Aid to the Church in Need: Zambia: A day in the life of Fr Justin M. Sinyangwe

Zambia: A day in the life of Fr Justin M. Sinyangwe

Posted by Information report on 28/1/2009, 8:26 am
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"Please, please help us!" A young man pleaded insistently with Father Justin a Catholic priest, who was just setting out from Saint Kalolo's a mission station in the northeast of Zambia. He stopped his van and listened to the young man as he pleaded his case. "My wife has been in labour for three days, please can you take her to the hospital in Mbala. Please help us!" Father Justin didn't hesitate.He told the young father to climb in and they set off. After a kilometre or so they come upon an excited crowd in the nearest hamlet. The whole village was in turmoil.
"I had hardly stopped", related Father Justin to a representative of the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), "when a heavily pregnant young woman of around 20 emerged from one of the huts". She was clearly in great pain, and three other women were supporting her, two of them relatives and the other a midwife.

After a brief discussion it was decided to lay the young woman on a mattress in the back of the truck. But no suitable mattress could be found in the whole of the village, and so they decided to sit her on the passenger seat. The other three women and her husband climbed into the back.

A few bundles of items – some spare clothing, a sheet, a cooking pot and a bucket – were stowed aboard, nothing more. Then an old woman of around 80, came up to the vehicle to say goodbye. She stroked the cheeks of the woman in labour, gazed into her eyes and wept. It was a touching moment. Then another, younger woman came up with a word of advice: "When the moment comes, tell Sir to stop the vehicle, and call the midwife." As Father Justin explained, neither the women nor the young man were Christians, and so they all address the priest as "Sir", rather than "Father".

They set off, with 70 km (45 miles) of rough country roads and bare dirt tracks, full of countless potholes, ahead of them: the pregnant woman, her deeply worried husband, her companions and Father Justin at the steering wheel. Although this Catholic priest had 35 years experience of driving on the terrible roads of northeast Zambia and though he made every effort to ease the journey for his suffering passenger, the journey to Mbala was nonetheless a veritable torture for the poor woman. For four hours they drove on those bumpy roads and at every bump, at every pothole, the young mother groaned in agony.
"All this was, so to speak, the physical, visible side of things", Father Justin explained, "but for me there was also the spiritual side. I prayed this wonderful Catholic prayer, the Rosary - three times over in fact, in the four hours or so". He prayed for a safe journey, a safe arrival and for the health of mother and child. Father Justin said, "I turned to Mary, and asked her to intercede with her Son, the Lord of Life."

(Fr Justin M. Sinyangwe left of picture)

Finally, and with no major mishaps, the van arrived at the provincial capital, Mbala, at the southern end of Lake Tanganyika on the frontier with Tanzania. It is a small town with a population of around 20,000 souls. As Father Justin pulled up outside the hospital, the pregnant woman was immediately laid on a stretcher and carried into the maternity ward. Deeply grateful, the passengers all took an emotional leave of Father Justin.
Three weeks later, the priest again found himself in St. Kalolo’s, delivering building materials for a larger church - a project supported by ACN. Father Justin went looking for the place where the young couple lived. The young woman recognized him immediately and introduced him to all the people present. "This is 'Faza' Justin, who took me to the hospital", she tells them. By now the young woman had discovered that her rescuer was a Catholic priest. She showed him her child, a healthy young boy, born by Caesarean section. Father Justin related, "The parents had given him the name Sinyangwe, and his grandmother had chosen a second name, Justin. And so I added the initial M. for Mary, in thanksgiving for the intercession of the Mother of Jesus, who is our Mother too, of course."

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.
Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.
The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.
For more information, please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org