By Terry McGuire
3 Oct 2005
At funeral Masses each month, Oblate Father Celestino Chishimba says goodbye to four or five parishioners whoÂ’ve 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.
