Sr. Maria Kimani is the superior of the East African delegation. From the 1st to the 28th of February, 2010, the delegation was visited by the Superior General, Sr. M. Antonieta Bruscato, and the General Councillors Sr. Anna Maria Parenzan e Sr. Anna Caiazza.Sr. Maria Kimani spoke to us of the Pauline presence in this area of Africa and about the challenges that the Pauline mission meets there in this time.
Sr. Maria, can you give us some information about Delegation?The delegation is formed of six countries: Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, an immense geogrphical area that bestows on the Delegation a varied social and cultural beauty. In each nation, there is only one community, excepting Nigeria, where we have two communities. The (professed) sisters total 52, novices 7, pre-novices 8 and there are 12 pre-postulants.
The Delegation is apostolically very active and dynamic. The principal apostolic activites are: editorial work on books and audiovisuals, the internet, the distribution agency, book centers, itinerant diffusion, and vocational pastoral work.
The Pauline mission is very welcome in every nation where we are present. The Church wants our help for a greater pastoral action. However, we do not have sufficient personnel to respond to their requests. The Lord is blessing us with good vocations, for which we are particularly grateful because this, for us, is the sign that the Lord wants our Pauline charism to sink its roots into Africa.
What are the main challenges for the Pauline mission in these countries?
The field in which we carry out our mission is vast, but we want to reach other countries to announce the Gospel. However, this is not possible, since we need to consolidate the existing communities , to make good use of our members.
We live and work among a people who are very poor due to social, political, and economic situations. It is a challenge for us to keep this reality in mind, in order to be able to reach all.
Do you have some dreams for the future?
To have Daughters of St. Paul who are courageous, holy, inflamed with missionary passion like their ‘Father’, and that they would be ‘light and salt for the earth’ for the people of God in the world of today. And I dream that the Lord will continue to send us vocations, since the harvest is great and there is a place for one who listens to the voice of her calling.
What fruits do you expect from this visit?
I hope that the joy experienced by all of us during these days of the fraternal visit will continue to motivate us to deepen our sense of belonging to the Congregation and the Church for the greater glory of God.
Certainly this visit has deepened in each sister’s heart her own responsibility to bring Christ to the others through the social communications and to find new ways of annoouncing the message.
Above all, I am certain that the fraternal visit will make a renewed commitment spirng up in everyone for animation of the vocational pastoral, which, we were reminded, is the ‘the priority of priorities’.