A BEAUTIFUL BEGININING OF LENT.  I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST DURING THIS IMPORTANT SEASON.

I would like to share  a story of a few days ago…

Tree of Wisdom is eventually not only for sponsorship for kids but is becoming life saving as well.  We have gone well beyond the education only, but more in welfare of kids and their growth.

A woman named Grace who is HIV+ and a widow, was sent by God yesterday evening to our house as two us missed to go in for prayer because we did not hear the bell ring. To me she had the face of Jesus, hungry and sick.  She was carrying her baby  and they walked in the the first heavy rain after the dry spell we experienced for long, looking for something to eat after staying hungry for three days with her children.  She arrived all washed by rain and was shivering with a hungry baby.  She  looked for some employment like washing people’s clothes the whole day, and did not find anybody who could give her work for even less than ten dollars to buy food for her 3 kids.  No one wanted to hire her because she was HIV+.

I thought the kid was very small, but when Sr. Pauline and I came to the mother with some left over food from our house, the kid stretched out his little hands to receive the food.  This action put me off and I realized the kid is one year old but looks like only six months because he is under fed.  This was a sight impossible to ignore.  I thank God because we had some food left in the house enough to feed this woman and her 3 kids.

I told the woman to return the next day.  She is going to join other women making necklaces in order to get some money with dignity to look after her children, while the baby can be fed in our Day Care Centre.

The Tree of Wisdom is making us go an extra mile to develop the dignity of the most vulnerable people as well.  I am impressed at the how my sisters from time to time come back from their different places of work to tell me the needs of children and poor mothers they meet.  Without the gift of the Tree of Wisdom,  we would have closed our eyes and ignored some of these urgent needs, or we would respond in a way which might make people recall  some negative things nuns did to them while they were in schools.  I am now realizing that, in the past, some negative situations could have been created when the nuns felt there was no way to respond to such situations as these ones.  I am trying to read the past in the present and, “At Such A Time As This”,  thank you for making us understand that our vocation is clearly seen in the faces of the poor, hungry, and malnourished Jesus.

We did not know this project would lead us as far as this.  Thanks to those who have managed to decorate the Tree of Wisdom with the beautiful necklaces made by the guardians, poor women and grand parents of TOW children.

I am always wondering about what God is doing to this Tree but with time the leaves are growing and the branches are expanding in God’s direction.  Maybe it is too early to clearly say, these are our objectives as well.  God seems to be spelling out the objectives and mission statement too.  God is writing the Strategic Plan for the Tree of Wisdom.  Let us be quiet and thank him.

God bless our Tree and its fruits.

Sr. Rosemary Nyirumbe

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