Map of South Sudan

Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus Comboni Missionaries; Catholic Church P.O. Box 21102 NYAMLELL (AWC) Nairobi, Kenya 00505 Northern Bahr el Ghazal : SOUTH SUDAN Phone:: +211912074533 October 14, 2012. mdbnyamllel@aol.com Dear___________________________________________________ It has been since the end of February since that I last wrote to you. Last Sunday we heard that ”it is not good for man to remain alone” well likewise it not good for a missionary not to be writing home. So the rest of this letter is an explanation of the why I have not written before. In very early March while visiting Udhom Center where I was building a new church in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary called Mary, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart After five days there the car refused to start and then as so often happens the battery died and I still had three days of visits to chapels in the area. Well I tried to find a mechanic but this is mechanic less land. So I borrowed bicycles and fulfilled all my commitments and did I ever pray Memorares and on the last day which the first Friday of March as I finished one chapel and was going to the next I passed a car and in it an Austrian mechanic who I knew was working for an organization under the Diocese of Rumbek and so I told him the problem and he went as I went to the second chapel and got my baby running again and put new fan belts and diesel filters all for zero. “Never was it known that anyone who sought your intercession was left unaided.” That very day I got back to Nyamlell I was able to buy three barrels of diesels and so I drained the dirty diesel and put in clean and am still using that diesel as soon after diesel disappeared from the market. In mid March I went to Wau for a Diocesan Assembly which was only three days and then I went to the Jesuit Community in Wau for my annual retreat and I got a Tanzanian Jesuit Seminarian to guide me in those days and I used a book by Tony De Melo which praised prayer of petition and was a wonderful new insight that made the retreat very worthwhile, not to mention the eggs for breakfast and running water and showers, electricity and tp.. Well I saw very little of my confreres there but what I did was as always just great. During the assembly the bishop of Wau heaped special praise on me and my work which I was surprised about as he did it in front of everyone. In March I was to help a man who has cancer of his cripple leg and wanted it removed and we took him to several hospitals in Wau and it was decided to send him to Mapuordit for the operation and he then delayed to go until August and the operation was successful and I picked up the bill. Also I visited 3 centers for the second time and that left me with fourteen more centers to visit before the end of the year. The results of the class eight primary certificate came out in late March and for the county we took first place and five out of the top eleven. Another girl joined the Loreto school in Rumbek and we have three there this year and one is in her last year of Senior Secondary School. In early April the new school year started. I needed to hire thirteen new teachers for this scholastic year for all three schools. The government is doing less and less and so I have to do more and more. The payment will have to come from me too. It was my time to go for home leave but as the other religious had just left I felt that it was most inopportune and so I decided to put it off for another year and as this was a large class eight I also felt that I owed them something as well. So I shall be in the USA in early 2013 after a record six years away. In May we had special evening rosary and litany in the Church and also in May the bishop of Wau came for a full seven days and he blessed two new churches visited to give confirmation in five other centers and I went with him to bless the two churches on Sunday and then the next Saturday, the Sunday was the Ascension and the Saturday was the feast of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart or the day before Pentecost. The other days the head catechist went with him and I learnt that he gives the sacrament without any test at all and is very different from my approach and method but who am I to argue with the BISHOP. On Ascension the Nyamlell altar servers and I piled into the bishops car and drove to Wedwil to bless the church there dedicated to the Archangels MICHAEL. GABRIEL, RAPHAEL. They have been praying in it since September 29th, 2011 but now it was blessed and the altar has been consecrated and the Blessed Sacrament is now kept there. On Friday evening on his return with the head catechist we met privately and he told me what he had already told many others before me that he had lined up other missionaries to take over my work in Nyamlell and I would be leaving in January 2013 and the new priests would be Indians from a new missionary congregation called Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and also their Sisters would come in early 2013 and they are called Daughters of Mary Immaculate. I had heard the rumor but I knew it for sure that after eleven years here I would be going elsewhere in 2013 after my holiday at home. I am very content about the clarity of the decision but had a few problems with others knowing it before me. I shall do everything to hand over everything in good order and then get out of the way of the young blood. That next day we went to open and bless the new church in Udhom, dedicated to MARY, OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART. I went with my own car because after the church blessing Bishop Rudolf went back to Wau and I stayed on to celebrate Pentecost Sunday in the new church. Both days we had big crowds and lots of sacraments to celebrate. It was a great week in May. In June I had to buy and transport the material to roof and complete three chapels which the Christians in those places build chapel walls without any help from anyone else and we had to build reinforcing brick and cement columns and the roof would sit on them. I took Lawrence by car to the first chapel in Mabior Nyang dedicated to Saint Catherine, it took a month and he had to come out by horse pulled cart. Then he went by cart to Wun Aruol and after five weeks he finished that chapel dedicated to Saint Lawrence, the martyr. When I was there in Wun Aruol in June before Lawrence went I was awaked at twilight told that the Arabs were near and that everyone was running and I should get on my bicycle and move out. I refused. No one ever came and we had Sunday Mass there and in another chapel up the road and people were afraid but for no reason but someone had been killed a few weeks before. While Lawrence was there were no insecurity events. Then he moved to to Matuic by cart and bicycle and is working there up to these days and will finish very soon the chapel there dedicated to Saint Paul the Apostle. Another miracle is that we found the money to do all of this. God provides. Lawrence will then come to resurface our church benches and fix a few broken windows in our parish church so that the church will be good as new for the hand over. Lawrence has not gone home to see his family since he came to build one church Saint Dennis in Ariath but as he goes home in early November he will have built six churches- two from scratch and four doing major finishing off. Is this not a wonderful sign of God’s blessings on the missionary and evangelization work here in this huge parish? Plus there is another chapel which was a store of Norwegian Refugee Council who built a school in Gor Ayen but left their store so that the Catholics could make it into a Church and I shall the bishop name it when he comes to bless them in January. Lawrence has been another mighty missionary and a fine brother. In June I had another car problem in a very remote area and had to do a lot of walking and praying and out of the blue another car came from Malaria Consortium and was able to give a hand to get it started and me back to the mission for Monday and my classes. Once again it was REMEMBER O MOST GRACIOUS Virgin MARY over and over again…..has yet to fail me. In July the rains were really good and I had to do all visits by bike and at times by leaving my car on the other side of the river in the home of one of my students. They made good progress on the bridge over the Lol but after Ramadan they left and never came back, maybe when the dry season comes they will return too. I won’t see it finished. In August we had exams and ended our first semester and after the Assumption we had a two week break. I got a phone call from a confrere in Juba to come as some official had confiscated my passport which I had sent in to get a yearlong visa as there were no entry stamps they said that I was here as a child trafficker and that I had to appear in person and so I had to go to Juba but the plane stopped in Rumbek for refueling and without planning it I was able to go and visit the tomb of Bishop Caesar and Father Raphael and make it back to the airport without anyone yelling bloody murder. The next day I had my passport back and my visa and the visa for Lawrence all in a hour’s time but with help of some of my old students and the BVM, a Comboni brother who knows the ropes there said that we had done the impossible. The rest of the nine days I watched many new movies on my computer and a modem of another Comboni priest there in Juba and went for walks and visited a few old friends. In September we were back in school and did a serious work of making a new prayer book in Dinka as the old one is out of print and outdated, and a former student did the translation and typing with special fonts and it taken months of writing and then checking and typing and not it is in the hands of the bishop awaiting his approval and if I get that I shall try to check it more and get it printed. If he does not approve then it will die like that. In October we had special celebration for Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus on October 1st and all the catechists and the pupils joined together for a Mass in the early afternoon. Then on the 10th we had a Comboni Day which is almost like Christmas here in South Sudan and certainly bigger than Easter here in Nyamlell. Had a mid morning Mass and baptisms and the afternoon filled with competitions and games and loud music. My class eight did a play in English in four scenes which took a half hour. At seven we had Benediction and rosary and the litanies written by Saint Daniel Comboni to Mary and then to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which we now have translated into the local language. This day we also opened the YEAR OF THE FAITH. I plan to finish the school year and finish my commitments here and have a opening of the Year of Faith in every center to introduce the new and young missionaries in all 17 places and tell them the names of the chapels under each. So that is why this letter is so delayed and I ask you to bear with me AS I HAVE HAD MY HANDS FULL. Yours in FAITH. Fr. Michael D. Barton, MCCJ. Olsh Udhom Church, May 2012 St. Catherine’s Church St Lawrence Church Beginning of St Paul’s

Nyamlell, 1933-2013

Eighty years ago, in 1933, Comboni missionaries arrives to create St. Theresa Parish in Nyamlell, Sudan. Photos of that time show the people and places of that time.

After a busy 11 years, Father Michael says goodbye to Nyamlell

Saint Josephine Bakihita Parish Mapuordit (Yirol West) Lakes State South Sudan. March 19, 2013, Feast of St. Joseph Dear Friends and Benefactors, and Relatives. In my last letter written in October of 2012, I told you about our celebration of Comboni Day. So that very day since we were all together for Comboni day I also announced the Year of Faith, which was to start the next day on the 11th. So many things were planned to happen and other things that were unplanned for also bound to happen and so why not take them all in faith? That month of October I had a good many problems with teachers leaving and then finding replacements and as usual I was privileged to do lots of weekend apostolate and weekday school work. I also feared running out of money that month but I didn’t and had just enough to pay all the workers. Then I told those who had my money in Wau to get it here pronto. Pronto for them meant December but somehow I got together enough to keep my nose above water for November too. Don’t ask me where it appeared from but it just did. In October and November the Dry Season began this year but still the River Lol was high so to get the bicycle across is easy to put it in a row boat and then I could get to the far off chapels. Some were six hours or eight hours one way by push the bike and that is what I used for most of October and half of November. On November 7th there arrived in Nyamllell four Indian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate all from the Indian state of Tamul Ladu. They had just arrived in South Sudan in May 2012 and are a very young congregation of about twenty years of existence and have twenty to thirty new priests every year. They also have a very large congregation of Sisters called Daughters of Mary Immaculate. They started in Juba and in Dinka Land in a place called Gongriel, where the government built a beautiful and big priest house. Two of the fathers went back to Gongriel and two remained in Nyamlell. One is two years a priest and the other finished his first year a priest on the same day that I completed 37 years of saying Mass. They started a three month transition period from me to the MMI taking over Nyamlell parish. They were just wonderful and so helpful in so many ways. My three months of transition were great to have a community and to have help was like a blood transfusion to a sick person. Before they came we had planned with the youth leaders of the parish to celebrate the Year of Faith and the coming of the new missionaries to the parish. I knew that they were coming since the bishop of Wau told me in May that he was giving the parish to the new Fathers. So we planned a day visit to each center to pray and reflect on the faith and to compete in games and have fun and to introduce and get to know and to meet the recently arrived missionaries, we did confessions, Mass and a Bible completion and then many other activities with soccer and volleyball and running and javelin throwing and more. The home center offered food and drink, and we would then go on to the next center and I admired how the youth took so much responsibility and were just great and appreciated by me and the young priests. We went to fifteen centers and returned to four of them for closing school years. This program started on December 8th and ended on January 6th. Also four more of them got Christmas visits. So more priests mean more pastoral work and chances for even better things and services. At the same time I was working in the late evenings on the 148 page Dinka prayer book which meant translations and typing and checking and rechecking the work and right when I had finished it I needed some Dinka elders who know not only English and Dinka but also the meaning of some theological terminology, and right when I needed him Mr. Kleto Akot showed up in Nyamlell and was just what I NEEDED as he was an ex Seminarian and even knew a good bit of Latin. He and I and some others went over the whole manuscript twice and after we finished he went and got his marriage blessed in the church and so it was a good experience for both of us. However the computer age has made this work both more difficult and easier. Why? Well I got the Dinka fonts from another Comboni who got them from the Summer Institute of Linguistics from somewhere in Texas. Well that helped me and a Pakistanian IC expert helped me download in two computers, mine and another of my helpers, but when we wanted to put this into a book form we gave it to a Canadian girl working for an NGO who did not have these fonts and her computer messed up everything and so we had to put in the pictures and then had to correct the mess which was really a mess. Then we sent it hard copy to the Bishop of Wau who gave us the INPRIMATUR. Then we sent a hard copy to the Don Bosco Printing Press in Wau and they said that they needed a soft copy to make the estimate of cost, and the Combonis in USA agreed to fund up to $5000 (which was not enough for the 5000 copies, but a very good jump start which I could easily complete through other sources) and I explained the potential font problem and they said that they were professionals and had those fonts. So I got back the finished product but only checked it in January and it was another mess of changing Dinka letters to other non-readable ones. So I let it go until all the other work of the school and parish was over and transfer had been complete which was in February. We had December exams both normal ones for everyone and then internal ones and state ones for the Class Eight Leavers who then get a primary leaving certificate so as to go to high school, also known as Senior Secondary School. I heard it announced on Miraya Radio of the United Nations that Nyamlell Primary took first place and New Life also in Nyamlell took second place and that Comboni Nyamlell took third place. All in the same county and from the same little town was something very special for me because many of the teachers in Nyamlell New Life are formal students of mine. On December 28 we had 124 adult baptisms and confirmations and First Communions and then in the afternoon we gave out the promotion certificates and closed the school year in Nyamlell and on the 29th of December to those of Makuei and on January 1st we did the same in Marial Baai and on December 30 we had the same in Ariath. There were the sacraments of initiation and the certificates in all four of these places that have Comboni School. I then gathered the books and cleaned the stores and gave the keys to the new missionaries who are called Father Thadeus and Father Xavier. So I ended my role of eleven years as a educator in Aweil West and Aweil North. I tried my best and we had some good results and of course some failures. In December our Father General and a Brother Doctor who is also an assistant of the General came to South Sudan and they were to be in Wau on January 6th and so cut one of the Year of Faith celebrations and after dark I drove the 210 kilometers to Wau on the 5th and got there at 2 am. in the morning on the sixth of January. There had been riots and killings on tribal basis the week before in that city and the bishop had canceled all the midnight Masses for Christmas and New Years. So I knew that that town was under a night curfew and so I might be allowed in after dark. But they did stop me several times along the way and then let me in and there was no one or animal stirring anywhere. As I got near the Comboni house, I hear someone shouting that time was up and so I stopped and they were Dinka soldiers and so when they heard me speak Dinka they laughed and let me go on without any more questions. The next day I went to Mass in the parish church of Saint Daniel Comboni and met the General who is a Mexican and our first Superior General from the Americas. The Comboni Sisters since have elected a Brazilian General and of course we now have an Argentine Pope. I had a deep man to man talk with him and a delicious dinner with all the Comboni Missionary Sisters and Comboni Missionaries working in Wau among who were SIX MDs, yes six medical doctors. Then I bought a new car battery and other things. The next day I was back in Nyamlell. From January 6th to January 13th we had a catechists’ training course which we taught about the Gospel of Luke, and the Porta Fidei of Pope Benedict XVI and a few other things and we three priests and Mr. Marko, the youth leader, were all the presenters of the topics of religion and leadership skills. It was all well received. I had to buy all the food and a bull and a ram to have meat, which is so important for an African gathering and celebration of faith and learning and transition. Therefore on the Baptism of the Lord, Sunday we had the official turning over of the parish from me to the Indian missionary congregation when all the parish catechists were also present. The bishop sent the parish priest of Aweil Town to represent him for the turning over and for the blessing of four chapels. Even civil authorities were there and that made me very happy. Father Natale Bak gave a very good homily in Dinka and in English and the Superior Delegate of the MMI and another of their confreres was there but no other Comboni came. Father Thadeus became the new parish priest and Father X his assistant. I gave a short talk that all the parish and chapels of Aweil West and Aweil North would remain in my heart and mind and the River Lol would keep flowing in my thoughts till the end of my days. They liked that. Then the catechists scattered. I told them that I would remain and work in the parish till January 31 which turned out to be Febuary 11th. On January 14th we went and blessed the small church dedicated to Saint Catherine in Mabior Nyang and we had the Mass inside and without a loud speaker and that was a huge mistake. This helped prepare for the next three days. On the 15th of January we went to Wun Arol and dedicated the new permanent chapel to Saint Lawrence. Then I was ready for the crowd and they could hear and we prayed outside. On the 16th we went to bless the chapel of Saint Paul the Apostle in Matuic and had baptisms and confirmations and even a marriage. On the 17 we went to Gor Ayen and there was a store on the Norwegian Refugee Council who built a primary school and the store was left and the Catholic community took it other for their chapel. All the others I built with the help of the local community but this I gave nothing and we got a zinc sheet roofed chapel with bamboo walls. We had baptisms and confirmations and Mass and named it for Saint Florence and my relatives will know why. Father Thadeus said that he could not find her among the lives of the saints and I told him that she was there. I gave Father Natale money for his fuel and was very happy how everything went. From the 18th to the 23d of January The new parish priest and the old went out to visit two far off centers and we divided up the work and each went to a different chapel each day and made the pastoral work efficient and easy. From the 24th to the 31st of the same month I went by myself to another far off center where some days I did two chapels and others one whereas Fr. X and Fr T did some chapels nearer to Nyamlell. From January 24 to the 31st I went again by myself to visit two centers and 10 chapels in Aweil East and there I found, to my surprise, Father Bak, who said I could visit these chapels even though they don’t belong to Nyamlell but some catechists had come to me in March 2012 seeking a visit from me and with Father’s permission. So I was there with the car up to February 6th late in the evening some of the chapels were very far from one another and there is a lot of confusion there due to the area being disputed between Gordhim and Aweil, and Nyamlell is not in that dog fight. Anyway I went to help and had baptisms and marriages. By the way, I took Fr. T to another place and dropped him off in his parish and he went around with a catechist on bicycles to visit the chapels in that center. From the 7th to the tenth of February I went to my last center that I would visit in Nyamlell parish and was by myself visiting two chapels a day and needed Fr. Thadeus to help me on Sunday the 10th only. Well he had more work in that one chapel than I had had in the other eight all together. We put his bike in the car and I, for the last, time went to Nyamlell, which had been my home for the last eleven years. I was up most of the night packing and putting things in the car and giving the keys to the safe and to my room to the new MMI pastoral team. I left Nyamlell for good on the 11th after my last Mass there and kissed the cats and away we went to Aweil and on the way we met the commissioner of Aweil North on the road and were able to give a final good-bye and thank you. During the war we had never gotten a license plate for the car as no one bothered me about it but so as to help the new guys I stopped in Aweil and for Lss 1000 we got them for front and back and went and even put them on and then we had some things to buy for another new chapel which needs a roof and pillars to hold it up and a door and windows and the last one that I will fund but not see finished; and we drove on to Wau. It was after dark when we got there but Wau was back to normal with people and animals everywhere, all lit up. The next morning I turned the keys of the car over too and I went to the printing press to sort out the messed up prayer book and once again God opened up ways for me. No one could understand the problem. But in the corner was a man who had just arrived the night before. He said he thought he could try. He was from Argentina and his name was Carlos. He became the Savior of that Dinka Prayer Book and the Indians in charge did not seem to have a clue but Carlos worked with me and then on his own and brought out a beauty from an ugly mess. So I got him to download all the fonts and then the soft copy from my computer and start again to put in the final form. It took three more days but Carlos and a little me we did it. The Prayer Book will be printed 6,050 copies in the Don Bosco Printing Press in Wau and should be out in a couple of months. It was on Tuesday evening when I got home that Father T called to tell me that they had turned the car over and it was a wreak and it happen just as they were leaving Wau and that was within ten hours of my giving them the keys. On Friday a brother lent me his car (I did not even ask him for it) and I put in petrol and visited Mboro Mission which is 101 years old and Kayango which is 109 years old and both have churches but all the other buildings are abandoned and left for the bush. Maybe each has fifty to sixty buildings, all roofless and doorless and windowless, but the walls are still strong. On Sunday the 18th I went out to a Dinka village near Wau for the Sunday liturgy and repacked my suitcases and on the 19th I left Wau by public means by road. One Samsonite case fell off the car but showed itself to be strong and did not break. When I refused to pay a bribe I got kicked and in Rumbek on arrival I had some trouble too. The next day I went to Cueibet to visit an American Comboni from Indiana who I had never met but knew her great aunt who had been a prioress at the Beech Grove Benedictine Monastery and was now dead. It was a wonderful visit during which I got to see a teachers training center (TTC named for Caesar Mazzolari) and a new vocational School not far away and run by a Comboni Missionary. The next three days I visited friends and former students in Rumbek and some helped me with donations. One SPLA soldier got mad at something I said and hit me in the mouth but did no damage. On Friday the 22nd I got a lift to Mapuordit where I will be to help in the pastoral work here until Low Sunday or the 2nd Sunday of Easter. Two things I wanted to do before going home are the pilgrimage to where St. Daniel Comboni worked for nine months, 155 years ago, and to go to the priestly ordination of Deacon John Malou Beny, who I with others had sent to the seminary. The first is done: The pilgrimage took place from the 11th to the 16th of March. On the 11th we went to Yirol for an opening Mass and the 12th and 13th we were taken to many churches recently built in Yirol parish by the Spanish Comboni Missionary parish priest all with wonderful paintings of Comboni and the Holy Cross. Then on the 14th we walked to Pan Nhom but everything the planners said turned out not to be true so the whole way was all mud and water and it was much farther than we were told so after three hours of what was supposed to be a two hour trip and the provincial gets the bright idea to turn back. I had preached at his insistence "No turning back" just the evening before. So no way Jose!!! I am going on and there was a division and 39 of us went on and went the other two hours till we got to Pan Nhom all the way in neck high water. It was so meaningful to me as I came out of the water all the village was clapping their hands and the other 38 youth were singing my praises and then I looked up and saw a small cross on a hut shouting at me that the faith had not died and that all the effort had been worthwhile. After 155 years since Daniel Comboni celebrated his birthday here the Faith in this year of faith was still here and in South Sudan. People had prepared platters and platters of fish and prepared one mug of sweet tea just for me. We could not say Mass as the wine and hosts remained with the other group who did not go on. I also noticed that I was the only non Sudanese and all the youth were from Mapuordit and Yirol and this is where the faith was first planted in Bahr el Gazhal and now here were young believers and myself, who has worked 20 years in this region all here to profess our faith and say: A THOUSAND LIVES FOR THE MISSION. FOR THE MISSION A THOUSAND LIVES. We had to go back and three hours in light and four in darkness with no torch or flashlight but in a cattle camp I bought one from an old lady and the hard mud was the worst. Most of the walking in soft mud and water was done barefoot. We got back to the lorry around eleven and back to Yirol at 3 am on Comboni’s birthday. All could have made it if we had gone and slept and the next day come back but the organizers did not do their homework but now we know in the future for others to get there to this significant place. Next Sunday on Palm Sunday we go to Yirol for the ordination of John Malou Beny and all this Mapuordit Community will go as he went to school here and left for the seminary from here too. We have great hopes for him. Mapuordit is like a totally new place for me but I am doing something as I prepare to leave for home but compared to Nyamlell Mapuordit is a holiday and a piece of cake. Happy Holy Week and a very Happy Easter! Sincerely Yours, Father Michael D. Barton, MCCJ. Ps. In 2012 Nyamlell had 1784 baptisms, 367 first communions, 341 confirmations,19 marriages, 48,211 Holy Communions given, 501 Masses said, 1112 confessions heard, 177 sick were anointed, and only four Christian burials were celebrated Six permanent chapels were constructed, and seven non permanent chapels were also built. From March 1st, 2002, when I arrived in Nyamlell until February 11th, 2013, when I left, we had 21,963 baptisms in the parish. We took first place in state and diocesan examinations five times and renewed four primaries and one high school and built eleven churches. Praised be JESUS CHRIST!

A missionary finds time to write home after a busy year

Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus Catholic Church Northern Bahr el Ghazal : South Sudan It has been since the end of February that I last wrote to you. Last Sunday we heard that ”it is not good for man to remain alone.” Well, likewise it not good for a missionary not to be writing home. So the rest of this letter is an explanation of the why I have not written before. In very early March I visited Udhom Center where I was building a new church in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary called Mary, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. After five days there the car refused to start, and then as so often happens, the battery died and I still had three days of visits to chapels in the area. Well, I tried to find a mechanic but this is mechanic-less land. So I borrowed bicycles and fulfilled all my commitments and did I ever pray Memorares. On the last day, which was the first Friday of March, as I finished one chapel and was going to the next I passed a car and in it was an Austrian mechanic who I knew was working for an organization under the Diocese of Rumbek. So I told him the problem and he went and got my baby running again and put new fan belts and diesel filters, all for zero cost. “Never was it known that anyone who sought your intercession was left unaided.” That very day I got back to Nyamlell and was able to buy three barrels of diesel fuel,so I drained the dirty diesel and put in clean and am still using that diesel as soon after diesel disappeared from the market. In mid March I went to Wau for a Diocesan Assembly which was only three days and then I went to the Jesuit Community in Wau for my annual retreat and I got a Tanzanian Jesuit Seminarian to guide me in those days. I used a book by Tony De Melo that praised prayer of petition and was a wonderful new insight that made the retreat very worthwhile, not to mention the eggs for breakfast and running water and showers, electricity and tp. Well, I saw very little of my confreres there but what I did was as always just great. During the assembly the bishop of Wau heaped special praise on me and my work, which I was surprised about as he did it in front of everyone. In March I was to help a man who has cancer of his crippled leg and wanted it removed. We took him to several hospitals in Wau and it was decided to send him to Mapuordit for the operation. He then delayed to go until August and the operation was successful and I picked up the bill. Also I visited 3 centers for the second time and that left me with fourteen more centers to visit before the end of the year. The results of the class eight primary certificate came out in late March and for the county we took first place and five out of the top eleven. Another girl joined the Loreto school in Rumbek and we have three there this year and one is in her last year of Senior Secondary School. In early April the new school year started. I needed to hire thirteen new teachers for this scholastic year for all three schools. The government is doing less and less and so I have to do more and more. The payment will have to come from me too. It was my time to go for home leave but as the other religious had just left I felt that it was most inopportune and so I decided to put it off for another year as this was a large class eight. I also felt that I owed them something as well. So I shall be in the USA in early 2013 after a record six years away. In May we had special evening rosary and litany in the Church and also in May the bishop of Wau came for a full seven days and he blessed two new churches, visited to give confirmation in five other centers. I went with him to bless the two churches on Sunday and then the next Sunday was the Ascension and the Saturday was the feast of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart or the day before Pentecost. The other days the head catechist went with him and I learned that he gives the sacrament without any test at all and is very different from my approach and method but who am I to argue with the BISHOP? On Ascension the Nyamlell altar servers and I piled into the bishop's car and drove to Wedwil to bless the church there dedicated to the Archangels MICHAEL, GABRIEL, RAPHAEL. They have been praying in it since September 29th, 2011, but now it was blessed and the altar has been consecrated and the Blessed Sacrament is now kept there. On Friday evening on his return with the head catechist we met privately and he told me what he had already told many others before me that he had lined up other missionaries to take over my work in Nyamlell and I would be leaving in January 2013. The new priests would be Indians from a new missionary congregation called Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and also their Sisters would come in early 2013 and they are called Daughters of Mary Immaculate. I had heard the rumor but I knew it for sure that after eleven years here I would be going elsewhere in 2013 after my holiday at home. I am very content about the clarity of the decision but had a few problems with others knowing it before me. I shall do everything to hand over everything in good order and then get out of the way of the young blood. That next day we went to open and bless the new church in Udhom, dedicated to MARY, OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART. I went with my own car because after the church blessing Bishop Rudolf went back to Wau and I stayed on to celebrate Pentecost Sunday in the new church. Both days we had big crowds and lots of sacraments to celebrate. It was a great week in May. In June I had to buy and transport the material to roof and complete three chapels. The Christians in those places build chapel walls without any help from anyone else and we had to build reinforcing brick and cement columns so the roof would sit on them. I took Lawrence by car to the first chapel in Mabior Nyang dedicated to Saint Catherine; it took a month and he had to come out by horse-pulled cart. Then he went by cart to Wun Aruol and after five weeks he finished that chapel dedicated to Saint Lawrence, the martyr. When I was there in Wun Aruol in June before Lawrence went I was awakened at twilight and told that the Arabs were near and that everyone was running and I should get on my bicycle and move out. I refused. No one ever came and we had Sunday Mass there and in another chapel up the road and people were afraid because someone had been killed a few weeks before. While Lawrence was there, there were no insecurity events. Then he moved on to Matuic by cart and bicycle and is working there. He will finish very soon the chapel dedicated to Saint Paul the Apostle. Another miracle is that we found the money to do all of this. God provides. Lawrence will then come to resurface our church benches and fix a few broken windows in our parish church so that the church will be good as new for the hand over. Lawrence has not gone home to see his family since he came to build one church Saint Dennis in Ariath but as he goes home in early November he will have built six churches - two from scratch and four doing major finishing off. Is this not a wonderful sign of God’s blessings on the missionary and evangelization work here in this huge parish? Plus there is another chapel which was a store of Norwegian Refugee Council who built a school in Gor Ayen but left their store so that the Catholics could make it into a Church. I shall have the bishop name it when he comes to bless them in January. Lawrence has been another mighty missionary and a fine brother. In June I had another car problem in a very remote area and had to do a lot of walking and praying, and out of the blue another car came from Malaria Consortium and was able to give a hand to get it started and me back to the mission for Monday and my classes. Once again I said REMEMBER O MOST GRACIOUS VIRIN MARY over and over again, which has yet to fail me. In July the rains were really good and I had to do all visits by bike and at times by leaving my car on the other side of the river in the home of one of my students. They made good progress on the bridge over the Lol but after Ramadan they left and never came back; maybe when the dry season comes they will return too. I won’t see it finished. In August we had exams and ended our first semester and after the Assumption we had a two week break. I got a phone call from a confrere in Juba to come as some official had confiscated my passport which I had sent in to get a yearlong visa as there were no entry stamps. They said that I was here as a child trafficker and that I had to appear in person and so I had to go to Juba but the plane stopped in Rumbek for refueling and without planning it I was able to go and visit the tomb of Bishop Caesar and Father Raphael and make it back to the airport without anyone yelling bloody murder. The next day I had my passport back and my visa and the visa for Lawrence all in a hour’s time but with help of some of my old students and the BVM. A Comboni brother who knows the ropes there said that we had done the impossible. The rest of the nine days I watched many new movies on my computer and a modem of another Comboni priest there in Juba and went for walks and visited a few old friends. In September we were back in school and did the serious work of making a new prayer book in Dinka as the old one is out of print and outdated. A former student did the translation and typing with special fonts and it has taken months of writing and then checking and typing and now it is in the hands of the bishop awaiting his approval. If I get that I shall try to check it more and get it printed. If he does not approve then it will die like that. In October we had a special celebration for Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus on October 1st and all the catechists and the pupils joined together for a Mass in the early afternoon. Then on the 10th we had a Comboni Day which is almost like Christmas here in South Sudan and certainly bigger than Easter here in Nyamlell. We had a mid morning Mass and baptisms and the afternoon filled with competitions and games and loud music. My class eight did a play in English in four scenes which took a half hour. At seven we had Benediction and rosary and the litanies written by Saint Daniel Comboni to Mary and then to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which we now have translated into the local language. This day we also opened the YEAR OF THE FAITH. I plan to finish the school year and finish my commitments here and have an opening of the Year of Faith in every center to introduce the new and young missionaries in all 17 places and tell them the names of the chapels under each. So that is why this letter is so delayed and I ask you to bear with me AS I HAVE HAD MY HANDS FULL. Yours in FAITH. Fr. Michael D. Barton, MCCJ.

A note from Father Michael

I am still alive and the school is in full swing and no sisters but we are opening two churches this month with the coming of the bishop and we hope to start three more permanent chapels where the Christians built walls and and we need to put on roofs enforce the walls and put in a metal door. I have the money for three but have a fourth waiting when I get funds. Michael

First Sunday of Lent in Nyamlell

February 26th, 2012
First Sunday of Lent
Comboni Missionaries, Nyamlell, Aweil West, Northern Bahr el Ghazal State
South Sudan

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

I am very happy to write you this letter to thank you for your help and generous sharing in this missionary endeavor in the South Sudan.

Last time I wrote you last October I told you of the completion of Saint Dennis Church in Ariath, which is the second permanent Church in the county of Aweil North. That community on its own has found money from somewhere to plaster the inside of the church and paint the walls white and blue and also start a three room Comboni School. The community of Wedwil in Aweil West County put up the walls for their new church with overly large baked mud bricks and they used mud in place of cement, but they did this all on their own.

It was left to me to put up 26 pillars with small bricks and concrete to reinforce the walls and close the windows just enough to let in a light. I had to have made and installed two doors and put on the roof and the church of the Archangels Michael, Raphael and Gabriel was opened on the first Saturday of November and the end result is something quite beautiful and very different from the others built on my watch.

Lawrence then moved to build another church dedicated to Mary, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. I have not been to see its progress but I saw a picture that shows the walls and doors are in and the walls are up a little past them. I hope to go to see Udhom and visit all the chapels under that center beginning on the extra day of this leap year until March 7th and will see the progress with my own eyes.

This construction is our biggest and most daunting as Lawrence had to find all the material and get them to the site. This is all done with an embargo by the Sudan to make life for the Southern Sudanese as difficult as possible. Prices have all doubled and difficult to find and things are brought down from Darfur and Kordufan, which are places of war themselves. This project has cleaned me out of money both South Sudan pounds and US dollars, but with what I have in Juba in my Comboni account should be able to keep my head above water and get this church finished. Then Lawrence will go on holiday to his home in Kenya and when he comes back we would like to start a church and some class rooms in Makwei and in Aweil North County.

Our school year ended as planned right before Christmas and the certificates were prepared after Christmas. Certificate Day in Nyamlell was December 28th on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. We started with Mass and 125 baptisms, First Holy Communions and Confirmations and with the 40 which Bishop Deng Majak did on Comboni Day so they were 165 from our school last year in 2011. I give all the credit to God and my five catechist who prepared them so well and even yours truly had a group of the RCIA which I prepared and this was a record number for our school in Nyamlell and even in the parish as a whole.

In Marial Baai with a similar number of pupils and catechists only had 35 who passed and were given Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy Communion on January 12st of this year when they also got their certificates and ended their school year. Makwei, which is a very small Comboni school and with only grass roofs and poles, had only 11 who passed the catechism and prayer examination and received their certificates on that day of December 29th of last year.

One more church school started on its own and we did their certificate in Nyamlell for Saint Dennis School in Ariath and as it just started late in the year they did not teach the catechism and only got their certificates on February 17th, 2012. Let us pray something will continue.

Christmas was very special for our parish in 2011 and for so many people who could have Mass for the Nativity of the Lord. You see we had four priests; three other Padres came to give us a hand. Father Angelo Agany (a diocesan priest), Father John Barth and Father John Tscornia (two American Maryknoll Missionaries) and myself. Father Angelo did Christmas here in Nyamlell and on Dec 26th in Ariath. Father Tom who knows spoken Arabic and worked some years in North Sudan and now works with the Catholic University of Wau went to War Cuei on the 24th and Marial Baai on the 25th and Udhom on the 26th. Father John had his first Christmas in Africa with us as he had worked many years in Cambodia and in his general administration of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers in New York and is now training health workers in Wau. Fr. John had Christmas in Majak Baai and baptized more than 50 babies which was a personal record for him and on the 26th he went to Wedwi and celebrated there.

The Sisters had us over for Christmas dinner (Indonesian style) and we sang carols late into the night of the 25th. I am so grateful for their coming and their wonderful service. I have been out every day from December 24th up to now and will conclude the program of visits on March 7th of this year. During this time I will have said Mass in Nyamlell twice, on December 28th and today Feb 26 and all the rest of the days I had Mass out in the chapels and centers where I have done my first visits for this year to the whole of the parish, started even with some five other chapels visited on the 3rd and 4th Sundays of Advent and will end in early March with only pastoral work with sacrament in their plenty and visits to the sick and families. When it is over I shall have to begin again.

Now there is bread and more food in the markets than ever before and this makes feeding so much easier.

On January 6tyh our Indonesian Sisters left Nyamlell, and their community and their congregation ended their presence and commitment to the parish and to the diocese. It will be tough to find replacements and now I have a sad heart and an empty convent. I shall try to find another group of women religious to come and see if they will serve in our growing parish. Two of the sisters went to Mapuordit and another returned to her homeland for good. It will be tough to find replacements and to run the school without them. VERY SAD NEWS!!!

On the first Sunday of Advent back in November we a very interesting and entertaining choir completion. I was here for it.

On January 19th in the late afternoon I went to sleep in Nyamlell and to get on the internet and check things out in the parish center. As I was talking to the catechist and checking on the Baptismal list and registration books, a mad dog came in and bit Samuel(our cook) and Marko (our head catechist). With the help of others (not mine) they were able to kill it but both had to get rabies shots-five at a hundred pounds each and to go to the state capital for each shot and so a lot of money went into that dead dog in shots and bus fares and even the old sisters’ dog got rabies and had to be killed too.

I want to thank you for all your help, spiritual as well as material.
Happy Lent and Easter Season in 2012!

Fr. Michael D. Barton, MCCJ.

In 2011 we had 2264 baptisms, 400 First Communions and 382 Confirmations, and 23 Christian Marriages. We had 499 Masses and 50,000 Holy Communions given out and 1,575 Sacraments of Reconciliation celebrated and 512 Anointing of the Sick.