With great joy and excitement, I arrived in the community of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania for my apostolic and community experience immediately after my first profession, towards the end of July 2000. This was to be my community for the next three and half years of the first part of my juniorate. Truly I experienced the faithfulness of the Lord in my life and I came to believe more strongly in the words that Jesus confided in the founder, “do not be afraid I am with you.” These same words became my comfort in moments of darkness and trials.
In Dar Es Salaam, I worked in the bookshop, prepared weekly radio programs for Radio Tumaini, carried out vocation promotion and book displays in parishes and institutions. It was an enriching moment being the first time of living fully my consecrated life after the novitiate. It was very encouraging to see how much people appreciated our mission.
After my mission in Tanzania, I was transferred to Uganda where I went to study Philosophy and theology. Apart from being a student, I participated in book displays, prepared radio programs for Radio Maria and worked in the bookshop. It was nice to have another experience in another country where people equally appreciated our mission.
After my final profession in 2007, I was sent to open a new community in Juba, South Sudan together with three other sisters from Malta, Philippines and India. This was the first time I felt the challenge of language. After a few months of learning Arabic, it was easy to communicate and give hope to the people of South Sudan who had suffered in war. We together established the mission and the people were happy that they were now able to find books and bibles within their country.
I lived in Juba for two years and then I got transferred to Lusaka, Zambia. In Zambia, I worked in the bookshop, carried out book displays and vocation promotion within Zambia and in Malawi for five years. It was a great experience moving from one diocese to another with books, Bibles, CDs and DVDs. Any diocese we visited, people were happy to buy whatever they needed from us and they wanted us to stay in their diocese forever which was not practical for us.
Having enjoyed my mission in Lusaka, it was time again to go and start a new mission in Lilongwe Malawi with another sister. Since we had been visiting Malawi for some years from Lusaka, the people were so happy that we had finally come to stay. We started by setting up a bookshop in the sitting room and learning the local language in order to communicate with the people. Later on the bookshop was transferred from the sitting room to the container and people started visiting our bookshop to buy what they needed for their human and spiritual growth.
After my short stay in Lilongwe, I was transferred to Nairobi in Kenya where I worked at the Catholic Bookshop for seven years. At the Catholic Bookshop, I met people from all parts of Kenya and beyond. Most of those who visited the bookshop showed a lot of appreciation at the diversity of the stock, while other people needed some guidelines on how to live their Catholic Faith. It was fulfilling to be of help to the people while at the Catholic Bookshop.
At the moment, am back to Juba, South Sudan. I pray and hope that our presence in this nation may bring hope for a better future to the South Sudanese who have suffered a lot due to constant civil wars.