreme Court of the nation. Kenya waited two weeks for the seven judges with their many fellow lawyers to decide. Last Friday, at noon, during a Muslim holiday, the judges on a 4-2 vote (one judge was in the hospital) declared the election invalid, that it had not followed the Constitution's directives. (Can you imagine such a reason, such an alleged omission and gaffe??!!) So, another national election must be held in 60 days, on the presidential issue only, not on the other offices. This election, I am told, will be conducted on November 1. What is so exasperating is the waste of time and money, all the money that was spent on the previous election of August 8, the most expensive one in Africa, ever!; and over 1000 foreign observers, on their own money, had come to volunteer as observers and guarantors of the integrity of the election at various polls. By the way, they all said matters were conducted well and from what they saw the process was fine and trustworthy. John Kerry, the former secretary of state, was among these observers.................................................................................................................................................................................................... It seems to me that this outcome is a great embarrassment to the nation to spend all that money and time on a national election and have the presidential part of it declared invalid and has to be repeated. Kenya has had major strikes by nurses, doctors and also, in a separate strike, by teachers demanding the money that the government had promised them for raises. It always seems that the rich and the politically powerful find the money for what they really want, but so many others are denied. I find this situation something that leaves many, and myself, so weary. It reminds me of the very long process of campaigning, primaries, and finally an election in the USA. The two political parties, here in Kenya and also in the States, spend far too much time wrangling and focused critically on each other, and do not do enough real governing. Will the American citizens ever get a real choice, a choice that they are enthusiastic about? The USA did not get such a choice at the last national election. Will the election in 2020 be any different??!! ................................................................................................................................................. I marked four years in East Africa last August 23...................................................................................................................................... Underneath the various discouraging signs in the Kenyan economy and social structures, I experience the awesomeness of God's presence and power active in the lives and stories of the retreatants I am privileged to listen to and guide. I am deeply impressed with what I hear. For the three who are making the 30-day retreat--one from Kenya, one from Zambia, the other from Burundi-- I sense God saying, "no matter what the inequities in economics and social structures, I am with you through it all, and for those who are interested in a deep friendship with me, I will pour out my best gifts." In the midst of it all, God is singularly good to me, especially in my daily morning contemplations. At times it so moves me at how God supports me and is close. It is so awesome. .......................................................................................................................................... I must go now. With the Labor Day weekend over, the rhythm of the nation changes, children return to school, summer for the northern hemisphere is over, etc. God bless all of you. Bernie Owens

Good morning, Friends. It is three weeks since I last wrote you a letter. I do hope you read the previous two letters about an amazing missionary in South Sudan. Hr story is one of the most amazing stories I have heard since my coming to Nairobi four years ago. ............................................................................................................................................... With that said, I will now tell you a little about the weirdest week I have witnessed so far in this part of Africa. Last Monday this nation of 45 million people "shut down" to engage in national elections. The preparation for it has been very long and drawn out, like in the United States. NO work, stores closed, public transportation was at a minimum. The invective, charges and counter-charges, were played up in the newspapers. The newspapers were obsessed with the campaign and political rhetoric. After awhile you wanted to pull a blanket over your head and withdraw from all the bombast, just like it is in the US during its campaign. In this campaign the incumbent president was running against a man who had lost three times before, THREE TIMES!! It must be said in his defense that he had the election stolen from him during his second try, in 2007 (elections are every five years) and this travesty of justice led to major riots and killings with men, women and children being hacked to death, in public, with long machete knives; Scenes of such carnage were even shown on local TV. Ugh! The World Court tried to convict the incumbent vice-president for having given orders to gangs to conduct such open violence but it never succeeded in making the charges stick. Witnesses disappeared over time (threatened or bought off) and so the case evaporated............................................................................................................................. So the memory of that traumatic time ten years ago was referred to over and over again in the media and was reflected often at the prayers of the faithful during daily mass. It seemed the whole nation was holding its breath that something similar might happen this time. So police and army were seen all over the nation. Over 1000 foreign observers, including former Secretary of State John Kerry of the Carter Institute, came to monitor the whole process of voting. In the end they said the process was conducted very well and with integrity, despite charges of the challenger to the incumbent president that the process was rigged and the hand-count of votes was done superficially. He claimed victory even though the official count came to be 55% to 45% in favor of the incumbent, President Uhuru Kenyatta. Out of nearly 15 million votes in all (out of 19 million eligible to vote), he won convincingly. But then because of the long process of verifying the vote count and the rumors of violence here and there in the nation, most stores remained closed ALL THROUGH THE WEEK. Many businesses did not open all week long. It was Friday evening, two days ago, that the official voting commission announced the winner. That is a long time following Monday, the voting day. ........................................................................................................................................ Another Jesuit and I wanted to visit over this weekend the port city of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean, a great resort place, four hours by train from here, but when he called to book two rooms, the caretaker strongly advised our not coming. He said the city, which had strongly supported the opponent, was still quite tense; it was not a good time to come, he said. Since we had no retreats here for the last nine days, I (we) have been holed up in our place for almost all of this time. I did go see a podiatrist on Tuesday, the day after the election, and found things in the city of Nairobi very quiet. I was even downtown, in the financial district of the city, and easily walked around without any fear. Again, people were far fewer than usual. I would like to think that because I am white colored in skin and visibly stand out in Nairobi's public, I was the least likely target of any violence. All of the tension is tribal in origin, with various tribes vying against the dominant tribe for political and economic advantage. As usual, these tensions come down to money and security and being able to provide for your families, to have a job and some fiscal security................................................................................................................................... The advantage in getting elected is that you have immense power to acquire land for yourself, as a perk for your public service. In this way you can amass significant wealth for yourself and your family members. These lead to a lot of dishonest dealings. And this is at the core of this nation's inability to get going in the world community. (This is the case in most other African nations.) No one at that level of government ever goes to prison for dishonest dealings. Those who accuse and their family members are threatened or bought off. So, in the end, it has been very easy to drive around this week, no longer experiencing the usual heavy traffic jams. Can you imagine anything like this happening in the States, where the nation closes up for a week, where business is halted in most places, where people are so concerned about their safety and stay home?? ................................................................................................................................ In the meantime I continue to make progress on the new book I hope to have done in a year or more. Sometimes I feel very enthused about it, at other times wondering whether anyone will want to read it!! The African provincial comes for his annual visit at the end of this month. I have some very big questions and issues to discuss with him. Prayers please. Thanks. I will tell you in September the results of that conversation. Again, prayers please. Thank you very much. Bernie Owens

Good morning, Friends, It is Sunday for me, in the middle of Saturday night for you. It is rainy, chilly and completely overcast here. We so wish it would rain heavily and for some time. The ground is terribly dry and the maize (African corn) crop is failing due to lack of rain. Life is so tough here for many people....................................................................................................................What moves me to write again so soon after the last letter I wrote only two days ago is the continuing story of this Comboni nun from Costa Rica I am guiding through her 8-day retreat. You have to hear what I have been hearing from her. Again, she lives most of the time in South Sudan, a nation very young and completely destroyed by tribal hatred and war. So many murders and robberies, and no one is imprisoned for doing such. This nun, Sr. Lorena Mulare is her name, tells me that two years ago she and the people she lives with and cares for in a South Sudanese village were being chased by armed rebels killing anyone in their path. These soldiers had a tank with which they were firing shells and cannons. Everyone in the village was fleeing and ran for the bush area to hide. While running a shell landed near Sr. Lorena and knocked her to the ground. It kicked up gravel and sand which got embedded in her leg and some of it cut into her arm. She said, "God, I guess I am going to die today." But after some seconds passed, she felt her leg and arm where the blast of the gravel had cut into her and she brushed away much of it and realized she was not going to die. So, she first fell into a fetal position, trying to protect herself. But her instincts told her this would not do, that she had to get up and continue to try to flee. When she stood up and tried to run, her body, thanks to all of this trauma, would not respond and so all she could do was walk, and that she did and continued into the heavily protective bushes and managed to collapse for rest and regain her composure. So hard was her heart beating that she thought she might die of a heart attack. In the days that followed, she and the villagers survived on roots dug up from the surrounding ground and their water came from a swamp whose water they filtered through the cloth of some of the dresses of the women or shirts of the men and women. ...............................................................................................................................................Then last year, in May, she had another traumatic experience thanks to the warring parties of the government troops and the rebels. Word had gotten out that trouble was coming,, that a battle between the two groups was drawing close to the village where Sr. Lorena and these very simple, very poor people were living. Most of the villagers where Sr. Lorena was living evacuated but she and a few of the other villagers unfortunately delayed and got caught, trapped between the two warring parties. There were bullets coming from both sides and flying over them and near them. The remaining villagers asked Sr. Lorena what to do, so scared were they. She said for all of them to gather in the church and lie down on the floor and together they would pray the rosary for God's protection. That they did and for some 20-25 minutes the shots continued and the killings of rebels and government troops by each other continued. When the shooting stopped, the villagers ventured outside the church and saw that not one bullet had hit the church, that all were safe yet exhausted by the stress of surviving under such violence and death all around them. .......................................................................................................................................... What I tell you here in this letter is still so fresh for me, I am still trying to take it in and appreciate as much as I can the meaning of all of this. I could focus on the idiocy of the tribes hell-bent on destroying each other; but what so moves me is what God is doing through this woman who chooses to risk her own life in order to stay with and care for these people who have no choice but to try to survive under such deadly circumstances. God has to mean so much to you that you would choose to stay with these most vulnerable of His children. No wonder, as I said in my previous letter two days ago, they experience the reality of God as a loving God and that this amazing God cares for them, especially by being with them through Sr. Lorena in their sufferings. ............................................................................................................................................. Yesterday she told me that it was so helpful for her to speak out her story to someone, to me in this case, since it helped her to heal from the trauma and the temptations to resent and hate the warring soldiers, especially the government leaders and rebel leaders. Everything in her tells her that her unresolved dark emotions will come back to eat her up if she does not work at bringing it all to God. She had to return to the places where these events took place, to walk there, to choose again to be with these poorest of the poor who are living so dramatically the passion and dying of Jesus. Only in this way could she come to peace, to reconcile with it all and to let the love of God flow again in her heart and soul. Many of her acquaintances, Combonis and villagers, have died already in this endless conflict. She is very aware of them in heaven now. She added that the gift that has followed is being more sensitive to the risen Jesus, seeing His presence and hope and even joy at times in the villagers and in her fellow Combonis. Yesterday was the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene. In the Gospel reading for mass Mary says to Peter and John on Easter morning, "I have seen the Lord!." This is what Sr. Lorena is telling me and I had to pass it on to you. So, I feel encouraged to look around at the people I am with in the coming days and ask God to give me the freedom from my own worries and burdens to see with a heart of love and faith this same mystery unfolding around me--of the dying and rising of Jesus in the world around me, in Kenya and in the USA. in people who trust Him, even though it costs everything to trust. God is for real! Very, very real. And what a gift it is to see Him in action, doing what death and war, violence and revenge cannot overcome. ....................................................................................................................................... Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, It is Friday morning here, July 21, and a little chilly which is normal for here at this time of the year. We are in the Southern Hemisphere, just barely (50 miles south of the equator), but also up in the mountains, 6000 feet up. It won';t warm up for us until the middle or late part of August. All things in time I guess!............................................................................................... I am prompted to write by two recent events. One is a conversation I had yesterday with a retreatant I am presently guiding. The other is what happened to me this morning during and right after the Eucharist while pondering the first of the two scripture readings..................................................... The conversation was with a woman missionary to South Sudan. She is a member of the Comboni missionaries, men and women who trace their origins to the 19th century founder, Daniel Comboni, already a canonized saint (If you knew his life story you would see why he has been singled out as such an outstanding follower of Jesus). The retreatant is in her early to mid 50s, a woman from Costa Rica. She has been serving the very poor of that war torn nation for quite some years, and after a 6 month leave to care for her 90 year old mother and 91 year old father back in Costa Rica, she is returning to South Sudan because she sensed in her prayer God calling her to continue serving these wretched people of South Sudan. What impresses me so from our conversation yesterday is her describing the chaos these people live in while the two main tribes of that nation war against each other; almost everyone, private citizens too, have guns. There are so many murders and no arrests. The poverty is grinding, homes are often robbed, sometimes even burned down along with crops. Life stinks in so many ways for these people who are powerless to stop the fighting and build a nation. I asked her whether the people ever ask why you choose to live with them and not some other safer, nicer place on earth. She said, "yes, they do but usually indirectly. They watch us closely, she says, to see over time whether we are who we appear to be. In time they will ask why we sisters stay with them in such hellish conditions. We stand out so glaringly with our white or olive skin among people whose skin is very, very black, thanks to the especially hot sun in that part of Africa." Then this nun said what really touched me. She said she has been told by these Sudanese people that the sisters staying with them in their terribly difficult living circumstances make God's love for them believable; they can see that God cares about them and is with them in their plight. In time these people give names to these missionaries. The name she has been given is "daughter of God." ........................................................................................................ The story of this retreatant reminds me of the four American women (three nuns and one laywoman) who went in the 1970s as apostles from the Cleveland diocese to be with the rural poor of El Salvador during the deadly civil war that was going on in that nation. Their letters to family and friends back in Ohio told of how there was no hope for these simple people to better their living circumstances but saw the meaning of their mission to be one of being companions with them while in a very difficult situation, encouraging them while these poor tried to raise their families and assure their safety while in the midst of so much war and bloodshed. It was, as these four missionaries described it, a ministry of accompaniment. Perhaps you know who are these four women I am talking about. On December 2 of 1980 they were raped by government soldiers and then murdered. .............................................................................................................At mass this morning, which I led for the community, we heard for the first reading the instructions to the Israelites, trapped in Egypt as slaves of Pharoah, of how to celebrate a meal with a roasted lamb. This would forecast what God would soon do for them; It would be called their Passover meal that celebrates their liberation from their enslaved state in a foreign land. Blood from the lamb would be smeared on the doorways of their homes as a protection from God's angel while it would strike down the oppressors but spare (pass over) them. Of course, this passage is loaded with symbols that find their fulfillment in the death of Jesus and especially in the shedding of His blood and how the Eucharist is our Passover meal. The more we wake up to our need for God, how caught we all are to some degree by our enslaving tendencies or attachments, we also wake up to the DESIRE for a freedom we don't have, to live a life with greater integrity and meaning, to give ourselves to something really worthwhile. And so, with faith in the love God has for us, when we wake up to that awesome fact, we then especially appreciate the blood of Him that was shed so that we could pass over from self-centered living to living a life that is really worthwhile and a DESIRING to give of ourselves back to the God who in Jesus shed His blood for us......................................................................................................................................................... I really got hit this morning with this awareness. I am at times overwhelmed with the depth of God's love, not just for myself but for you too and everyone for that matter, even for the most harden, uncaring, and self-entered of us--Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, aboriginies, etc. Everyone from the beginning of time. Nothing is more powerful, nothing more meaningful. NOTHING! This is the only power than can overcome death and in the end it blesses us with the gift of being able to pass over from this troubled world into the Infinity of God's new world and the family He is creating and wants us to be part of forever. In the meantime there are walking among us people who are pouring out their own blood for their spouses, their children, their suffering parents and relatives and neighbors, fellow parishioners, even their enemies, the wretches of South Sudan too--saints among us even though they are not aware of being so. ..................................................................................................... The next time we drink from the chalice hopefully we will catch in that action the allusion to how a marriage proposal was done in Jesus's culture. A man and woman would give their 'yes' and seal their life-long commitment to each other when they both drank from a cup of wine that had been poured out by the father of the future groom. Jesus on the last night of His life gave us Himself as blood, inviting us to drink from the cup and say our personal 'yes' to a relationship that is more profound than any other relationship on this earth could be. He poured out His blood literally, the following day. He is inviting you and me to grow into a similar sense of generosity, to say a 'yes' with the same depth: pouring out our selves completely as He did for us. Yes, it will take a lifetime to do such but what matters is the DESIRE to do so and each day to live with the hope that in God's timing we will each be given the generosity to make this same kind of gesture back to Him, with boundless gratitude and infinite love. Bernie Owens