ZINDER NIGER

‘GET UP SO I MAY HELP YOU’

There is a proverb in Hausa, ‘God says, ‘Get up, so that I may help you!’, ‘Allà ya cê, ‘Tashi in tàimàke kà’)! As Missionaries of Africa working in collaboration with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny, the Sisters of the Assumption, Zinder parishioners and some people of good will, we try to answer this divine invitation, ‘Get up, so that I may help you!’

‘Get up and build a new presbytery!’ Building a new house costs a lot of millions, ‘where can we get the money?’ ‘Do what is possible and I will do the impossible!’ Now, living in a new presbytery we cannot not sing the Magnificat!

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1. Left, the MAfr at Zinder: Callistus Baalabore (Ghana), Mission Superior, Alick Mwa­m­ba (Zambia), stagiaire, and Wilbert Gobbo (Tanzania). 2. The Missionaries’ new residence.
3. Snapped in the sharp cold of winter (17° C in the morning and 32° C in the afternoon!) the missionaries in Zinder: 3 Assumption Sisters, 6 St Joseph of Cluny Sisters and 3 MAfr.

‘Get up and build a secondary school!’ Despite the 100% success of your two primary schools and the 25 centres of adult education still about 80% of Zinder people have not been to school. Zinder is a town of 250.000 inhabitants, of which 99% are Mulims. What a pipe dream, but in faith our answer is ‘at your word Lord…’ Now, we have a mission secondary school enclosed with a perimeter wall of 1,200 metres!

‘Get up and rebuild my Church!’ ‘Where can we find the funds to renovate our churches in a civil society that is becoming not only a-religious but also anti-religious?’ Miraculously, our churches of Tessawa and of Zinder have been renovated. The church of Diffa is half-done. Later on, we discovered that the Church He is talking about is His own body, the nucleus of the Kingdom of God!

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A community granary.

‘Get up and re-build my Kingdom!’ With the dispensary of Kara Kara, lepers of Zinder are cured and healed. With the two centres of (Kara Kara and Djaguindi), malnutrition; children are snatched from the hands of mother death! The Church collaborates with Catholic Relief Services, World Food Programme, UNICEF and GOAL (Irish NGO) to ‘weep the tears of God’!

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The dispensary. The nurses are specialised in leprosy prevention. The dispensary treats all illnesses. Its reputation draws patients from all over the town, contributing to high esteem for the ‘leper quarter’ and the social integration of its inhabitants. Right: the sewing workshop of the ‘Human Development Centre’ (various skills including office work on computers).

The infected and the affected by AIDS are cared for! The victims of famine and drought are helped to live. Caritas and Development, the Diocesan agency, help the marginalised to hope despite their hopelessness!

All we have been doing, (or rather what has been happening miraculously in front of our eyes), is just to put a drop of medicine in the ocean of unjust human situations through charity and development.

Now our lifelong project is to find and try to solve the root causes of this unjust human situation through Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. Our Parish Committee of Justice and Peace should work in a network to fight systemic and structural injustice!

We hear the same silent consoling voice, «Tashi in taimake ka!» ‘Get up, so that I may help you!’

Wilbert Gobbo