Preparing Flowers for Our Blessed Mother

The Children's Rosary in Lisdoonvarna Co Clare, Ireland shared pictures of the flowers they prepared to give to Our Blessed Mother for their May Children's Rosary meeting. It has been a tradition that at the end of each decade of the Rosary children place flowers before a statue of Our Blessed Mother while asking for the fruit of the mystery. As May is the month dedicated to Our Blessed Mother, it seems hearts are even more drawn to making each gift extra special. One can see the great care that went into preparing these flowers with ribbon. Lourda and her daughter also made special gingerbread cookies as a treat for the children at the end of the Children's Rosary.

First Children's Rosary in Iraq

We are excited to announce that a Children's Rosary is forming in Iraq. The new group will be meeting at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Qaraqosh (Bakhdida) next to Mosul, Iraq. Fr. Rony Marzina has gathered one hundred and fifty young people age 11-14 who will be forming this new group at the parish. They are shown below. 

Children's Rosary Introduced in the Santa Elena Diocese of Ecuador

We are grateful to Henry Bukenya for traveling from the Archdiocese of Quito to the Diocese of Santa Elena to provide an informational session about the Children's Rosary to catechists at San Juan Buastista Parroquia. 

The three hour session was held on Sunday May second and 62 people attended. 

Thank you to Rev. Fr. John Mary Sekayima Parish priest, Madam Mirella – the Parish Secretary and Mr. Jessy for their nice arrangement.

Missionary Disciples

On May 3, 2026, members of the Children's Rosary gifted rosaries at the 10:30 AM Sunday Mass at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in West Hartford, Connecticut. This was a wonderful experience for the children. They were able to take their experience of prayer and share it. This gave them a wonderful taste of being missionary disciples. With big smiles they invited all those who entered to pray with them on the second Sunday of the month at 9:45AM in the lower chapel of St Thomas the Apostle Church in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States. This is where the Children's Rosary began 15 years ago. 

Liam, age 4 was also overflowing with joy. He left most of the explaining to the older children but he was unmatched in his delivery of rosaries to those who entered. Thank you to Ethel (shown below) who has been helping the Children's Rosary. She returns to Ghana at the end of May and she will bring with her a missionary box of materials to help start the Children's Rosary at her home parish. Ethel has been studying at UConn Law School and was able to become confirmed at St. Thomas and St Timothy parish at Easter. 

Journey Through Botswana and Namibia

Asher Kaufman, at 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 and on October 26 traveled to Kenya. A visit for three weeks to Madagascar followed on November 7 and then South Africa. He spent several weeks in Cameroon and then the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Angola, South Africa and Mozambique followed. This dispatch chronicles his journey from South Africa to Botswana and through Namibia.

The journey into Botswana and Namibia began on, as I said in the last post, one day after my return from Mozambique. We were set to depart early on the morning of the day appointed. Our group was comprised of a diverse group of faces, Cynthia Stimpel, a former executive for South African Airways who lost her job in 2016 due to her role as a whistleblower in exposing the deep corruption present in the airline. Also on our trip was Dr. Mimi Choon Quinones, a public health professional with the Pan-African Parliament. Of course, Gail Walters and I rounded out the group.

Prior to setting off, we had the perpetually humorous experience of attempting to cram as many bags and suitcases into a small car as one possibly can and the tremendous feeling of satisfaction that comes along with successfully doing so. When we finally pulled out of the driveway, we looked like we were leaving on a cross-country road trip, which in point of fact, we were.

The drive to Gaborone was not slated to be a long one, given that that municipality sites quite near the South African border to the northwest of Johannesburg. However, along the way, some traffic cops informed us that one of the main roads into Botswana was closed due to maintenance work, and so we were forced to divert onto a road of noticeably lesser quality and of greater distance.

Our drive included a great deal of monotony as one might expect; however, there was a generous share of funny and memorable moments, such as when we arrived at the border crossing and found the large trucks parked there for processing nearly alive with monkeys that ran about the parking lot like so many escaped prison convicts intent on enjoying their few hours of freedom. Upon finishing the formalities at the border, we went to drive out, only to realize that there were no clear markings indicating where to proceed to enter Botswana. We drove through what appeared to be a gate, past some trucks, around a corner, and…back to the South African entry! We turned around, made our way back to the parking lot where we were and saw some people who looked like they might be able to tell us where to go. We asked, and they vaguely indicated in the direction we had tried. Encouraged, we attempted going in that direction again.

“Perhaps we missed a turn or something,” someone suggested.

We found another gate opening we had not seen before, leading into what seemed to be a truck waiting area. We continued through, found the exit, followed the ensuing road, and found ourselves…back at the South African entry!

Really becoming frustrated (but also secretly quite amused) by this point, we saw a lady walking along the side of the road. We asked for indications to the Botswanan border, but she only vaguely indicated in the direction of the building we had started from. Finally, the third attempt yielded the desired results, and soon we were cruising along the road into Botswana.

It was not a particularly stunning landscape that greeted us, but rather a wooded, grassy landscape set against an overcast, slightly wet day.

We drove to the Diocesan offices in Gaborone, where we were met by Fr. Ketshepileone Puoeng and Tapiwa Mokoka who is in charge of children’s affairs for the diocese. They took us to a parish of children who were waiting for us that same evening, where we were treated to a carefully curated event of prepared music, messages, opportunities for us to address those present, and gifts prepared by the the children. It was really quite an event, but it was the first of many such.

The next day, we had four visits to make. That was Saturday. We had the first visit in the morning just after breakfast, the next around lunchtime, and then two in the afternoon, stretching into the evening. We did not want to shortchange the groups that were waiting for us as they had come a distance and prepared so much. We shared rosaries with them and tried to help them come to know the Rosary better. They had clearly coordinated among themselves about which gifts to give us because we never received the same ones twice. By the end, we had traditional head coverings made of animal hair, framed pictures with messages thanking us for our visit, Botswanan flags, Botswanan national soccer team shirts, and more.

In the evening, we took Fr. Puoeng and Tapiwa, as well as another priest friend, out to a local restaurant for dinner where we enjoyed some nice fellowship time.

The following day included a morning Mass some distance from Gaborone itself where we were able to address the faithful at the end. We then had to exit the premises rather quickly in order to make it to one last parish in time (as was rapidly becoming a common theme on this trip), they had been waiting for us for a while.

We stopped there, and having honed our skills in presenting short and engaging material on the rosary, we were able to have what I thought was a wonderful and memorable last parish visit in Botswana.

What ensued afterward was rather interesting. We went to a shopping mall where we ended up having to wait on something (the specifics of which evade me at the moment) which so delayed us that we decided, instead of driving part of the way to Windhoek (for that was our next destination) and staying the night in Charles Hill, near the border with Namibia, to instead drive through the night to Windhoek in order to avoid being late for our meeting with Fr. Matthias, the OMI priest hosting us in Namibia.

I had never driven through a night before, and so I was rather looking forward to this experience. The road we were traversing was remote, to say the least, and downright isolated and forsaken, to say a bit more. It contained treacherous potholes, which we had anticipated, but also something far more dangerous and difficult to manage: cows. There were a number of cows and bulls grazing along the side of the road, and they would not infrequently take it into their minds to traverse the roads, or, what was worse, simply stand or kneel in the middle of it. The effect on night driving is a profound one. One minute you are cruising along at a comfortable 100 kph with a clear road ahead; then suddenly the headlights pick out a large brown cow just in front of you. Then two more. You’re forced to swerve to the side and slow way down. Sometimes the cows were so numerous and blocked the whole road such that we were forced to come to a complete stop and wait for them to move.

At one point, it began to rain, further impeding the visibility. Then a large attachment to one of the windshield wipers flew off, rendering the one on the right-hand side (that is, the one that enables the driver to see) completely ineffective. Thankfully, the rain stopped, so we just wiped off the windscreen with a cloth and continued resolutely forward.

Finally, around morningtime, we arrived at the Namibian border crossing. We succeeded in coming through that border with less confusion than we had endured when going into Botswana.

The landscape in Namibia was markedly different from that of Botswana. It was noticeably hotter, drier, and much less vegetated in Namibia. The road stretched on in a straight line through the empty desert with depressing monotony. Everyone’s cell service stopped working once we entered Namibia, but thankfully we had already loaded directions to Windhoek. These we followed, and then we stopped off at KFC to use their WiFi to load more precise directions to the OMI house where we were staying.

By 1:00 p.m., we rolled into the expansive OMI property where we would be staying. We had the opportunity to shower and change, much needed after our journey, and then we went into town to meet with Fr. Matthias, the OMI provincial who was hosting us.

Gail had already corresponded with Fr. Matthias before about the Children’s Rosary efforts, but this was the opportunity to hand over materials and coordinate efforts with everyone present. The next day, we visited a kindergarten run by the sisters right next to our OMI residence as well as a parish in town in order to begin the process of starting Children’s Rosary groups.

Alas, our visit to Namibia was all too short. Soon enough, we were on the road again, this time headed for South Africa. We stopped in Keetmashoop to visit Fr. Steven, an OMI priest there, who will be starting a Children’s Rosary in his school. Then, we spent the night in Upington before coming back to Johannesburg the next day. It had been an unexpectedly wonderful trip, and I think we had all bonded pretty well by the end, particularly after that long drive through the night.

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

Preparations Underway for a Gift for Pope Leo

We are preparing a book to be given to the Holy Father during an upcoming visit to Rome. The Apostolic Nuncio for the United States has arranged that Asher and I will be able to briefly greet the Holy Father at the General Audience on June 17. We plan to present the Holy Father with a special book with personal notes from members of the Children's Rosary from around the world. We welcome submissions from children, adults, parents, priests, grandparents, and Children's Rosary group leaders. We hope that testimonials can answer the questions: what has the Children's Rosary meant to you?  Why do you love the Children's Rosary? What fruits have you seen from the Children's Rosary? The dimensions of the book are as follows: 19.5 cm wide and 26 cm tall. 

Therefore ideally submissions would not be larger than this and since the pages inside the book are smaller than the cover a good target would be a maximum height of 20 centimeters and a max width of 15 centimeters. If groups have already completed submissions and they are larger have no fear we can be creative and we will still use them. The image above arrived this week in the mail from Ireland. Please try to send submissions as soon as you can. We will continue adding to the book until June 12 but we appreciate additional time to make the book with extra love and care.

Submissions can be sent to:

• Children's Rosary
• PO Box 271743
• West Hartford, CT 06127 USA

Please take a picture of anything that will be sent and also email it to blythe.kaufman@gmail.com In this way if the mail is delayed your sentiments can still be added.

As some groups may not be able to send submission through the postal mail email submission are also wonderful. We intend to include pictures of groups and we can even hand write in comments that are submitted so there are lots of ways to be included in this book.

We also would like to include spiritual bouquets in the book for the Holy Father as well. In addition to the testimonials about the Children's Rosary we would also like to include Spiritual Bouquet cards from Children's Rosary groups and individuals who are involved with the Children's Rosary. Spiritual Bouquet cards can be downloaded free HERE. We also have these cards available as a pdf download in German HERE. These can also be sent to the address above or if you would like to email what prayers have been said and who it is from we can fill out the cards to be included. Email Blythe at blythe.kaufman@gmail.com

Children's Rosary Logo as a Coloring Page

We are excited to share a new resource. This is our Children's Rosary logo which is available as a pdf download. The logo is created in such a way that it can be colored by children. We also have our regular logo available for download. 

Click HERE to access our logo