New Children's Rosary Forms at St. Balikuddembe Catholic Parish Buloba, Uganda

A Children's Rosary workshop was held on January 18, 2026, at St. Balikuddembe Catholic Parish Buloba in the Kampala Archdiocese of Uganda. Through this effort of Br. Henry Bukenya a new Children's Rosary has begun. This group meets weekly on Saturday mornings at 8:00 AM. A special thank you to the Children's Rosary group leader, Winfred Namuwonge.  

Children's Rosary Informational Session at St. Joseph Mutukula Parish, Masaka Diocese of Uganda

Br. Henry Bukenya, has been visiting parishes throughout the Masaka Diocese of Uganda presenting informational sessions about the Children's Rosary. Educators have been traveling in some cases great distances to learn how they can implement the Children's Rosary in their schools. Some of the educators had initiated groups during visits to the Masaka Diocese earlier in the autumn when Asher Kaufman and Br. Henry Bukenya made visits. There was interest in having Br. Henry return and provide more information. Thus these visits were made over the past two weeks. 

On December 4, Br. Henry visited St. Joseph Mutukula Parish that  boarders at Uganda and Tanzania where Fr. Alex Musoke the Masaka Diocesian Children Rosary coordinator resides.

Nine people participated in the informational session including 3 priests and 6 teachers representing 6 schools which already have started the Children's Rosary Movement with the help of Fr. Dick.  

Thanks goes to Fr. Alex and Fr. Dick for the arrangement especially in this period when schools are already closed for holidays. It was a wonderful meeting; a lot was shared. 

Children's Rosary Informational Sessions at Matale Parish in Masaka Diocese, Uganda

Br. Henry Bukenya, has been visiting parishes throughout the Masaka Diocese of Uganda presenting informational sessions about the Children's Rosary. Educators have been traveling in some cases great distances to learn how they can implement the Children's Rosary in their schools. Some of the educators had initiated groups during visits to the Masaka Diocese earlier in the autumn when Asher Kaufman and Br. Henry Bukenya made visits. There was interest in having Br. Henry return and provide more information. Thus these visits were made over the past two weeks. 

The visit to Matale Parish included 9 participants from 3 schools that had already started the Children's Rosary some 2 months ago. Those that attended included teachers, parents, and student leaders. A special thank you to Madame Sarah for coordinating Br. Henry Bukenya's visit. The three schools represented included St. Francis of Assisi school, St. James Manyama Primary School, and St. Mary's Kisunku. The Children's Rosary at St. Francis of Assisi school has 25 members, there are 60 children participating at St. James school and 130 children participating at St. Mary's school. 

We warmly welcome these new groups and thank all those who helped make this informational session a success. 

Mass Offered on November 25, 2025 for the Members of the Children's Rosary

A Mass was offered on November 25 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 included in this post were recently sent from Fr. Lusembo, the priest in charge of schools, at Mutukula Parish in the Masaka Diocese of Uganda. These are Children's Rosary groups at Children of Kamuli Child Care School in Mutukula Parish. This parish is on the border of Tanzania.

Educator Training Sessions in the Archdiocese of Gulu, Uganda

A special thank you to Br. Henry Bukenya, the Children's Rosary coordinator for Uganda, who is providing training sessions for educators on implementing the Children's Rosary in their schools. These training sessions follow up the visits Asher and Br. Henry made throughout Uganda and Rwanda in September and October. The first of these training sessions, began in the Archdiocese of Gulu, Uganda this week. Br Henry relates,  "It has been wonderful session [at] Immaculate Conception Girl's Primary School. Twenty-four members from seven schools [participated in the Children's Rosary training] that took us almost  nine hours of presentation, questions, complements and interaction."

On November 13, Br Henry shared, "We began our session yesterday at 10 since the majority of participates were coming from far long distance. We all met at Christ the King Parish, the headquarters of Kitgum Vicariate.  We had 27 participants from 8 schools though we had planned for 10 participants from 5 schools. We cannot fail to thank God for this this big turn -up!  

The Archdiocese was represented by Miss Odong Irene the Administrative Education Secretary whom I travelled with while, Mr. Richard Komakech who had to travel from Padel district, represented all Catholic Headteachers and Principles of the Gulu Archdiocese; Mr. Alexis Ocaya represented the Laity and all Catechists in Kitgum Vicariate."

Br. Henry will go on to the Mbarara Diocese and then Masaka Diocese of Uganda and then in December he will travel to Rwanda for further training sessions. 

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

Returning to 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 the afternoon of Saturday, October 4, we crossed back into Uganda after our trip into Rwanda. We were "home" again. It had been a packed trip to Rwanda, with quite a lot of driving, sometimes crisscrossing the same places more than once, but I have no doubt that it was quite worth it. The number of meetings we had and the people we met were extraordinary. 

After crossing the border, we traveled to Mbarara, a city in western Uganda that we had not visited for very long before. It is one of the biggest cities in the country and a diocese where we have a few Children's Rosary groups. 

In the evening, we visited St. Leo's preparatory School. We arrived late due to some extra steps when crossing the border, but the children were most excited to see us nonetheless. They shouted out a line I had heard more than once before when visiting a school in Uganda, "You are most welcome, our dear visitors!" I don't know if I will ever get used to the feeling of a hundred pairs of eyes focusing on me as I walk into the room. There's an undeniable feeling of expectation that's in the air, and no one wants to disappoint that. However, the experience has gotten easier since arriving. We spoke to the children concerning the Children's Rosary, and even though that school had been praying regularly, they agreed to pray as a Children's Rosary group every week. 

After visiting this school, we decided not to visit a second school we had planned to visit because the day students had already gone home, so we decided to visit the next day. Personally, I think this was a good decision as I had a pounding headache from the long journey and wanted to be able to give more of myself to the children when I felt better. 

The next morning, we woke up at 4:00 am, but not to visit children. We were going to visit some animals. Even though going on safari was not why I came to Africa, it still seemed to make sense to make a stop at Queen Elizabeth National Park since we were going right past it. 

The park was founded in 1952 and named after the queen due to her visit to the country in 1954. It is one of the most well known parks in the region and has a large collection of sought after animals.

The entrance to the park was about two hours away from our hotel, so once we got there, we quickly met up with the guide and got in the vehicle. It was a large pickup truck with seats loaded onto the back bed. We were not permitted to bring our own car in due to the danger from the animals, but as it turned out, it was better we went in the pickup because the mud on the dirt paths was so great that it might have been too much for our car. We were told later that two cars got stuck. 

As we drove through the park, we saw antelopes (called kobs here), elephants, waterbucks, buffalo, bush bucks, and even a leopard. The leopard is a rather elusive animal, living a solitary life and rarely being seen. We were happy we got to see them. 

We also saw some notable birds, such as the wattled lapwig, the red necked spurfowl, and the grey heron. Interestingly, this last bird was once particularly prized in Europe, especially roasted. It is said that for the celebration of George Neville becoming Archbishop of York in the fifteenth century, 400 roast herons were served to him. 

I must say, I think everyone quite enjoyed the tour. It was a cool day, overcast but not rainy. It felt nice to have the wind whipping at you as we cruised through the beautiful terrain. 

That afternoon, we visited St. Mary's School Katete. This was a school operated by a community of brothers like St. Leo's. We spoke to them, gave them some rosaries and sweets, and took pictures with them. They were quite happy for this. 

That night we slept again at Fr. Alex's parish in Mutukula. Our schedule became quite packed at the end of the day, and we ended up having to skip over some planned activities, such as spending time at a baptism celebration for a friend of Fr. Alex's in Masaka. However, we did manage to stop at Fr. George's parish in the Mbarara diocese; he is a friend of the Children's Rosary's, and we were glad to see him.

As we approached Mutukula, we realized it was quite close to midnight and we had not had Mass that day; no one, however, was willing to go to bed with no Mass, so despite the very late hour, we went into the rectory's private chapel, and Fr. Alex celebrated Mass.

It was a beautiful end to a memorable day. 

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

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