Bringing the Gospel to the Watatulu
One lone Catholic missioner, Maryknoll Father Daniel Ohmann, is introducing the Gospel to 80,000 Watatulu people in Tanzania. You can help him teach how Christianity and traditional African culture can coincide.
The Watatulu are a remote tribe of 80,000 who have their own ways which they try to protect from Western influence. The elders of the tribe seem split on the need for more education. They fear that too much Western influence would destroy their culture, their way of life.
Yet they see something in what the Church is doing that they feel could save their civilization, their culture. Just before he died, one elder told Father Ohmann, "One thing I regret in my whole life is that we didn't force our kids to go to school. The second thing is that we didn't ask the priest to come in and teach (the children) their way." Father Ohmann replied "That's what I am here for, but you know how stubborn your people are. Where should I begin?"
The old man advised Father Ohmann to find a small group of young Watatulu men interested in what the church was teaching and have them live with him.
Today, six years after he set up camp, there are 5 members in his small Christian community. Yet Father Ohmann continues to patiently teach the Gospels. And his patience has born some fruit.
"We were translating the Gospel of Mark and one day Gilimunyi told me, 'You know, Father, our whole life is based on fear. But now having spent the last couple of years studying about the life of Jesus, I've lost all my fear. I'd like to be baptized.'" This year he and his young wife, Giri Majango, were baptized on Easter!
“The change in people as they gradually turn from the fears of unanswered questions and problems, to the joy and hope their faith brings. One man said 'You Christians laugh differently.' "
Father has lived and worked in Africa since his ordination, serving in many capacities. Before his current assignment he served in a refugee camp in Tanzania with Rwandans and Burundians in an area where one-third of the priests have been killed and about another third have fled. He has seen and heard about his share of violence. In one seminary of high school students, 35 of the seminarians were asked by troops to point out Tutsis and Hutus. The students refused and all were killed.
Through all, Father's patience, faith and hope carry him. Following are his own words from a June 2000 article in Maryknoll magazine entitled Mary's love beads:
It's now two years since I left my ministry with suffering exiles from Burundi and Rwanda in the refugee camps in western Tanzania. Since then I've been working in the Shinyanga region with the Watatulu people, dwellers along the Rift Valley for some 300 years. I live in a tent among these seminomadic people.
I've been working with them very patiently, longing for the day when they will see that the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel complement the many positive values they have in their traditional religion and eliminate some negative aspects, such as the fear of evil spells. I've had little success so far...But I pray daily, asking for the intercession of our Blessed Mother:
"Mary, every Watatulu knows that a bead is much more than a stone, more than a seed, or more than a colored piece of glass. A string of beads around a baby's neck shows a mother's love. A bracelet's string of beads reveals a boy's love for a girl. Your string of beads, the rosary, tells of the greatest love of all. Hasten the day when the neck of every Watatulu will be graced by your symbol of God's unconditional love. Amen."
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