I have called you friends

Artist’s rendering of Hekima University in Molo, Kenya.

By Fr. Paul Kalenzi, SJ

In Spring 2019, I was a graduate student at Boston College when I received a strange mission from my provincial superior: to go to Chicago and raise funds to build the first Jesuit university in East Africa. My first thought was, “How on earth am I going to do that?”

(From left) Jesuit Frs. Endashaw Debrework, SJ, and Paul Kalenzi, SJ.

I am now coming to the end of my mission, and my heart brims with gratitude for so many of you who sympathized with this herculean task. I have come to call you friends (John 15:15). I am thankful, first of all, to the provincial superior of the USA Midwest Province, Fr. Karl Kiser, SJ, and his predecessor, Fr. Brian Paulson, SJ, who welcomed me and generously supported my work. Father Paulson missioned me to learn fundraising at the feet of John Chandler, president of Saint Ignatius College Prep in Chicago. Despite the Covid pandemic and the social unrest I witnessed in 2020, I look back with fondness at the experiences I shared with the students, faculty and staff, parents, and alumni of the school.

I also look back with fondness at my time at the Taylor Street Jesuit Community. I was fortunate to live with exemplary Jesuits, dedicated to the apostolate, deeply spiritual and generously hospitable to me and the many friends I invited to visit our home.

During the last three years, I have worked at the Midwest Jesuits province office. I have been touched by the solicitude of my colleagues; it often seemed as though my mission was very much theirs, too. Little by little, as friends in the Lord, we are building the kingdom of God here on earth.

There is still a long way to go in fundraising for Hekima University. I am glad that Fr. Endashaw Debrework, SJ, will continue this mission. Father Endashaw was regional director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Eastern Africa and has been director of our social justice ministry in Kenya. I am sure you will enjoy making friends with him.

A famous American writer said, “A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.” This is so true of you. I will miss you very much and hope that we meet again, perhaps in Eastern Africa. As we say in Kiswahili, Karibu sana! (You are most welcome!).