Children's Rosary October 2025 Newsletter

 

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Children's Rosary® October 2025 Newsletter

Time in Tanzania Comes to an End

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He arrived in Uganda on September 15. From Uganda he traveled by car to Rwanda on September 28. After a week in Rwanda there was once more a return for more travel in Uganda. On October 11 he arrived in Tanzania. Asher grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip.  

"Fr. Cleophus’s and my journey to Dar es Salaam began on the evening of Tuesday, October 21. We decided to take a bus because the price was reasonable and the quality of the ride was not bad. The only downside was the length of travel time, nearly nine hours.

Our bus left around 4;00 pm from a town called Himo, which Fr. Emmanuel drove us to. We stopped once to stretch our legs, but otherwise the journey was continuous. We arrived in Dar es Salaam past midnight, and then I called an Uber to pick us up and take us to where we would stay. The Uber delayed some time in arriving, but it was not expensive, even at that late hour.

I had booked, on Fr. Sheejan’s recommendation, lodging at a place called the Atiman House. This is the house of the Missionaries of Africa, often called the “White Fathers.” They were so called because their first mission was in Algiers, in North Africa. In order to more easily integrate into the local population, the priests began wearing a long white cloak like the native gandoura. It was they who introduced the practice of wearing the rosary around the neck in order to imitate the misbaha necklaces.

I had called the priest in charge of the Atiman House to be sure we would be able to come at such a late hour, and he had replied in the affirmative. However, as we rolled up to the residence and not a single light peeped out from its dark and closed windows, I began to have a sense of foreboding. I observed that padlocks were securely fastened on the gates, that no one stirred on the other side, and that overall, it seemed there was no way in. Someone across the street called out that to get in, one needed to walk down the driveway next to the building, which I did. A tall, locked gate greeted my glance. I walked back to Fr. Cleophus and the Uber driver with a kind of desperation. We had just taken a nine-hour bus ride, it was one in the morning, and we had a meeting with the archbishop in a few hours; this was no time to be left without a bed to sleep in!

Blessedly, the Uber driver accompanied me again down the driveway and, less bashfully than I, called out if anyone was there. Someone, who seemed to a guard or handyman who had been sleeping near the gate just out of sight, roused and came to open it. Quickly we were brought inside to find a small parking lot and a multistory building just on the other side. We were escorted there and led up a staircase and into a hallway where a poster hung on the wall with a list of names. Next to two of these names, keys were taped for corresponding rooms. I observed that these two names were mine and Fr. Cleophus’s. Needless to say, I was much relieved. The guard showed us our rooms, and we prepared to go to sleep.

We had not yet had the meeting with the archbishop, but already some important challenges had been overcome.

The next morning, Fr. Cleophus and I found it necessary to sleep past the breakfast time of the house, which was at 7:00 am.  We instead went to get breakfast at a small restaurant nearby. Though I thought Dar es Salaam was hot (and it was), somehow this little restaurant managed to be so hot and stuffy inside that it made the weather outside seem like a crisp autumn day in New England. Despite the hard work of a small ceiling fan, I found myself sweating profusely as I ate.

Once we arrived at the archdiocesan offices, we found many others on hand to meet with the archbishop that morning, including priests and nuns. Once these had each met with him, we were shown in. Archbishop Thaddeus Ruwa’ichi turned out to be a very pleasant man, friendly and interested in what we had to present. Once we had explained to him a bit about our work and the apostolate we hoped to spread further in his archdiocese, he expressed support for the movement and committed himself to introducing it more in his Metropolitan See. He accepted our gift of some rosaries and materials, and, after discussing more about the implementation and exchanging contact information, we left feeling satisfied that the meeting had gone well.

Upon exiting the offices, we stopped briefly in Adoration to thank Our Lord, and then we went to go catch our return bus that was leaving at 2:00 pm. The second bus ride was as uneventful as the first, and around 10:00 pm, we reached Moshi again where we had managed to book hotel rooms from the bus.

The next morning was Thursday morning. That day was rather devoid of plans because I had been anticipating it would be spent visiting schools in the Moshi diocese. As it turned out, late on Tuesday, Fr. Asantebwana, the education secretary, informed me the students in the whole diocese would be in exams, and such a course of action would thus be impossible.

After breakfast, we decided to walk down to the taxi park to hail a vehicle back towards Mrao, where Fr. Emmanuel’s parish was. After arriving and navigating our way through the chaos that characterizes such taxi parks, we found a bus heading to Tarakea that could drop us in Mrao. We saw the bag safely loaded, boarded, and settled down for the journey. Just then, I received a note from Fr. Ruwaichi that he had been in communication with Monica, the translator of the little Children’s Rosary book, and that she would be taking us to a printer in the next day or so in Moshi. Yet here we were just about to leave Moshi! I showed the message to Fr. Cleophus, and we both agreed we should instead go to where Monica was staying and meet her there to arrange further rather than go back to Mrao. We stood up to get off, but, with the bus literally pulling out of the driveway, the conductor seemed reluctant to let us off. By that I mean, he closed the door that had hitherto been open and stood in front of it to prevent our getting off. The other passengers grumbled and offered complaints about our holding up the bus, for the truth was it had been attempting to pull out for about 15 minutes while Fr. Cleophus and I deliberated, and each time it got muscled aside by some other car. After a short discussion with the conductor, we finally managed to seize a moment to grab my bag and leap off before he could stop us. We quickly found another van to Himo, where Monica was staying, and boarded it.

I should say a word about this mode of transport we were availing ourselves of, the taxivan. It was a bit new to me, coming from North America, but once one gets used to them, they are actually a very affordable and convenient way to get around. The taxivan is essentially like a kind of private bus service. One goes to a “taxi park” where dozens of these vans are parked and looks around for one going in the same direction. Then you get on and pay some small amount, like 3,000 Tanzanian shillings (about $1.20). There are usually more people on board than there are seats which necessitates some squeezing in and rearranging to make everyone fit. No one minds much about having no personal space or being somewhat sat on, and everyone is very accommodating of everyone else.

After about 35 minutes or so, the van dropped us off in front of the secondary school where Monica works, and we met her there. She helped us to book an appointment with the printer the next morning and then took us around the campus, showed us her office, led us through the library where I took a long break to peruse an old Prentice Hall literature textbook and read some short texts, like Travels with Charley: in Search of America by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck’s tale reminded me a bit of my own journey in search of the Children’s Rosary in some remote reaches of the world. The way in which the novelist describes driving through the west of the United States evoked for me literary accounts of the Old West; there was a charm to it, as of a settled, run-of-the-mill New York intellectual setting off into some strange mythical land, replete with strong characters and unexpected adventure. In fact, when passing through some remote towns in Uganda or Tanzania with little more than a general store and a restaurant, sometimes very simply built, I was made to think of what the old West of the US must have looked like a century and a half ago.

Coming back down to reality, I realized Monica and Fr. Cleophus were politely waiting for me to finish with Steinbeck, so I put the book away, and we went on. Monica also took us to her house and introduced us to her daughter, about two years old. After we passed some relaxing time there, we went to stay at a hotel nearby in anticipation of the meeting the next morning.

In the morning, we drove with Monica into Moshi where the printer’s office is. The owner was very accommodating of our requests for the Children’s Rosary book, and we were happy to move forward with the project with him. He promised to print off a sample of the book in Swahili in a few days for us to review.

This done, we set off for the school of Sr. Mary Wandia, whom we had met in 2019. They have a very nice primary and secondary school there, and we stopped in to officially initiate the Children’s Rosary. The nuns were very friendly to us, and so were the children with whom we met to pray the Rosary. They pray the Rosary every evening, and I was happy I was able to participate in this with them. That night we headed back to Fr. Emmanuel’s parish to sleep.

The next day in the morning, I had a very important meeting, which was with Sr. Pelagia. The children from her catechetical program were coming in that day, Saturday, and I was to meet with them and help to run the first Children’s Rosary meeting. We met, prayed, and distributed rosaries. I was so grateful for the sisters’ efforts to make the group a success, and I feel confident the group will be very faithful and regular.

That evening, I had my interview with the seminarian advisory board, and immediately afterward, Fr. Emmanuel drove me up to the border to cross into Kenya. This seems a fine place to end the story for now. I will pick up the Kenyan narrative in the next post."

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE

First Children's Rosary in Lebanon

We are excited to announce the first Children's Rosary group in Lebanon. They held their first meeting on October 17. The new group formed at St. Joseph Church in Beirut. The group will meet monthly. This group prays in Arabic.

7,923 Handmade Rosaries Arrive in Tanzania

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He arrived in Uganda on September 15. From Uganda he traveled by car to Rwanda on September 28. After a week in Rwanda there was once more a return for more travel in Uganda. On October 11 he arrived in Tanzania. Asher grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip.  

"My visit to Fr. Ruwaichi’s was a very pleasant one. We prayed with the Children's Rosary groups at the local parish one evening and met with Monica Mwacha(shown above), a teacher of Swahili at a secondary school in the diocese that has worked on the Swahili translation of the small, yellow Children’s Rosary book. We are moving forward with its review and printing, which is very exciting. It is well known that it is always better to work in the vernacular language when attempting to spread an effort such as this, and many people I have spoken to here are excited at the prospect of the book being in Swahili.

Fr. Ruwaichi’s parish has a few groups that meet in outstations, but they all came together at the central church on account of my visit to pray together. We gathered in front of a grotto of Our Lady, which I found to be a very nice application of the grotto. Fr. Ruwaichi (shown directly above) also had a Children’s Rosary banner, which he unfurled for the meeting.

My visit to Fr. Ruwaichi’s parish was only about two days long since he had retreat for the priests of the diocese to attend. He was very hospitable during my time there, and I was glad I had been able to visit him.

After he dropped me back at the diocesan offices in Moshi on Friday, October 17, I met up with Fr. Jared Cleophus from Kenya. Fr. Cleophus has helped us a great deal in spreading the Children’s Rosary in Kenya and Tanzania. We traveled with him back in 2019.

That evening, he and I stayed at Fr. Emmanuel Lyimo’s parish in Mrao. We had visited Fr. Lyimo in 2019 as well, and since he has been sent to a new parish since then, Fr. Cleophus and I helped to initiate a new Children’s Rosary group at his current parish. They will meet every Sunday after the morning Mass.

During these first few days, we had some unexpected drama in the form of the delivery of the barrel sent out to Tanzania in May. It was supposed to arrive in Moshi on Friday from Dar es Salaam where it had arrived by boat such that Fr. Cleophus and I could pick it up and begin distributing the rosaries as we traveled. Instead, the delivery was pushed back to Saturday, then to Monday. Realizing we would soon be moving on to the next location, we became alarmed at the prospect it might just slide down to Wednesday or Thursday with no barrel in sight. We called the company, and upon finding out that no one seemed to know where the barrel actually was, we were given the number of the truck driver. Then a long chain of chaotic calls ensued in which we were given the number of the truck driver who was bringing the barrel only to find out that he had given it to another truck driver to take. Upon contacting that man, we were passed off to still a third truck driver, from whom we learned that the barrel had actually been taken about two hours past Moshi to a city called Arusha. They agreed to take it back to Moshi for Monday, and so we drove down nearly an hour and a half from Fr. Emmanuel’s parish to meet it. When we talked to the men in the truck who were dropping it off, we found out that if we had not hounded down the long line of drivers to figure out where the barrel was and arrange for the drop-off on Monday, the truck was about to take it ten hours back to Dar es Salaam from where it had started!

We took the barrel back to the diocesan offices, divided up the rosaries, packed them into Fr. Emmanuel’s car and set off to his parish.

That evening we went to visit a very nice nun named Sister Pelagia who runs a catechetical program for children on the weekends. She is a Holy Spirit sister, and she asked us if we could find some time to visit her community to initiate the Children’s Rosary. We happily agreed, so we made plans to come by again to help initiate the Children’s Rosary once the children were there.

The next day was the day we set off for Dar es Salaam for a meeting with Archbishop Thaddeus Ruwa’ichi. When I was with Fr. Sheejan, he had helped me to book this appointment. It would be a long bus ride, eight hours long, but I will save that journey for the next post."

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE

Mass Offered on October 25, 2025 for the members of the Children's Rosary

A Mass will be offered today for all the members of the Children's Rosary and all who help the Children's Rosary. We continue to have a Mass said for this intention on the twenty-fifth of each month. The Eucharist is such a powerful gift from Our Lord that when we wanted to extend thanksgiving to all of you, we knew of no better way to express gratitude. May Our Lord's love be poured down on all of you through the powerful sacrifice of the Holy Mass. 

The pictures above was taken at the first meeting of a new Children's Rosary in Germany. The first meeting was held on October 18, 2025. The new group is located at Holy Cross Parish in Bruck Germany (Heilig Kreuz Kirche, Langfeldstraße 36, 91058 Erlangen-Bruck).

Ten children attended the first meeting. We hope to have pictures of the children for the next meeting. This group will be meeting monthly.

ACI AFRICA News Service Features Children's Rosary

 

To reach the whole article click HERE.

The Children's Rosary in Hamburg Germany Had A Special Event to Celebrate the Month of the Rosary

 

We received this lovely message from the Children's Rosary group leader in Hamburg Germany:

"Yesterday was our Children's Rosary, and we celebrated the month of the Rosary. We began by praying the Rosary with the children and young people. Then we had lunch, and during dessert, Philipp gave the children a brief explanation about the origin of the Rosary. After the Rosary, the children made wax stickers with the image of the Virgin Mary. As always, they were very happy. Three new families attended, with almost 20 children and young people."

The Journey to Moshi, Tanzania

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He arrived in Uganda on September 15. From Uganda he traveled by car to Rwanda on September 28. After a week in Rwanda there was once more a return for more travel in Uganda. On October 11 he arrived in Tanzania. Asher grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip.  

"Where Fr. Sheejan dropped me off on Monday was the House of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Mombasa. This is a community of sisters in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, the United States, and beyond. They have a very nice community in Dar es Salaam with a school and a clinic they just opened a few weeks ago. This is the House I went to. I had been put in contact with the sisters by Fr. Kalua, who has helped us tremendously with the Children’s Rosary in his diocese in southern Tanzania. They had said they could help me get to Moshi from Dar es Salaam.

Sr. Yasinta helped me to buy a bus ticket; I did not even know there were buses that ran between the two places, but indeed there are. They put me up for the night and helped me to find the place the bus left from at 4:30 the next morning. Sr. Yasinta even accompanied me on the bus to that I would make it there without any trouble.

I must say that that this point, as we were leaving Dar es Salaam on the bus, was one where I felt very uncertain about how the day would end. Fr. Sheejan had told me about a school I should visit along the way that had contacted me about him, but I did not know how to get from the town where the school was the rest of the way to Moshi. Further, I did not even know where we would spend the night when we did arrive in Moshi. Well, I thought, this is real missionary work.

The place we stopped in was called Same; we stopped because the nun in charge had contacted Fr. Sheejan regarding me and their need for rosaries, so I decided to pay a visit and also introduce the Children’s Rosary. It was a very nice visit; the school is called Assisi School, and it is run by some Ursuline Franciscan sisters who originally arrived from India in 2004. They have a primary school and a residence for some secondary school students who study nearby.

Upon arriving, we were invited to have some lunch by the nuns, and I met there Fr. George, a priest who lived about an hour away in a parish on the road to Moshi. He very kindly offered to give us a lift to Moshi. He invited me to his parish and school to see the students and facilities, and I was very impressed with the campus. I met his pastor, and then we continued on our way.

Once we reached Moshi, we met up with Fr. Asantebwana, the educational secretary for the Diocese of Moshi. Fr. Ruwaichi had asked him to put me up for the night, so it looked like I had somewhere to sleep after all. Fr. Asantebwana took me to his parish, which was up at some altitude; in fact, it was rather chilly, quite unlike Dar es Salaam. Fr. Asantebwana told me he had been the parochial vicar at a parish in Columbus, Ohio, from 2017 to 2021. He told me how he had come to love American football and the Steelers in particular. I must say, after traveling in different parts of the globe for a few months now, it is rare to find someone not from North America who watches or understands American football, and it is still less common to find someone who appreciates it. It was like a little reminder of home.

The fact I ended up staying with Fr. Asantebwana was also providential because we had been trying to get an appointment with him to talk about the Children’s Rosary for some time, and here right at the last minute I ended up staying the night with him!

The next morning, I attended Mass at his church at 6:30 followed by breakfast. He showed me around the new church facility that has been under construction since 2023. They had managed to raise funds to get as far as they are, which includes the concrete walls and foundation but are looking for more to continue.

Around midmorning, we took Sr. Yasinta over to a nearby convent where she wished to visit and from which she would proceed home. Then Fr. Asantebwana took me up to a favorite spot of his on top of a hotel from which one has a bird’s eye view of Moshi. It was splendid, and I would have been able to see Mt. Kilimanjaro quite well, but it was cloudy.

From there, Fr. Asantebwana (shown below) handed me over to Fr. William Ruwaichi, with whom I stay until Oct 17. Fr. Ruwaichi is the former educational secretary, and we had visited him in 2019 during our trip to East Africa."

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE

The picture at the top of this post is the Cathedral in Moshi, Tanzania

New Children's Rosary Christmas Card for 2025!

Dear Friends,

We are excited to release our new Children's Rosary Christmas Card for 2025. It has become a yearly tradition that we release a new card each year. The Children's Rosary Christmas cards have original artwork and spiritual greetings inside. All of our prior cards were done by children who had been involved in the Children's Rosary. This year is the exception. For the past several years we have had a regional theme for the cards. Last year's card took inspiration from Kenya. With the significant spread of the Children's Rosary in Germany, I began to think and pray about a German inspired card. The same week I began to look for a German inspired card was the same week that one of our German Children's Rosary group leaders wrote that he had been gifted an image. It was the painting shown above. This was painted by a German nun who worked with children during her life. She has since passed on.

Seeing the providence of this news and our hope to have a German inspired card the religious order was contacted and they gave permission for the Children's Rosary to use this image for our Christmas Card. 

On the back of each card there is an explanation about the Children's Rosary and information about the artist. The cards allow more open doors for our Blessed Mother. For as they are sent out to family and friends more people learn of this apostolate.  There are many ways to become involved and thus the door is opened for more people to become part of this effort. 

Click Here to Order the New 2025 Children's Rosary Christmas Card

Currently the new card is only available through the Domestic Monastery in the US. However we do have prior year's cards available in multiple countries such as Canada and Ireland. To see additional places to order cards click HERE

Arrival in Tanzania

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He arrived in Uganda on September 15. From Uganda he traveled by car to Rwanda on September 28. After a week in Rwanda there was once more a return for more travel in Uganda. On October 11 he arrived in Tanzania. Asher grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip.  

"On Saturday, October 11, it was finally time to say goodbye to Uganda. I spent my last morning in the country with Henry and his family and with Fr. Joseph, the vicar for the Archdiocese of Kampala. In many ways, it was déjà vu because I had spent my first evening in Uganda with Henry, his family, and Fr. Joseph. We had lunch and then set off for the airport.

A family that I had stayed with in Masaka had very kindly obtained a gift for me, made in Kampala. Unfortunately, I had mixed up the time of my departure from Entebbe, mistakenly thinking it was two hours later than it was, and only realized my mistake the night before, so by the time the morning of my flight, the gift was not ready in time. Feeling terrible, we had to leave for the airport without it.

Due to some delays we ran into and to some rather long lines at the airport, I quickly realized I was later than I should have been for my flight. One bag was severely overweight, so I had to pay the fee, and again this took time as I had to run over to another booth to pay, and then there was confusion over the receipt number.

By the time I was in line for passport control to exit Uganda, I heard over the loudspeaker the final boarding call for my flight to Dar es Salaam. The final boarding call, and I was still in line for passport control, let alone having to go through security!

Feeling rather desperate, I gathered the courage to go up to an agent at a booth who had waved several people off, indicating he was not ready to process them, and asked if he could process me as my flight was about to leave; just then, a man in a suit walked up and heard me say I was on the flight to Dar es Salaam. Both men indicated I cut in front of the line next to me, which I did, feeling rather sheepish but relieved. Nobody in line complained, the agent quickly stamped my passport, and I breezed through security and literally ran down the hall to the gate. I must have made a sorry-looking sight, holding my passport and belt in one hand, my shoes untied, and my pants nearly falling down without the belt since I had no time to put it on.

Nevertheless, despite probably gaining a few gray hairs from my experience, my guardian angel and the Blessed Mother cleared a path for me, and with their help, I did not miss the flight.

After the rather brief journey, the plane touched down at Julius Nyerere International Airport. I got off, collected my bags, went through passport control and customs, and met up with Fr. Sheejan Kallarakkal.  We had met Fr. Sheejan in Rome back in 2022 during our trip for the World Meeting of Families. We had given him some rosaries and stayed in contact. He is a Fransalian missionary priest who has worked in Tanzania for nearly thirty years though he is originally from southern India.

Fr. Sheejan took me to his parish, the parish of Mary Mother of the Rosary (Church shown directly above). It is an active parish on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, and I met Fr. Clement, his parochial vicar, also from India.

One thing I had been expecting but found arduous nonetheless was the heat of Dar es Salaam. Since the city is at sea level, it is significantly hotter than Kampala, and I did not need any comforter or sheets to cover myself with when I slept. In fact, all throughout the city and the surrounding area, the ground is very sandy, so much so that one thinks at first that the beach must just be right around the next street corner. At one point I asked Fr. Sheejan how far away the beach actually was; he told me it was fifteen kilometers away.

The next day, which was Sunday, I went to the children’s Mass at Fr. Sheejan’s parish and spoke to the children afterward. It was a very nice Mass, and I was impressed that it, true to its name, was literally populated exclusively by children. There were no parents to be seen. After the Mass, there was a Children’s Rosary which was very nice; some of the older children helped to lead the group, and there were a few dozen in attendance all told.

Fr. Sheejan then took me to have lunch with some nuns from India who had just arrived in Tanzania a few months before. They made very nice Indian food and kindly removed all hint of spiciness for my benefit. Though I will eat almost anything, my mouth is particularly sensitive to spicy foods, even to foods others do not find to be very spicy. I remember being in Paris and going to a restaurant with some friends from my language course. They were ordering soup from an Indian restaurant; they were asked to grade the spiciness they wanted on a scale from one to six. Some asked for level four, some level three; I asked for level one, and I still found it to be very spicy.

In the afternoon, we took a drive over to the Franciscan Clarist Sisters at Maria Mission School. They had reached out to my mother a few weeks ago, and so it was a blessing I happened to be passing through. We met the sisters and saw the school which they operate. I also met a priest named Fr. Francis who was running the parish where the sisters live. We drove just down the hill to where he was staying, and so the sisters rode in the back of the car.

Like a lot of people in Tanzania, Fr. Sheejan drives a white Toyota Land Cruiser that looks exactly like the kind of vehicle one imagines people drive when they think of sub-Saharan Africa. It has a jeep-like look to it, it has rugged tires, and behind the two front seats are two lines of seats that run perpendicular to the front seats, along the edges of the vehicle; I thought this design made the car look like it was for troop transport, a suggestion which the nuns thought quite funny. In fact, some others, noticing the fact that the ambulances around here are the same kind of car, jokingly said Fr. Sheejan drove an ambulance. Whatever one’s impression of the car, it is well equipped for the roads here as it goes over rocks, through deep puddles, and across rutted roads without nearly any difficulty. 

Fr. Francis was glad to see us. He had just returned from three months in the United States where he had been doing mission appeals and covering for priests on vacation. He had quite liked the experience, and the trip had been a success from what I heard.

Fr. Sheejan then drove me back to the parish. We had dinner with Fr. Clement, and then I went to bed.

In the morning after Mass, we went to a local school called the Fransalian Mission school, run by the order Fr. Sheejan belongs to. The school has very nice facilities, and the students we visited were very polite and well-behaved. The grades at the school were from kindergarten to grade three, if one is speaking in American grades. They have a Children’s Rosary every day there that meets during the lunch hour, and I was able to meet with the children who participate. They were very sweet and asked many questions that were often very innocent, like what I thought about when praying the Rosary and how many Rosaries I said a day.

Once the visit to the school was concluded, we took care of some other business in the city center, including some meetings Fr. Sheejan had at the archdiocesan offices, and then he dropped me with some sisters of the Order of St. Joseph of Mombasa who would help me get to Moshi the next day.

I will leave that for another post, however. I will say that the visit with Fr. Sheejan was very enjoyable, and I was so glad he had been able to make time for me right before he left for India on Wednesday for his annual vacation. My arrival in Tanzania has gotten off to a fast start, but that is all the better. 

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE

Visit to Gulu, Uganda

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He arrived in Uganda on September 15. From Uganda he traveled by car to Rwanda on September 28. Asher grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip.  

"On Thursday, October 8, Br. Henry, Kizito, and I set out for the city of Gulu in northern Uganda. This was a journey that Henry had done much planning for given that it was about as long as going to Rwanda, and we did not have much time to waste since we could only spend one full day there. 

We first paid a visit to St. John Paul II Secondary School. This is a place that Henry himself has done much for since its founding in 2019. Despite its being such a young institution, it has much to be proud of, in my opinion. We were present for a graduation Mass before the students take their exams in a few days, and the speeches given, the behavior displayed convinced me that this really was a special place with a high academic standard. The celebrant for the Mass was Msgr. John Wynand Katende, a very important man in the archdiocese and a holy one too. He has a charism of engaging in much silent prayer, and his homily was very insightful, I thought. Afterwards, I spent some time talking to him and some of the students present. They were a very nice group of young people, open, frank, and interesting. 

After our visit to the secondary school, we got in the car and started our long trek up north. It was a multiple hour ride, but finally after leaving at 2:00, we reached the hotel around 9:00 pm. It was a comfortable place, which I was glad for. We all managed to get some good rest, which we would need for the next day's visits.

The next morning, we met with Sister Milly Rose, a nun in charge of schools for the entire country.(shown in blue in the top picture) She had met with my mother about a month and a half ago in Connecticut when she was visiting our parish. She had asked us to visit Gulu and to meet with the education secretary of the archdiocese and to meet with the archbishop.(see picture below) 

She and the education secretary first took us to visit Ocer Campion Jesuit College where we were given a very nice tour of the school. It had only recently been opened in 2010 after the civil war that had ripped through northern Uganda during the 1990s and early 2000s. Atrocities and killings had terrorized the region, and it was only in the early 2010s that the situation calmed down enough for the region to begin to flourish again and open schools such as this one. 

We then visited Mary Immaculate Primary School where we visited with the sisters who run the school and have a small community there. Then we proceeded to meet with the archbishop. Archbishop Wokorach was very kind and listened attentively to what we had to say. He was very open to the movement gave us permission to move forward with rolling out the Children's Rosary in his diocese. He is a very interesting man, being a missionary of the Comboni community. 

That evening we drove out to the parish of Fr. Joel Okot. Fr. Okot has been in communication with my mother and has initiated the Children's Rosary in his parish before. We were very glad to have met him; he is a very joyful man, open and friendly. He showed us the church which even had a door with bullet holes on it, left as a memorial from a shootout that happened in that very spot with rebels during the civil war in the 1990s. 

After sleeping for the night in Gulu, we returned the next morning to Kampala. We stopped on the way at Mulajje parish in Luweero where I had visited when I first arrived. Joseph, Fr. Jude's brother, was coming from Kampala with the rosaries, and so we were on hand to officially drop them off at the parish. I was glad we were able to go. 

That night, we got back to Kampala in the early afternoon and went to go meet a certain monsignor named Msgr. Lawrence Ssemusu of the archdiocese. As it happened, Br. Henry had obtained his book at the ceremony at St. John Paul II Secondary school; this book, called From Banana Plantation to the Altar, details his life story and includes the many people who have helped him reach where he is today. 

It is very nicely written, and I was so captivated by it that I read nearly all of it on the drive to and from Gulu; this was quite extraordinary as I struggle even to read briefly in the car due to motion sickness, but this time, I was able. The book speaks of his journey from a small village in Uganda to the seminary, to studying for the priesthood in the United States, to parish life, to obtaining a doctorate in Belgium, to becoming a deputy vice chancellor at Uganda Martyrs University, to being a chaplain at Makerere University Business School in Kampala, where he works now. When we visited him, he showed us how he has completely created from scratch (there was no Catholic chaplain there before him) a church, a grotto, administrative offices, a residence, and more for the community there. He is a wonderfully nice person with a love of telling stories, and one could see why the students there must love him.

After having the privilege of meeting with this monsignor, we fought through some severe traffic jams to get back home so I could pack to leave Uganda the next day. 

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE

Visit to the National Shrine of the Ugandan Martyrs

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He arrived in Uganda on September 15. From Uganda he traveled by car to Rwanda on September 28. Asher grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip.  

"On Monday, October 6, was our last day in Mutukula. We spent most of the day visiting churches and schools in a neighboring parish to that of Fr. Alex Musoke. Our first stop was St. James School in Manyama. There was a small group of children waiting for us when we arrived, and we spoke to them and prayed in the chapel. Often we do not get a chance to pray an entire rosary with the children we visit because of time constraints though we would greatly like to do so. However, this group practically insisted we at least pray a decade with them which I was glad for.

We then visited St. Francis School in Kamaggwa (shown below) and St. Mary’s School in Kisunku(shown above). In both places, we were greeted by the head teacher who directed us to address the students gathered in a large hall. I am always appreciative of when a teacher is willing to interrupt school programming in order to accommodate our visits.

After this, we stopped by to visit a friend of Fr. Alex’s, Fr. Steven Lutwama. This was another priest of the diocese who was interested in the Children’s Rosary, and I was glad we had the opportunity to meet him.

That evening, we said goodbye to Fr. Alex Musoke, who had accompanied us all the way through Rwanda. We were and are very grateful that he took the time off from his parish duties to be with us, and his presence certainly made a difference, whether in meetings with diocesan officials and bishops or simply relaxing in the car on our multi-hour drives each day.

We then visited one last school, Kapere Parents Primary School, which we had stopped by twice before but never had a change to really address the students. We felt bad having had to bag out twice due to being short on time, so this time we were able to address the students before driving back to Kampala. On our way to the city, we stopped at the equator, and Henry took my picture there. It is one of those rather calm tourist destinations with no crowds or anything but nonetheless rather nifty.

The next day, Tuesday, October 7, the Feast of the Holy Rosary, was our only whole day in Kampala for the rest of the trip. I started out by going to Mass at 6:30 am, thanks to Henry’s uncle, Felix, who drove me there.  

Subsequent to the Mass, Henry and I set off for a meeting with the pastor of the local church where the liturgy was celebrated. This was a very nice man named Fr. Paul Ssemboga. He was interested in the Children’s Rosary, and gave the necessary contact for us to collaborate moving forward.

Our next stop was to one of our oldest groups in Uganda, at St. Johnson’s school.

 We had visited this school in 2019, and it was good to see them again. The children, despite having exams later that day, gathered in an auditorium and had entertainment and remarks prepared. It was a very warm welcome. I remember saying to the children in my short speech that often we are visiting schools where the Children’s Rosary has yet to be implemented and I am in the position of trying to explain why they should move ahead with it. It would be wonderful, I said, if I could just bring them here and show them this group that they might see how well it is run and the positive impacts it has had.

After St. Johnson’s school, we went to the National Shrine of the Ugandan Martyrs (shown directly above). 

Most of you are probably familiar with the story of the Ugandan Martyrs, but I will go into it a bit again since it is so important to the history of the Church in this region.

Beginning in the 1870s, there began what is sometimes termed as the “scramble for Africa.” This refers to an effort by European powers to acquire as much territory on the African continent as quickly as they could. It is rather remarkable when one considers it how brief the period of colonization of Africa really was. From 1870 to 1914, nearly the whole continent was enveloped in the control of various different European countries, among them Germany, Portugal, France, and Great Britain.

This colonization offered a chance for Britain to try to improve its trade deficit, grown painfully obvious in the “Long Depression” of 1873-1896, and for the other countries, it was a chance to restore the balance of power and try to take some of the trade for themselves.

With this influx of European control came the influx of Christian missionaries as had happened in other colonies before, such as in the Americas or China. In addition to traditional African religions, Islam had also established itself particularly near coastal areas, such as on the coast of modern day Zanzibar in Tanzania. This is because the Arab traders who frequented the coasts were Muslim. To this day, Tanzania has one of the largest Muslim minorities in East Africa, and that population is most populous next to the coast.

Beginning in the 1870s, British missionaries began arriving in Uganda at the invitation of the local King Muteesa. They were mostly Anglican, and they managed to win some notable converts, particularly among the nobles. Concurrently to them, some of the White Fathers, a French congregation founded in Rome in 1868 and tasked with serving as Missionaries to Africa, arrived in Uganda as well. These, of course, were Catholic and also had notable converts among the nobles.  

All was well until King Muteesa died and his son, King Mukasa, came to the throne. Feeling a bit threatened by these new converts cropping up, King Mukasa decided to send a message to the British by killing the newly appointed Anglican bishop of the region who had just arrived in Uganda, Bishop Hannington. In response, the leader of the Catholics in the king’s court and a longtime friend of the king, Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, confronted the monarch over this assassination. Balikuddembe, notwithstanding his friendship with the king, was sentenced to death and had his head cut off and burned. He said to his executioners before dying that, “A Christian that has surrendered his life to God is not afraid to die.” That was in 1885.

Six months later, in 1886, a young man named Charles Lwanga(shown above baptizing St Kizito before their martyrdom) had become the leader of the remaining Christians in the king’s court. In one way or another, the king found out that a significant number of his pages were Christians; in punishment he sent them on a long walk to Namugongo where they were martyred for their faith. The youngest of them was fourteen years old, a saint named Kizito. The execution Charles Lwanga was particularly brutal; he was slowly burned at the stake in a process that took several hours and gradually moved up his body.

In all, there is a record of 22 Catholics and 23 Anglicans being executed by King Mukasa, and it is certain that many others who were not of the royal court were killed in the persecutions that followed, but no record exists of those.

The martyrs were canonized in 1964 by Pope Saint Paul VI. The Basilica of the Ugandan Martyrs was built shortly thereafter in Namugongo, where they were executed.

We visited the grounds, prayed at the grotto, and then stopped by to visit a friend of Henry’s at Ugandan Martyrs University next door, one of the most prestigious universities in Uganda.

That evening, we stopped by the parish of Fr. Emmanuel (shown above) in the Lugazi diocese, Bukelere parish. He is another friend of Br. Henry’s who was only recently ordained and even more recently assigned to the parish. He is in charge of schools, and we will be working with him further to roll out the Children’s Rosary there. They were doing significant work to expand the church and prayer space, so we hope for only the best with that important work.

That evening, we returned to Br. Henry’s home before the next day’s trip to Gulu in the north of Uganda."

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE