The first Christians -- Nyamlell

A memory, April 19, 2009

This statement below was given by Peter Col Marcelino. He was a commander in SPLA and now has been transferred to Wildlife.

In 1934, the first Christians to be baptised and the first students from Nyamlell were Marcelino Tong Lual and Andriano Thiek Lual. Marcelino was then the only student to go to college in Malakal and became a veterinary doctor from Aweil – NBUS.
In 1964, 30 years later, Andriano Thiek was arrested by Arab soldiers along with 12 other Dinka fellows and they were immediately killed at Nyamlell this including one Darfurian called Masaid. Marcelino Tong Lual was arrested in Achaana when he was in duty as a veterinary doctor. The Arab soldiers brought him to Nyamlell to be killed. It happened that the Muslims were celebrating their Holy Month called Ramadan and they did not want to kill him, so they kept him for sometime. Luckily he got a chance to escape from the Arabs in Nyamlell and went to Chelkou. He found some other Christians these who were in hiding. They gathered themselves and formed a military group and these became the first Anyanya 1 soldiers. The Arab soldiers were only arresting and killing those who were Christians and educated in order to destroy Christianity in Sudan.
“In the same year,” Peter Col said, “I was in class one and the Northern soldiers came to missionaries’ compound with three cars at about 3: 00 p.m. The bell was rung and we all came together and the fathers told us that they were going to leave us. We prayed in the church and prayed with them and for them. They said, “We are going to leave you and stay in peace.” The big pupils encouraged all of us to do something. And in reaction we started stoning the soldiers. When they had taken the fathers, all the pupils started going home, and that was the closure of the school. The school was from class 1 – 6.”
“The languages taught were English and Dinka. There was arresting of Christians as well as serious and looting of the missionaries’ properties. The no baptised- Dinka from Nyamlell started looting things and betraying their brothers – the Dinka Christians – to the Arabs. All of us from Nyamlellthii ran away to Matuic to hide because we were Christians and my father Marcelino Col was a soldier.”
“Every one who was related to a Christian or if you are related to a soldier, you were to be betrayed to the Arab soldiers, arrested and killed. There was no teaching again from the expulsion of the missionaries. By then the Arabs began teaching the pupils Arabic and Islam. They gave many children Islamic names and other Christians who were afraid and had already joined the Arabs earlier, like Sabastiano Akot Ring. He was a Christian and he later joined Islam, he was my father’s colleague. Even during the formation of Anyanya 1, still there was no Catholic school only Arab schools in Nyamlell which were run by the Khartoum Government, I joined the school again when I was a very big boy.”
“In 1983 as pupils, we started military activities and there was to come what was Anyanya Two. At Nyamlelldit, there were Arab barracks and they did fire guns to Nyamlell trying to kill the people there and to destroy the cross on the top of the church. Till, one day, they bombed the roof of the church. No missionary came to Nyamlell from 1964. People gathered in the church and conducted prayers till when Fr. Joseph Pellerino came in 1994. No one could be baptised unless you could go to Aweil or Khartoum to be baptised.”
Peter Col Marcelino concluded, “We thank God for having saved us till today because they did not kill so many Christians apart from the 13 Christians they killed first. We also thank God because we experienced bombings and looting of the properties.
This is statement was given by Peter Col Marcelino and was written by Daniel Adhal Garang.



A memory, April 2, 2009


In 1967, Bishop Ireneo Wien Dut arrived in Nyamlell to discuss about Christianity with the Executive Chief Autiak Akot at the time. Two days before that, non-Muslim Dinka were officially told to convert into Islam and turn away from Christianity, according to Karlo Kuc Wol. The Bishop came and encouraged Christians to keep praying and refuse to convert into Islam. After the meeting, Karlo Kuc Wol with other people was baptized.

This was written
By Jacob Lual Jok, Head catechist of Chelkou Centre in Aweil West County and corrected by Daniel Adhal Garang.

Catechists

The catechists below worked in Saint Theresa Parish under the supervision of Gino Aguer, from 1992-95:

Name of catechist
Gino Aguer
Angelo Nyual
Anthony Deng Aleu
Francis Atem Yel
Angelo Kiir Wol
William Apin
Abraham Manyang
Abraham Lueth
Ireneo Dut Dut
James Mayuol
James Wieu
Angelo Garang


It was by then Bishop Caesar sent Fr. Joseph Pellerino, MCCJ to Nyamlell on October 10 1994.

He came to visit the Christians in St. Theresa Parish together with some other Catechists who were working in the Diocese. Fr. Pellerino trained all the catechists in the Parish and in April 1995, Mgr. Caesar Mazzolari came to visit the catechists. In May 1995, Arabs boomed Nyamlell and Fr. Joseph Pellerino ran to Rumbek with a certain Brother. Other priests were then sent by the Bishop to give baptism and then returned. In 2002, Fr. Michael D. Barton came to Nyamlell and visited some other chapels nearby. He then left after Easter 2002 and came back on October 7, 2002.

Written by Anthony Deng Aleu and corrected by Daniel Adhal Garang.

Gravesite of Comboni Fr. Ray Pax

Father Michael sent photos of the grave of Father Ray Pax, a Comboni missionary priest who was serving with Father Michael in St. Theresa Parish. To learn more about Father Pax, read the blog entry for April 12, 2008, which is excerpted here:

Concerning the death of Father Raymond Pax, MCCJ. On March 31, 2008 in Saint Teresa Parish Rectory in Nyamlell, Aweil West County, Northern Bar el Gazal State in the South Sudan.

My name is Father Michael Barton, MCCJ and I am the parish priest of St. Teresa’s Parish and we have worked together for two years here.

I knew Ray since he was ordained a priest in 1965. As a seminarian I worked with Father Pax at St. Henry’s in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I want to begin on Easter 2008 when I came back after three months of safari pastoral visits to the chapels. Father Pax had been the whole of the Holy Week in the parish center and I was out.

On Easter Monday I began a teachers’ workshop and Ray went out with two boys to collect firewood for the course, and in the afternoon he prepared the Easter dinner with our cook Anthony and the Sisters came over for dinner together. Everyone got sick that night but me. The Sisters had to call the Slovak doctor to assist them.
By Tuesday Father Pax was also down with malaria but started to recover right away. On Wednesday we had a visit from Father Ireneo from Daeen in Darfur and he stayed the night.

On Thursday Father Pax took the car for a pastoral visit to Lueth Lual and Ariath Center to last four days.

He came back on March 30th (2008) and was quite happy and spoke of consolations during this past trip.

On Monday we had Mass together and breakfast and then had a planning meeting with the sisters to plan for the school year which was to begin on the next day.
I went to pay the part-time catechists and gave them some corn. The day before I had concluded and paid the teachers. Father Pax brought the chairs out.

At the end a catechist who had stopped his work demanded money of last year which had been stolen from my room because he had not come in December as he was told. He would not listen to any explanation of any type.

I told Ray that I had to go to the state capital Aweil to see this matter and would go with the Apostles and come back with public means. He understood and said to go.
When I went back to our compound the catechist had taken the chairs and Father Pax had followed him on foot.

I left to Aweil and there the authority had changed his tune completely and all was very successful and clarifying. Father Wilfred took me to the bus park to get transport back to Nyamlell. I did not find any but Father Wilfred and Father Bernard came back and gave me their phone with a call from Father Colombo, MCCJ for me to go back to Nyamlell as the Sisters were frantic. The Apostles took me that Father Ray had collapsed and died. None of us could believe it. On arrival I found many people around the mission and the Sisters had dressed Ray in clerical shirt etc. and removed everything from his room to his office and his body was laying on his bed and Sr. Jeanne from Indonesia and Sr Jeviana from East Timor crying and praying.

Soon Bishop Caesar Mazzolari, MCCJ called me and said that he had talked to the family and to the Comboni provincial and that Ray was to be buried in Nyamlell. We agreed with the youth to dig the grave in the rectory compound as there is no cemetery in Nyamlell and Ray is the first priest or religious to die here even though this mission was started in 1933. I pulled the car over and turned on the lights so the youth could see to work. At 10:30 I celebrated the first Mass for Father in his room. We were three priest and three Sisters as the Gordhim Sacred Heart Sister who a former Superior General and many lay people. The sisters kept vigil the whole night. I had to get some sleep. We had already dressed him in priestly clothes.

The medical staff did what they could for him. We asked the Dutch NGO here if they make a coffin.

They woke me during the night to say the grave was ready and I moved and shut off the car.

On waking I went for my vigil; and prayer and then went to prepare the church and the readers and servers. At around 11 the coffin arrived from CORAID.

We put in the body and went in procession to the parish church. I was the main celebrant and gave the homily with Father Bernard adding more. About his life I said that Father Raymond Lawrence Pax was born In Celina Ohio on June 23rd, 1938 and was baptized at Immaculate Conception and had his primary education at Immaculate Conception School run by the Precious Blood Sisters and Fathers. He was number three of nine and three became priests. He had many uncles and aunts who had become priests and Sisters. Oscar was his father who was big into tools etc.

He went to Sacred Heart Seminary in Cincinnati run by the Verona Fathers for High School from1952 to 1956. He did his noviciate in Monroe, Michigan under Father Chiodi.He studied philosophy and finished college in 1961. He studied theology in San Diego, California. He was ordained a priest by Archbishop Karl Alter as the Combonis celebrated 25 years in the USA in May 1965 in Cincinnati at Sacred Heart Seminary.
He became an assistant pastor at Saint Henry and in California and back as pastor at
Saint Henry in Cincinnati’s old west end.
Around 1970 he came to Africa to Uganda where he worked in several MISSIONS in Gulu diocese among the Acholi.

Aronnd 1975 he was transferred to Kenya and worked mainly in Kasikeu and before that in Gigil. He also worked in the USA in California in pastoral work and then he came to Sudan. He worked in Juba and then in Tambora diocese and a few months after being expelled from Juba in Khartoum and finally in Rumbek diocese where he worked various years in Marial Lou, then in Mapuordit and at last here in Nyamlell.

There were five speeches after the Mass and the Commissioner declared Father Pax to be a Dinka and three days latter had a bull killed in his honor and people gathered for that too. After Mass we went in precession carrying the coffin to the grave where we had the final prayers. The coffin was too big so more digging and adjusting took place. Everyone stayed until the burial was complete and the Sisters had made paper flowers which we spread all over the grave.

Father Pax’s work has just begun to help the Dinka people and this mission and all its people and work.

New chapel in Marial Baai

Father Michael Barton sent several photos of his big project, the Saint Catherine Activities Center, which will be a Church in honor of Saint Joseph in Marial Baai. At Easter time, he wrote in a previous blog that it almost has its roof on and had about two months to go in construction. It will be the first Catholic chapel in any center in any of the three parishes in the entire state.

Missionary ambushed in South Sudan

This information arrived in an e-mail May 15 from Father Michael Barton
St. Theresa Parish, Nyamlell, Sudan

A missionary was ambushed and robbed along the Rumbek-Yirol road, in Lakes State, on Tuesday while traveling by motorbike.

Fr. Titus Makokha, 33, a Comboni Missionary from Kenya, told Bakhita FM he was ambushed by three armed young men from the Dinka Agaar community half an hour-drive away from Rumbek.

Fr. Makokha had arrived in Rumbek in a flight from Juba and was motorcycling along the all-weather road to his mission in Yirol, some 100 miles away. The journey should have taken about four hours.

The gangsters stopped Fr. Mokokha at gunpoint and took him into the bush nearby, stripping him off of all his belongings.

The missionary said he was made to kneel down as for execution. However, the robbers went back to the road and escaped with the motorbike and the goods they stole leaving him on foot in the middle of nowhere.

Meanwhile, a young girl found Fr. Mokokha stranded on the road after she saw and recognized the robbers getting away with the stolen motorbike and alerted the authorities.

Three women came with the paramount chief’s son and brought Fr. Makokha to the village.

After a four-hour search, the authorities managed to recover the motorbike but not the helmet, money, the cellular and other belongings.

This was the second time Fr. Makokha had a close encounter with bandits that roam about more or less freely in Lakes State. He said he kept calm during the horrific ordeal that lasted some 10 minutes.

Fr. Makokha was ordained in 2007 and has served the mission of Yirol in Dinka land since one year ago.

Greetings at Eastertide, 2009

Saint Teresa Parish Nyamlell P.O. Box 21102 Nairobi, Kenya 00505
May 4, 2009.

One and All,
I join with the Risen Lord in wishing you his peace in this Eastertide of 2009.
Let me tell you a little bit about the last four months which corresponds to the first quarter of the already 25% gone year. By the first of the year we had closed the four schools and given the last of the certificates and did the last celebration of the Pauline year in the centers.

I started to visit the chapels up to January 4th and on the fifth flew to Juba and the Indonesian Sisters to Nairobi and one of them was going on to Jakarta for home leave. When I got off in Juba I was told the retreat that I was coming for had been canceled and I became more than a little upset. I stayed only four days and did no retreat but did visit my old mission where I had been parish priest for nine years from '78 to '87 and met many people who knew me and had forgotten the arguments and remembered the good times and I was very happy to see so much time started in my time still standing. Only what surprised me was that so many of the then youth now had the bodies and even some of them the faces of their then fathers.

I went in the evening hours to the Leper colony which is now surrounded by a big military complex. I spent many hours there with the now quite old catechist who cried for happiness in my arms and it was very emotional for me too. I did not leave until it was very dark. I saw and became even more convinced of the importance of education in formal schools as the right arm of evangelization, which lasts, and I know this view is not shared by everyone, not even my confreres. Yet I saw it clearly to continue in these efforts. I was visited by many young priests who I had gotten them into the Seminary. Some are doing very well and others not that well. NGOs and high paying government jobs are strong temptations to leave the priesthood plus all the usual problems with conflicts with bishops and parish communities and women an alcohol and what not.

I got back to Nyamlell of the 9th and three stores were broken into that night but I woke up and the thieves got away emptied handed but I spent the whole of Saturday fixing doors and getting a new watchman and new locks. The rest of January and February and March I was out visiting chapel baptizing and the rest to the Catholic communities that make up our parish.

A tropical ulcer decided to settle on my right leg and set off high fever and took me for a loop for a day or two. I got medical help and had to nurse the leg for six weeks but I recovered and didn’t miss a day of work or visits.

This year our grade eights had to sit for the South Sudan PRIMARY STATE EXAMINATION for the first time ever and I was not sure things would be done in an honest way but the diocese of Rumbek said it had to done like that. So they sat and I was not around. The results came out in late March. Our school got the highest marks of all the schools in our county and in all the five counties of the State and of the whole state of Northern Bahr el Gazhal. Out of 1,569 who sat for the exam numbers one, four, and eight and ten were our pupils of Comboni School Nyamlell. The second rank school in all the state was our DOR School in Gordhim which is run by three Apostles of Jesus priests and four Sacred Heart Sisters all of whom are African religious. I am glad the government was honest enough about it. Our worst pupil came in 99th out the 1,569 candidates. He would have had to repeat class 8 from our internal exams and so he went to sit for the test to become a policeman in Aweil and got a hundred per cent and topped all the others and so the worst became the best.

I am happy with the good results and I hope no one expects this to happen every year. All I can do is to work hard and try our best and let everything fall where it will.

I did go to visit Raga where there is another Comboni community who do all their work in Arabic. I got some work done on the car and had some long conversations and after three days came back to visit more chapels.

We had two visits of the bishop of Wau who is also the President of the Sudan Bishops conference during the month of April. He just came for a few hours each time.

I came back to the mission of the 30th of March so I could be here for the first anniversary of Father Raymond Pax’s birthday into eternal life. We had all our prayers on his graveside on the last day of March , I also had meetings with the Sisters and then with the catechists the entire day.

On April First we started a new school year in all of the Comboni schools and have good enrollments in all of them with still few girls. We had one of our girls join the Loreto Girls High School in Rumbek . One boy went as a third year student in the seminary section of Mapourdit. We have another who has gone to Khartoum to study Philosophy in the national seminary.

I was here in the parish center for Palm Sunday and again for Easter. On Good Friday the Governor of the state came and with us and his entourage for the Stations of the Cross and I told him that this was the second mission established in all Dinka Land and the first in his state. He gave a good donation for the anniversary celebration in October.

I got the last of the High school buildings roofed and finished in the rough way that I do things here in the South Sudan and was given money to buy some lab equipment for the Science Lab.

My big project is the Saint Catherine Activities Center which will be a Church in honor of Saint Joseph in Marial Baai and almost has its roof on it but still… has a lot to do to get it all finished maybe two more months or so. Most of the construction workers we have working are women. I t will be the first Catholic chapel in any center in any of the three parishes in the entire state. Even the parish church in Gordhim is in very bad shape but ours and that of Aweil look good but are small for big occasions. Next year there are plans to do another in Gok Macar…..if God willing!

I still have problems of land grabbers and no one helping to solve the problem.

A lot of thought is in the planning stages for the Diamond Jubilee of the Parish which is 75 years in October 1, 2009 (1934-2009). Thanks for all your help of every type and species. Blessings and Peace to one and all!


Michael D. Barton, MCCJ.

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