Have a good Lent

Sent from Nyamlell, March 1, 2009

Hello

I hope you are well and I greet you with all my heart. On Ash Wednesday I completed my first round of visits to all the chapels that I cannot get to during the rainy season. Then I drove to our nearest Comboni community, which is about a hundred miles a way in a town called Raga in Western Bahr el Gazhal.

The fathers welcomed me and let me use their mechanic and so I could have a few leaks stopped and the oil changed and filters, etc. On Saturday I drove back and was here to give out ashes for the first Sunday of Lent.

The Sisters had just returned from Nairobi and then Rumbek and they brought mail and a package of candy, which Kathleen had sent for Christmas and I will save for my birthday and for Easter 2009.

Also I was back to pay the workers and to pay for the workers of the new church in Marial Baai, which we are up to the windows and I now have all the materials on the site and hope for slow but sure progress.

Tomorrow I shall start the second round of visits to the chapels for Lent and to prepare for the celebration of the founding of the parish and the gospel in Nyamlell of 75 years. That celebration will be on October 1st , 2009.

Michael Barton

A busy 2008 for St. Theresa Parish in Sudan

E-mail sent Jan. 31, 2009

Dear Bishop,
We had 2555 baptisms and 24 marriages and 200 confirmations and 550 Masses and 7 funeral and 400 annointings of the sick and 3,456 confessions. These were done by Father Pax, Father Colombo and myself during the year of 2008.

Michael D. Barton

Father Michael Barton looks back on 2008

Saint Teresa Parish, Comboni Missionaries
Nyamlell (Aweil West)
Northern Bahr el Gazhal.
P.O. Box 21102.
Nairobi, Kenya. 00505.
January 6, 2009.


Happy and Prosperous New Year in 2009.

I would like to give you a short overall overview of 2008 and up to now in 2009.
I got back from the holiday at home and the sabbatical in Jerusalem and helped to end a very poor school year in 2007 where almost no one failed in any class. The river was too high for the car to pass and so I used my two bikes up to January 10th and then I could use the car to visit the chapels and to do pastoral work till Super Bowl Sunday when I got left at home to go to Aweil and my lift left me behind high and dry and as I was looking fro the bus back to Nyamlell I heard of the surprise upset of the foot ball game and I felt happy for no explainable reason.
I went out and visited more centers and chapels from early Ask Wednesday till the middle of February when Father Pax and my faithful helper, Joseph, of the road all went to Wau with its wonderful cathedral and where Comboni Missionaries went more than a hundred years ago. The last Comboni Bishop had a magnificent cathedral built in the 1950s and early 60s to honor Our Lady, Helper of Christians. We were able to buy supplies and visit the graves of the Combonis who died in Wau and near- by. One was a famous Italian brother who contracted leprosy in Malakal and then moved to a leper Colony in Wau and then prayed to die in place of a sick priest and so it happened, the brother died and the Father recovered.
We drove back to Nyamlell without incident and I went out again to do safari work and Raymond stayed in the parish center till after Easter when I came back and began a Renewal workshop for teachers of our three schools and the East Timorese OLSH Sister returned from Indonesia and the Indonesian Sister came from a break in Nairobi. Also came a Kenyan teacher who helped me in the workshop. Father Pax went to visit five chapels in four days. He got back happy with baptisms and did confirmations and marriages. Monday the teachers left and the cooks were paid. The Sisters and the Fathers met on Monday to plan out the year. I had to go to Aweil to see the ministry of education and before that I paid the part- time catechists; and the meeting at the ministry went well and while waiting for a bus back home I was told Father Pax had died and we rushed back and prepare the funeral and burial for April First. What a terrible shock to all of us!!!

The school year began on April 2nd with many uncertainties in every thing and everyway. The census started in the later part of April and many students and pupils left to work on it and the high school was left with only two in Form Two and some of the ex-pupils stole the books and yet the two remaining said that they wanted to continue no matter what to the end of the year and so we agreed as they had done everything asked of them. They are wonderful young men and very active in the choirs and other activities and other works. So we continued to the end of the year.

I was very active in the pastoral work in the parish and visited all the chapels at least twice and many of the centers three times with many baptisms and confirmations and marriages and hundreds of Masses and confessions and anointing of the sick. Father Colombo and Sister Goretti came from Rumbek for two training courses of catechists, once in May and the second in December. I gave two more courses myself for lectors in April and for Eucharistic ministers in September where I have more people than ever taking Holy Communion to the chapels and running Eucharistic Centers. This is because I have more catechists than ever who have had their marriages blessed.. A big flood from August to November, make travel to many places very tough and I never saw the Lol River so high as it was this year so the Sisters could go nowhere and I could only go on bicycle and walk in lots and lots of mud. I got to use the boat three times and that was always very nice according to a contract. Agreed with CORAID.

I sent ten days in Kenya for ten days and went to visit a priest friend in Kampala. It was cold but a break nonetheless.

One of the Sisters spent four months in South Africa for a course on their founder and the other sisters generously took over her classes.

I was blessed to get many projects started and finished I was able to buy timber and I got the Dutch CORAID to finish four class rooms in Marial Baai all for $65,000 from me and the boat too. The used it right away but I blessed it on January 1st, 2009 and we blessed the foundation for a permanent church there. The school is dedicated to St. Daniel Comboni and the church to Saint Joseph and it will serve as an Activities Center dedicated to Saint Catherine of Siena and the name of two grandmothers and two aunts and one sister. I am hoping that the family will chip in as I think it will cost $100,000. I have half and the rest is still with you in faith.
In Nyamlell I was able to get the roof of the Science Lab roofed and two more class rooms for Sacred Heart High School. That is now all complete I had some money and goods stolen but still was able to finish paying teachers and catechists and parish workers and still end the year not in debt. I still have lots of troubles and problems but still feel happier and stronger than ever. The end must be near.

After the December catechist Father Colombo helped me for Christmas and we celebrated the Pauline year in all the centers and some of the chapels. Father who is 75 this year die 7 of them and I did the rest up to January 5th and then came to Juba for a retreat which on arrival I found was canceled and so I will leave for Nyamlell on the 9th of January. Yet I have enjoyed meeting many friends who I have not met for 22 years. Even though I am disappointed about the retreat seeing my boys who have become priests has been super and they have received me with great love. I hope your Christmas was great. Here we had huge crowds wherever we went and the school year ended with flair and all four schools did the whole school year.

This year will be the 75th year of the founding of the parish and we hope to celebrate it on October 1st, 2009 in an appropriate fashion.

Sincerely yours in the Sacred Heart,
Fr. Michael D. Barton, MCCJ.

E-mail from Father Michael, Nov. 5, 2008

St. Teresa Parish

Comboni Missisonaries

Nyamlell (Aweil West)

P.O. Box 21101

Nairobi, Kenya 00505

Nov. 5, 2008

Dear Good People,

We have six and a half weeks left in the 2008 school year and things are picking up nicely with a good school year and we had to overcome many difficulties but the end is in sight and we all have great hope that there will be good results. During the week I am mostly involved in the school, which I enjoy, and then on the weekend I am out in the field of pastoral work in the chapels and in the centers.

This year we have a big flood in the entire parish of all the rivers in the area and so this makes getting around on bicycle next to impossible or at least much more difficult and having to carry the bike instead of it carrying me. However, boat travel is easy but the trouble is one needs a boat. I had two short trips on an NGO boat and am planning my last trip to two chapels this weekend. Another big advantage is there are lots of fish. Wherever there is water there are people who are fishing day and night right on the side of the road. I was out with the car for All Saints and All Souls and almost ran a number of fisher people sleeping along the road even with their mosquito nets. I prayed no one would roll over in the way of the car -- mine or someone else’s -- or a big truck. I went to three chapels and of course had bone filled fish at every meal.

After coming back from Kenya from a ten-day break which ended on September 10^th; I found some two workers from the Nuba Mountains who agreed to put the roofs on the Science Lab, and on two more classrooms of the High School . The walls had already been repaired and windows and doors were already in place. Well I told them that I did not have any timber and so we couldn’t do anything. They said they would try to get some. Well, lo and behold, two days right at the end of the school day came a lorry and the two told me that they needed $10,000 to pay for 700 2 x 4’s of mahogany.

I was surprised but was able to find the money and so now that is going on and one building should be finished quite soon. At the end of August Coraid (a Dutch NGO) finished building of four spacious classrooms for the Comboni School in Marial Baai. All very nice and I paid $60,000 to them for it. It is already in use. Then to my shock they told me they had spent $100,000 and wanted the rest from me. Well, I agreed to pay an additional 15% and I had to throw in the boat and another $4,000 to pay off the additional sum; it is now all paid and they are off my back.

Soon after that some other men agreed to make a new metal gate for the Order of our Lady of the Sacred Heart Sisters compound as the wooden one was falling in and not secure at all. They were local Dinkas and did a decent job and cost me $750. Now as their fence is quite weak I am trying to get them to make another 100 metal poles. I am not sure that it will get done. But I shall keep trying. We are trying to do everything locally and not from Kenya.

Next year if money and workmen can be found I would like to build a permanent church in Marial Baai. We shall see how things work out and if God will dispose favorably to this plan of mine.

We’ll have a retreat for the High School and the class eights for the last weekend of November. Then in the middle of December there will be a general meeting for all the parish’s catechists. Afterward we shall go out to all the Centers to celebrate the Year of Saint Paul and the new translation of the New Testament into Dinka Rek and another Rumbek-based Comboni will do it for the catechists and six of the centers and I will do the rest. Father Colombo will be here to help me for Christmas. Boy, do I need help.

Also in September we had a course for the Eucharistic ministers and have the Eucharist kept in two chapels and taken to seven others from time to time.

May God bless you and keep you! Stay well and keep the faith.

Yours in the Sacred Heart

Fr. Michael Barton

Letter from Fr. Michael dated Sept. 2, 2008

On Aug. 23 and 24, I went to visit two chapels and as the River Lol is full we had to canoe across and had to pay. We continued our journeys on our bikes. I always travel with a young boy from our school, who helps me in my safari troubles. We found water and mud in many parts of the road. That same Saturday the East Timorese Sister went with another boy to a village in an opposite direction to take communion in another chapel and found water and mud in many areas along the road. She found herself sick with malaria and prayed and went back to Nyamlell where she had to remain in her room bedridden for three days. For my part I found a large congregation and had confessions, Mass and anointing of the sick, and then had about 35 infant baptisms.

We then had to cross the river again to get to the next chapel where we were going to spend the night at a small town where we have a Comboni school; getting there was more mud and water to walk through. I even fell once and cut one leg and ruined my tennis shoes with too much water. Then the water must have made the patches on the tires rise and go flat, so the last two miles I had to walk pushing the bike and body through more mud and water, but I got there.

I went straight to see the school. Since April 2007 a Dutch NGO had been building a block of four classrooms, which they just finished in the last part of August. I went to check it all out. I was quite happy with the result and now am in the process of making the last payment to pay off the $60,000 that it cost me. We now have a dream of building a similar building to be used as a church as soon as possible in the year 2009. They are already using the classrooms and I hope will give more for the building of the church too.

On Sunday morning I had lots of confessions and Mass and about 50 infant baptisms and then we repaired both bicycles and I was told that one needed a new inner tube, which we could not find in the local market so I rode and Joseph walked. When I got to the river a gig wind started and made the water very rough. No boats could cross. Joseph came and we waited for two hours before the paddlers would dare to get into their boats. We got across at dusk and my bike was now flat and unrideable so I was now walking and I was still 23 miles from Nyamlell and my bed. We walked in the rain and made it to Joseph's village and his family home where we spent the night.

On Monday morning we crossed the Lol for the second time and reached Nyamlell a half-hour before the school year was to start. I taught in my muddy clothes on that Monday and went to bed early that night.

On Tuesday I had a full day of school and announced the mid-year would begin that afternoon and would have a two-week break. I had a catechists meeting and had to pay the teachers and the parish workers.

On Wednesday we -- one Indonesian sister, a Kenyan teacher and myself -- drove to Aweil and got there very early and went to Mass and caught a plane to Wau, then another plane to Lokicoggio in Kenya. We had to spend the night there and on Thursday evening we all arrived safely in Nairobi. I came to get a broken tooth fixed and other business to do. The three of us will go back on Sept. 9 and 10. School starts the next day with lots of plans for the last three and a half months of the school year.

May God bless you and care for you always.
Sincerely yours in the Lord Jesus,
Michael D. Barton, mccj

Letter from Fr. Michael dated Aug. 6, 2008

St. Teresa Parish
Comboni Missionaries - Nyamlell
Aug. 6, 2008

Letter from Father Michael Barton:

We have one of the Indonesian sisters going to South Africa for a course on spirituality of her congregation of the Daughters of the Lady of the Sacred Heart and so I take advantage of her going to get this letter off to you. Sister Ernestine should be back by October.
We are having a good rainy season and this is the only time of the year that greens and vegetables are available locally for our meals. The sisters and a Kenyan teacher working here have nice gardens and the greens are enjoyed and shared with me.

On July 31 and Aug. 1 and 2 we had all the first semester exams and the preparation and checking and the correcting are all extra work but part of the job description. Half the year is over and half to go. So far so good, even though there was a teachers' strike for no reason and they had demanded a five Sudanese pound bribe from all the lower primary children and when confronted they all vehemently denied all wrong doing. So when I had collected enough evidence they walked out on strike, which lasted a week. Two teachers did not come back and I was able to find another one; the lower primary got going again and the upper was never interrupted as the sisters, the Kenyan and I take those lessons.

Then one of the grade eight boys hit Sr. Jeanne and knocked her down and as a result got himself expelled from the school. Sister just kept on going to her next class and told me at the break.

I have organized the pastoral work to be mainly on weekends and after school. Since Father Pax is not able to help in saying Masses, I go out one weekend and am here for the next. On more than one occasion I have all the six sacraments that I am allowed to celebrate, and on many Sundays I get home well into the night. Since it is the wet season I am more often on the bicycle than in the Toyota. I have not been able to finish the Science Lab or the last classrooms due to lack of materials. A church or two on permanent basis is always very much in my mind.

I do pray for you and hope that you are well and very happy and blessed by the Lord in every aspect of your life.

Yours in the Heart of Christ.
Michael D. Barton

Hello from Nyamlell: Letter from Father Michael Barton

Saint Teresa Parish

Comboni Missionaries-Nyamlell

P.O. Box 21102

Nairobi, Kenya 00505

June 17^th, 2008.

Hello from Nyamlell (Aweil West) in the state Northern Barh el Ghazal State in the South Sudan.

I want to let you know that I am well and happy and alive all at the same time in the month of June of the year of the Lord 2008.

Everywhere I go there are many more people around and they have come mostly from Northern Sudan and have come with many other churches that were not in this area before and have attracted many of ours to them. I don’t fight with any of them nor them with me. There are many more NGO s all doing their own thing. There are many cars and motorcycles and lorries where before there were very few and prices have gone wild and there is more Arabic than before and videos and generators and people building with baked bricks and all with what seems to me as with little planning and lots more of stealing and breaking and entering and crime which has affected us as well.

Right after the death of Father Pax we started the four Catholic schools in the parish and teachers are always the big problem and because of this the enrollment has not grown. The building of the classrooms is at a standstill due to lack of material and builders and a NGO not fulfilling their contract. Yet we are already in the 11^th week of the school year and we are in the second term. Whereas the government schools are just opening up this month and will close before ours. We go on as we can with girls being married off while they are still in class one, two and three and five and six and now we have only one girl left in class eight and in class six. It makes me very sick to my very core and no one listens. One older man married a girl from class six and then a month later another girl in class four. I only hear about it after a big number of absent days that they are never coming back to school. For me it is a terrible cultural weakness.

The bishop came on April 30^th to celebrate Mass for the first anniversary of Ray’s death. I t was to have him. And then on May 9^th came Father Colombo came with his team to give a workshop for the catechists for four days and brought a beautiful new translation of the new testament in Dinka. He also came with the vicar general of Wau diocese who came just for a few hours to pray for Father Raymond on his tomb. I appreciated it very much. The course and the catechists' participation were quite good and the team was happy with them. It was short and sweet.

For me what was even sweeter was that Father Colombo found the problem with our lighting system which went down in May 2007. He found it was the inverter and he took it from the Sisters convent as our batteries were good and theirs were dead as a doornail and so now I have light again for a short time at night. Father Pax would have been so happy. As he was the one pushing to get it in the first place, but he did not push to get it fixed. Father Colombo is just a gem and is coming back in December for another workshop and to help me during Christmas so that will be just great.

The Sisters are a great help in the school and in the parish we celebrate prayer twice daily and birthdays etc. One is going to South Africa for a two-month workshop in August and all three are going for a few days to Mapuordit for the 60^th anniversary of Sr. Mary. I would go if it were not for the school and parish work.

I continue to have lots of visits to the chapels of the parish and have lots of Masses and confessions and baptisms and still I have a good number of marriages and I am sure that I have more than any other parish in the diocese of Rumbek or even that of Wau but I have yet to have one in the parish center of Nyamlell. So there is still a lot of work to do.

My plan is to do more of the same. We had a lector’s course with poor attendance in mid May and will have an extraordinary Eucharistic ministers course in July.

Maybe in September I shall go to Nairobi for a dentist to check a tooth I broke way back in Jerusalem.

Lots of love and prayers to all of you.

Sincerely yours in the Sacred Heart,

Michael D. Barton.