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
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