Education is the Tool

Imagine driving for hours past unfamiliar sights – half-constructed building already being used as road side stores and homes, chickens and goats running freely with the children, banana trees and corn growing together everywhere.

This was Day Four in Uganda. I was being driven by Fr. Sylvester Arinaitwe, former Superior General of the Apostles of Jesus (AJ), a missionary order founded in 1968 in Africa.

Fr. Silver, as he is known, drove us into the Diocese of Kasana-Luweero. The AJs are hard at work building a school, health clinic and chapel complex on a local farm run by the order and their affiliated Sisters, the Evangelizing Sisters of Mary. The children at the school were waiting patiently for our arrival – they had moved all their chairs to one of the three existing classrooms so they could perform their songs, poems and prayers for their visitors.

The Sisters and teacher put them through their paces as they recited their lessons for us; then came the beautiful singing. Their best song carried a message for all children: “Education is the tool I must use, education is the tool I must use, education is the tool I must use…oh-oh-oh-oh education ooh.”

One by one they stepped forward to sing the verses – “I’d like to be a pilot before I die (A pilot! The chorus would exclaim) I’d like to be a pilot before I die…” Then a nurse, a doctor, and a would-be Sister stepped forward. All these children of God had dreams and knew that the education provided by missionaries was their key to realizing them.

As I handed out medals to them in gratitude for their hard work, I promised them that the people where I lived, far away in Boston, would not forget them through our support of the Apostles of Jesus. Though too young to understand the program, they are direct beneficiaries of prayers and donations being made in our parishes during the Mission Co Operative Program in which the AJs take part, this year preaching in Mission Church in Roxbury, St. Michael Parish in Avon, and Holy Family in Duxbury among others.

The assistance we provide will help them to add classrooms, a library, a dining hall and more to their students in Uganda.

And who knows? Perhaps one day, that young child will be a pilot and fly all the way to Boston, thanks to the AJ missionaries who gave him the tool to use.