Connecticut Catholic Men's Conference 2025

 

The Children's Rosary had a booth at the Connecticut Catholic Men's Conference in Waterbury CT on September 27. We brought with us fifty Children's Rosary flyers which we made available to the attendees. The flyers had information about the Children's Rosary with the question: could Our Blessed Mother be calling you to start a Children's Rosary in your school or parish? The men responded to our request for help in bringing flyers to post at their parishes. We left with not one flyer remaining. 

The day was full of many blessings. We saw old friends and made new ones. We also had the opportunity to meet the new Bishop of the Norwich Diocese. He responded with an open and positive attitude upon seeing our booth. He said "tell me about the Children's Rosary."  Seeing a line forming to speak to Bishop Richard Reidy I kept my explanation rather short but did give him a copy of our Children's Rosary materials and Child Consecration book. He came back to the booth rather excited to tell us that one of our endorsements for the Child Consecration book had been written by a classmate his in Rome. This was bishop John Keenan of Paisley, Scotland. They sat one row apart during their lectures. 

A special thank you to Ellen Fox who helped at the booth all day. She was an excellent addition to the team. 

Visit to Kigali Rwanda

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 2, Br. Bukenya, Fr. Musoke, our driver, Kizito, and I finished our visit to Kibeho, and we spent the night at the Ghindamuyaga Benedictine monastery not far away. The monks there are quite nice and they have a magnificent property. They have their own bees, so they make their own honey. They also make their own bread and jam. These we ate the next morning at breakfast. We were able to visit with Fr. Jean Baptiste, the superior of the convent, and Fr. Venuste, a local parish priest. Both were very upbeat and positive about the Children's Rosary. They were joyful men, and I was happy to have made their acquaintance. Fr. Venuste took us to a local primary school run by a Carmelite nun whom we met with. The nun was delighted to hear of the Children's Rosary, and we made arrangements to train the teachers at the school in how to run the group. 

After these meetings, we said goodbye to this part of Rwanda for good and headed to Kigali, the capital city. We had briefly passed through here on the first day, but now we spent more time, meeting with the priest in charge of youth matters for the archdiocese, Fr. Tadeo. He also is interested in rolling out the Children's Rosary, and Br. Bukenya will be returning to provide him and his teachers with some training. 

I must say that I rather liked Kigali even though we did not see much of the city. It seemed not to be so frenetic, and it was well-organized. That night, we returned to Kabgayi, where we had slept the first night in Rwanda. This was because we had a meeting with the Bishop of Kabgayi the next day. We stayed at a hotel called the Hotel Saint Andre which is run by the diocese. We have noticed in our travels in Rwanda that there are many such hotels and guesthouses and that this seems to be a way for the dioceses to make money. We all thought it a very good idea.

The meeting with the bishop turned out to be quite nice. We had already met with Fr. Celse, the parish priest in Kabgayi, and the bishop was very open and supportive of the movement. He was happy for it to roll out in his diocese, and he also will be another stop for Br. Bukenya when he returns. 

Later that day, we returned to Kigali for a few more meetings, including with Fr. Joseph, in charge of children's matters for the archdiocese of Kigali and deputy for the whole country. He also was very interested by the movement. He works with Fr. Tadeo, so it was good that we met with both men with regards to this. I am excited for the prospects of what is to come in Kigali and the other dioceses where we stopped in Rwanda.

That night, Fr. Joseph (shown above in the striped shirt) was kind enough to put us up at a hotel run by some sisters not far from where he was staying. 

The next morning, we stopped at a school under his care to share a few words at their morning Mass to welcome them into the movement. It is at this school, I believe, where he will be starting one of the pilot groups for the archdiocese. We certainly pray his efforts are successful. 

After our brief meeting with the students, we set off for Uganda once more. I will cover the events of the rest of the day once we crossed the border in another post, but this seems like a natural place to end.

I must say that throughout our visit to Rwanda, rain was our constant companion. Some of you may recall the story from our last trip to Africa in 2019 of how at Fr. Jude Ssali's parish it began to rain while we were there and only rained within the confines of where members of the Children's Rosary lived. Not only that, but the rain was heavy and did not cause crop damage. Well, we have had much rain in Rwanda too; for instance, when we visited the bishop of Cyangugu, it rained so hard I feared even to leap from the car, as I related in another post. When we were in Kigali, it rained on more than one occasion, even though it had been dry for a long time there before our arrival. When we stayed at Kabgayi, it flooded the hallway in our hotel. Before we met with Fr. Joseph, it came down in droves again.

As we have said, rain here is considered a blessing, and perhaps this is a wonderful way to appreciate the many blessings bestowed on us during our short trip to Rwanda."

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

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and Completion of the 9 Day Children's Rosary Fast

We are very grateful to all who participated in the Children's Rosary 9 Days of Prayer and Fasting. Praise God the graces have been flowing. There has been a flurry of new Children's Rosary groups forming. 

One of the members of the Children's Rosary sent this note today:

"On this last day of the prayer and fasting Novena, here is something for all of the Children's Rosary members and all those who participated in the 9 days of prayer and fasting. 
I printed the Novena petition with a picture of the Children's Rosary symbol and placed it with the Relics of St. Thérése The Little Flower (where I live happened to be the 1st stop of a Nationwide tour) asking her to hear our Novena prayers and to bless us!"

First Meeting of the Children's Rosary in Nassau, Bahamas

 

The first meeting of the Children's Rosary at St. Anselm's Church in Nassau, Bahamas was held on October 4. The Pastor, Fr. Noel Clarke, Consecrated the new group to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Fr Noel Clarke is shown below.

We welcome this new Children's Rosary group and pray that more groups will begin in the Bahamas.

Children's Rosary featured in France Catholique Magazine

The October 4th issue of France Catholique features the Children's Rosary. See page 4 of the magazine which can be viewed HERE.

For those not familiar with this magazine they state:

For 100 years, this committed magazine, rooted in Tradition, has offered its readers a weekly analysis of current events and the fundamentals of faith. Its objective is to train Catholics with rigor and simplicity, to give them the means to be missionaries 

to transmit the faith to the younger generations, in order to promote a new spiritual impetus in France.

Twenty-Two new Children's Rosary Groups form in Pakistan

We are excited to share that twenty-two Children's Rosary groups have formed in Our Lady of Sorrows Parish, Kasur. This is in the Archdiocese of Lahore Pakistan. The Pastor Maqsood Nazir OMI wanted the Children's Rosary in all parts of his parish. The parishes in Pakistan each can have many outposts. Each Children's Rosary group that forms in an outpost will have its own meeting time and will function as a distinct entity. The Children's Rosary groups at Our Lady of Sorrows Parish will each meet weekly.

We have included pictures from some of these new groups at Our Lady of Sorrows Parish. 

A special thank you to Afzaal Anwar Khoklar who brought Children's Rosary books, Child Consecration books, and rosaries to help launch these new groups.

Visit to Our Lady of Kibeho Shrine in Rwanda

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 Tuesday, September 30, we arrived at Kibeho from Cyangugu. It was an enjoyable journey, and I was very happy to reach this holy place of pilgrimage. 

I wish to provide some bit of historical context as I have done for other sites in France that I visited previously. 

Kibeho is a small town in Rwanda where there is located a Catholic high school for girls that was named some time ago "Girls College of Kibeho." It was in this school On November 28, 1981 that the Virgin Mary appeared to a girl named Alphonsine Mumureke. Alphonsine was a lively student, not known for being particularly pious, and so when she began to say she had seen the Virgin Mary, many did not believe her, including the headmistress of the school. The region of Rwanda where the school was located was one known for widespread practices of witchcraft and sorcery, and some began to fear that the girl was under such influences. 

She bore the full brunt of the other students' skepticism. They would bully her, they would put mud in her bed, and she described the time before each apparition as being particularly "hellish" as the students would test and prod her. 

Seeing this situation, she asked the Lady whether it would be possible for her to appear to another girl of a different background and social status. So it was that Our Lady appeared to Natalie Mukamazimpaka, a very religious girl who was also studying at the high school. The third and final visionary to begin receiving apparitions was Marie Claire Mukangango, the leader of those who persecuted Alphonsine. This stunning reversal did much to assuage people's doubts about the authenticity of the apparitions. There were others who claimed to have had apparitions or visions, but these were not approved subsequently by the Vatican, and the authenticity of what they saw has not been confirmed. 

The public apparitions lasted until 1989, ending on the same day they began. Over the course of these apparitions, extensive examinations were done on the children and on the phenomena to determine whether what was occurring was indeed supernatural. The local bishop set up a theological and a medical commission to investigate for a prolonged period of time. The theological commission was composed of theologians and priests who verified the doctrinal orthodoxy of what the messages said. The medical commission conducted extensive tests on the girls during the apparitions and psychological and physical evaluations over a long period of time. They found that the girls during ecstasy were disconnected from the physical world in ways impossible to explain through natural causes. For instance, during ecstasy, the visionaries would not react to pain, even to a candle being placed very near their hands. Further, they would not blink at a camera flash during the apparition nor move their gaze from a fixed point, whereas a few moments before the ecstasy, they would blink at the flash and look around normally. Not only that, but they on at least one occasion would look at the sun for prolonged periods of time, sometimes up to an hour with no ill effects such as burning of the retinas. Finally, the commission initialed long term psychiatric evaluation; they found no significant disorder such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, or hysteria. As a result of this in depth investigation, it is incredibly hard to deny the supernatural nature of what happened at Kibeho. 

The message that Our Lady transmitted at Kibeho was one of a call to repentance and conversion, a warning of the sick nature of the world, a delineation of the nature of sacrificial suffering and its importance, and a call to prayer, particularly the Rosary. The Virgin Mary spoke grievingly about the moral decay the world was experiencing, and she called Christians to a proper understanding of suffering such as making little sacrifices in day to day life. She called Christians to pray the Rosary every day, and she called them to renew devotion to the Seven Sorrows Rosary, a meditation originally from the thirteenth century that no one in Rwanda knew much about at the time.

Alphonsine became a nun subsequently, entering a community of Sisters of Bethlehem. She currently lives in Italy. Natalie currently still resides in Kibeho, living a life of prayer and meditation, as instructed by Our Lady. 

Among the many moments in the story of Kibeho, one apparition in particular struck observers more than the others. This was the apparition of August 15, 1982. It was the feast of the Assumption of Mary, and naturally everyone was expecting a joyful message. Instead, Our Lady appeared in tears, inconsolable. She showed the girls devastation, killing, the streets running with blood, dead bodies. It was a deeply disturbing and somber apparition, a call to conversion that was more desperate than what hardly any expected. The scale of the meaning of this apparition did not become clear until years later. 

In April of 1994, a catastrophic genocide erupted across Rwanda. The causes were many, and the tensions had been slowly building for years, but the effects were quick and devastating. Thousands of Tutsi, an ethnic group in Rwanda, were slaughtered by vengeful Huti, another ethnic group. The rampages were government sponsored, overseen by prefectures and national police and military. However, great harm came also from local animosity, Hutu in small villages attacking and killing their Tutsi neighbors. In Kibeho, the killing was particularly bad. In the parish church, many Tutsi took refuge, thinking that they would be spared because of the holy place. They were wrong. The murderous crowd, clubs in hand, broke their way through the walls of the church and cut down those inside. When we visited the church on Wednesday, we saw where they had marked on the walls where the walls had been broken in. It was during the genocide that Marie Claire, the third of the visionaries, lost her life with her husband. 

After the genocide, in 2001, the local bishop officially approved the apparitions. Every year, Kibeho receives many pilgrims from all over the world seeking a deeper connection with Our Lady. 

Upon arriving on Tuesday night, we went to the apparition chapel where we prayed for some time. This chapel was in a building that was formerly a dormitory for the school; it was in this building that Our Lady first appeared. Among those in prayer there was Natalie, the visionary. 

The next morning, we went to the basilica, a church completed not long ago that is unique architecturally, not having an equivalent anywhere in the world. I include a picture of this building. It was just outside this church that we had the extraordinary opportunity to meet with Natalie and speak with her for some time. She only spoke Kinyarwanda, the local language of this country, so Br. Henry (who speaks Kinyarwanda) translated for us. 

We presented to her the Children’s Rosary, and she expressed joy at our mission of spreading the Rosary and devotion to it because that is part of the message of Kibeho. She said that often prayer of the Rosary is left to the old, so she was happy our effort was directed toward the young, especially since she was called to pray the Rosary when still quite young herself. 

She encouraged us to meditate and reflect on the messages of Kibeho and Fatima and Lourdes as well in order to receive inspiration directly from our Mother. She encouraged us to remain faithful to the Rosary since it is such a powerful prayer, and she assured us of her prayers for the movement as well. 

All of us felt a bit like we were walking on a cloud after this conversation since it is quite rare to be able to speak to Natalie, and it is even rarer for her to accord significant time to pilgrims for speaking. 

Afterwards, we met with the chancellor of the diocese who took us to a local primary and secondary school, St. Paul’s in Kibeho, where we met with the students and head teacher after a Mass they had organized for us with the whole school. We distributed rosaries and explained how to start a Children's Rosary. They were excited to start and will be our first Children’s Rosary group in Rwanda! They will meet daily to pray in their group.

Towards the end of the day, we finished up by praying the rosary on a walk down towards the source of the holy water of Kibeho (picture below)before leaving to head back towards Kigali for more meetings. 

It was a brief pilgrimage to Kibeho but one I am not likely to forget. I am confident we received many graces from this visit to Our Blessed Mother."

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

Arrival in Rwanda

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. He 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 Sunday, September 28, Br. Henry, Fr. Alex, our driver, a kind parishioner named Kizito, and I set out from Fr. Alex’s parish in Mutukula to go to Rwanda. This was set to be quite a long trip but nevertheless an exciting one because its goal was to spread the Children’s Rosary in Rwanda, where we had previously had no groups.

I had been told the trip from the parish to where we were staying that night in central Rwanda would be over ten hours by car. As it turned out, it was not nearly as long as anticipated and overall quite enjoyable. The quality of the roads in western Uganda and Rwanda was significantly better than where we had been, so the ride was rather smooth. We prayed for the upcoming mission and entrusted it to Our Lord.

It was hard for me to notice much about the country upon arrival since it was after dark when we began to traverse it. I of course did notice the increased prevalence of French once we arrived at the hotel. Actually, the Rwandan government in recent years has shifted emphasis to English in official communications and in education; however, French is very much still at home in Rwanda particularly among the older generations.

We stayed at the St. Andre Hotel in Kabgayi, which is a hotel run by a community of Franciscan sisters of the Reign of Christ; the hotel is right next to the diocesan cathedral and offices of the Diocese of Kabgayi. It is a very nice property, quiet but with beautiful views of the surrounding area and a small chapel available that we used to have a private Mass celebrated by Fr. Alex. After Mass, I spoke with Sr. Concessa Nyirabavakure of the congregation of sisters who run the hotel. Her order is responsible for catechesis and some schools as well, and she was very interested by the Children’s Rosary. We exchanged contact information.

After this, we met with the priest of the Cathedral parish, Fr. Celse Hakuzeyaremye.(The Cathedral is shown below and Fr. Celse Hakuzeyaremye is shown above in blue)

He was interested by the Children’s Rosary but wished to see the reaction of the bishop before moving forward. This is something I have noticed in Rwanda, that many times priests and laymen rely strongly on what the bishop advises, and thus it is often advisable to work directly through them as well as on the local level.

To that end, we set off the next day for Cyangugu, a diocese in western Rwanda, right on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The bishop of this diocese, Mgr. Edouard SInayobye, had been at the FAFCE conference my mother and I attended in Rome in June. (photo directly above) We had contacted him, and since we were in Rwanda again, we arranged to meet. We met not only with him but with the priest in charge of children’s affairs for the diocese, Fr. Noel. (shown below in the bright blue shirt)

Another Rwandan particularity is that the dioceses there have an official post that is in charge of children’s programming and matters. The bishop and priest were open to the idea of beginning a few groups in schools and using them as pilot groups to judge the effects and efficacy. We are grateful for their willingness and interest.

A small side note is that as we were arriving at the bishop’s house, it began to rain torrentially, so hard that I feared even to leap from the car into the open door of the building even though the distance was no more than two or three steps. The rain drenched the whole area but quickly moved out, which enabled us to retrieve all of the materials from the car for the meeting. I only mention this because as we have said before, rain is considered a blessing here, and I seem to be pursued by it. It rained buckets at Fr. Jude Ssali's parish in Mityana, and the same happened in Masaka at more than one stop.Now again it has happened in Rwanda.

After coordinating further with Fr. Noel and making arrangements for him to come to Uganda to see how the movement is rolled out there, we hit the road once more, this time with the destination of Kibeho.

I will address the visit to Kibeho in another post, but before concluding this one, I want to take a moment to speak a bit about the landscapes in Rwanda.

Rwanda is a rather mountainous country, and most of the roads are winding and steep. The scenery is quite lush and beautiful, however, such as when we stopped by Lake Kivu on Monday on our way to Cyangugu. Another picturesque moment came the next day when we passed through Bwindi National Park where we had majestic views of the mountain ranges and countryside as well as numerous monkey sightings in the forest. At one point we stopped to admire one monkey who was sitting by the side of the road, and when he caught sight of some bananas we had in the car, he leaped up onto the partially open window next to me and attempted to climb in, which he very nearly did. These creatures are very smart, and one ought to believe that given the chance they will certainly climb in an open window, steal a phone out of an unsuspecting hand, or cause any amount of mischief.

It was nice to see the monkey, though, because in Uganda I had not seen any animal that was as exotic such as one might imagine seeing when going to East Africa. Despite what one might imagine, the lions, giraffes, and zebras are rare, even here."

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

Children's Rosary Groups Around the World

 

We are grateful to Heidi Dümmling for creating this beautiful graphic of Children's Rosary groups around the world. As we enter the month of the Rosary it is beautiful to see how so many are connected in this tapestry of prayer through the Children's Rosary. Heidi is our Children's Rosary group leader with her husband Matthias in Dormitz, Germany. 

64,451 Handmade Rosaries Arrive in 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. He 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, September 25, was the day that the barrels of rosaries sent months before to this country were picked up in Kampala. It was quite an adventure for all involved. To give some context, the Children's Rosary sends barrels of handmade rosaries to Uganda every year for the children who are part of the Children's Rosary. I myself have seen just how much these children treasure their rosaries, and it is an essential part of their prayer. It is always a bit complicated when one sends them to know when they will be released from customs upon their arrival in country. The wait can be long and hard to estimate. We were informed about a day earlier that the rosaries had been released and available for pickup. Fr. Alex drove from the Tanzanian border to Uganda to pick up some rosaries, and Fr. Jude Ssali's brother, Joseph, came from Mityana. Initially, the company refused to release them because the name on the reservation did not match the names of those there to pick them up. After some nerve-wracking time of working to fix the miscommunication, they were allowed to pick up the barrels, and all went off smoothly. 

Fr. Alex took some of the rosaries to Masaka, and we both dropped them off at the diocesan education offices where groups will be able to pick them up for the children. After driving from Kampala in the rain, his car was so caked with mud (which is what the road is covered in when it rains instead of the dust) that it looked rather like a duck boat that had just come through a flood zone. 

He said he had gotten it washed just before. Fr. Alex then drove us that night to his parish in Mutukula, right on the border with Tanzania. It was a ride of a few hours, and we left at around 10:30. Somehow Br. Henry managed to stay awake with Fr. Alex, but I quickly fell fast asleep.

Fr. Alex has a number of schools he is in charge of here, and since he had a function to attend, the next day he sent Fr. Dick Lusembo, the Father in charge of schools for the parish, to bring us to some of the schools. We first visited St. Kizito Primary School; they were a bit busy with government officials to were present to register the children for national identity cards, but they spared the time to listen to us speak, and they will begin a Children's Rosary that will meet every week. 

We then paid a visit to St. Paul Kyalugaba Primary School and to St. Anthony Kyassimbi Primary School. Both of these also decided to start Children's Rosary groups every week. We distributed rosaries at all of these schools, to give encouragement and aid to the newly-formed groups, and the children were grateful to receive them. Fr. Lusembo was thoroughly behind our message, telling the schools he very much wished for them to become a part of this effort and to meet regularly. He also told us during the car rides between schools of the challenges that he and the teachers face, particularly with regular student attendance. Not all parents prioritize school attendance in the same way, and the local inhabitants of the region were historically more nomadic than stationary. It was more similar, Br. Henry told me, to the areas in Kenya we had visited with the Maasai tribe six years ago, and even the ecology of the landscape seemed more similar to Kenya. Gone were the large forests and lush vegetative life; these were replaced with straw fields and small bushes. 

Lastly, we spent some time with St. Steven school, which is the school right next to the parish where Fr. Lusembo lives. They too, wished to begin a Children's Rosary, and they too decided to meet weekly. 

Fr. Lusembo and I had lunch together following this. He is a very nice and humble priest who was only ordained last year. He has a very gentle demeanor, and I can see that the children under his care like him a lot.

Afterward, Fr. Lusembo stayed to watch the students campaign for elected student government positions. As far as I could see, they take this campaigning quite seriously; there were two very official-looking posters in the classroom where I spoke that read "Vote" and had the picture of one of the primary school students who was running for office. I thought it very professionally done. 

The rest of the afternoon I spent catching up on work and in prayer. There is an adoration chapel at the parish that I availed myself of. I did not realize until I went in how much I had missed going to regular adoration since the schedule had become as it is. It is important for anyone looking to spread a mission to never forget time for prayer. It can be tempting, especially if the schedule is long, to cut back on the prayer routine, but in doing so, it will destroy the effort faster than cutting back on the schedule of active work. This mission is the Lord's, and we must continually entrust it back to Him."

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

The Journey Continues in the Masaka Diocese

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. He 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 September 24, we went back to the Lukaya parish to visit St. Jude's School there. We arrived early for the 8:00 am Mass with the whole school, and then we proceeded into an open area behind the school to recite the rosary. The children knelt down, and we prayed a very well-led rosary together. The coordinator, Teacher Nalukumbi Jane Frances, was very enthusiastic about starting up the Children's Rosary again. We then hit the road again, this time in the direction of Kyamulibwa. Before I speak about our visit there, I want to say a few words about the roads we have spent so much time traveling on. I must say I was not prepared for the kind of ride one receives, especially on country lanes in rural areas. Even in the centers of many towns, the roads are often dirt roads with large gaps and potholes that necessitate slow driving and quick avoidance. Many times, not only are you bumping up and down vertically but swerving side to side often into the oncoming traffic to avoid some of the bigger holes. Even when roads are paved, they often have large holes that necessitate evasive action. In the case of the road to Kyamulibwa, it was a dirt road the whole way. On such roads, there is often a thick layer of dust particularly when it has not rained in a few days. When you are the only car on the road, it is easy to miss how much dust the car kicks up, but when a large truck passes you going the other direction, one has the impression of being in a small sandstorm. For a few moments, you lose all bearings like a ship in the fog. Sometimes, in villages or cities on such roads, there are so many cars and bodabodas (small motorcycles that are much more numerous than cars here that people hire like taxis) that there lies a pall of dust over the road like smog over an industrial zone. In such cases, even this can become so thick as to impede driving; I remember once when we were looking for a certain address on the side of the road, both Br. Henry and the driver were struggling to see anything to the sides of us. They rolled down the windows and peered futilely into the dense cloud. Upon arriving at Kyamulibwa, the old parish of Fr. Alex Musoke. Fr. Musoke had done much good work in bringing the Children's Rosary there as well as Fr. Musinzi, who is now deceased. The priest there now, Fr. Noah, very kindly took us to see three different schools in his parish. 

Two of them, St. Leonard school (uniforms in yellow) and St. Kizito school, had active Children's Rosary groups already. 

St. Kizito's group was particularly active, with an elected group of students who run it and different teams of children (such as St. Ann's or St. Joseph's team) who take turns leading the prayers. They had a prayer space and an intention box prepared, and all in all it was quite well run. The third school, St. Aloysius, had previously had a Children's Rosary group but had stopped due to the pandemic and other factors. We met with the teachers in charge and with those students in P7 and P6 grades who still remembered the group from when they were younger. They were the pioneers of the group originally, and they will help with starting it up again. The head teacher remained impressed with the Children's Rosary, telling us that in her experience these students who were part of the Children's Rosary group were not like other ones in her school. At the end of the day, we returned to Masaka to visit one more school, St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Primary School.

This school is run by the nuns of the Daughters of Mary congregation. There was something very special about this community and their school. 

I felt a great joy coming from the sisters that we met and from the children that were under their care. It was as if they knew they were doing the Lord's work every day and took strength from it. 

The strong relationship between the nuns and the children was evident. The children listened quite eagerly to what we had to say. This school already had a daily rosary, so it will not be difficult at all to officialize the Children's Rosary. Ironically, though Br. Henry and I were both quite exhausted by this point in the day (it was well into the evening), we really hit it off with these students, being extra dynamic in our talks and establishing a good rapport. As I was reflecting on this day, I could not help but be so thankful for the people we had met, not just the new schools wanting to start or restart groups but the ones with groups already. It does happen in this mission that one begins to worry whether many of the groups that have been formed will continue to meet or gradually become abandoned and cease to exist. One can be tempted to try to think one's efforts are largely futile. However, on this day, I saw vibrant groups, groups that loved the Rosary and were transformed by it. For example, at St. Kizito's School, the children took their group so seriously and were so faithful to it that I myself was inspired by their conduct. It was a powerful testament to me that these children and their teachers and animators and the many, many others like them are the ones who feed the movement, and they do so through a love of the Rosary and a commitment to their regular prayer of it. It is God's work ultimately, not mine or anyone else's, and He will guide it in just the way He wishes."

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