Threshold Winter 2011

Mount Sisters Welcome Superior General from Tanzania

Mother Joachim Nnunduma, Superior General of the African Benedictine Sisters of Our Lady Help of Christians in Ndanda (Diocese of Mtwara), Tanzania, visited the Mount in October. The Mount community sponsors two of her sisters, Sisters Judith and Gemina, who are attending Donnelly College. She is in the U.S. to visit them and two other sisters in their community in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as to contact A.I.M. (Alliance for International Monasticism) in Erie, Penn., for financial assistance.

Mother Joachim’s community consists of 282 professed sisters and 32 novices and postulants. They are engaged in various ministries including teaching, medical care, social work, farming and maintenance. They work in five dioceses in Tanzania and one in Mozambique. Their biggest challenge is obtaining funds to educate their sisters.

“The scholarships provided for our sisters to study in the U.S. are very essential, but we also need money to educate others who are not able come here,” she said.

Mother Joachim is trying to raise money to build a dormitory for girls who attend the university in Mtwara and a generalate house.

“We are now living in a house lent to us by the bishop, but it is only until we can build our own house,” she said. “We have 31 sisters attending secondary school in Mtwara and the community needs money to educate them.”

Her impression of American Benedictines is that they are “serious, committed to the Benedictine way and community life.” They are also generous and love the African sisters, she said.

Mother Joachim Nnunduma (center) visited the Mount and had the opportunity to visit Sisters Gemina Munyuku (left) and Judith Kapinga (right) in Kansas City where they live with our sisters at Peace House and attend English as a Second Language classes at Donnelly College.