I am sad to inform you that our Coordinator of Youth Ministry, Clare Gisla, informed me that she has accepted a job offer in another place. Clare will be greatly missed in our community. I thank her for her great leadership in the Youth Ministry. Her last day with us is October 14th. I wish her God’s blessings in her new job and please keep her and our youth ministry in your prayers. 

We have posted the job opening for the position on our parish website. Please send in your application if you are interested, and please help us by informing someone who may be interested to send their applications as soon as possible. 

 

I invite you to join the Arizona African Catholic Community for their African Day celebration tomorrow, Saturday October 8, at St. Andrew’s Parish, in Chandler. The event will begin with a celebration of Mass at 5pm by our Auxiliary Bishop, Edwardo Nevarez. There will be a reception after Mass in the parish hall.

I am glad to inform you that I will be traveling to Nigeria to visit my family on Tuesday next week. It has been four years since I saw my family. Often, people ask me; “Do you have a family? You need to take a break and go visit your family.” I wish I could travel every year to visit my family but it’s hard to believe that I could not find an appropriate time for vacation for four years. In 2018 and 2019 I was immersed in going through the period of grief with the loss of our pastor, dealing with prolonged personal illness and at the same time leading the parish through the peak of two capital campaigns for our Church building and the Diocesan campaign. In 2020 and 2021 I was preoccupied in dealing with the COVID-19 and beginning the new building design process leading to the ground breaking in November 2021. 

This year, 2022, is the closest to a normal year for me. For the past four years, I have been longing to witness the beginning of our Church construction before I can take a break. Now that my eyes have seen the rising of our new Church building from the “ashes” of the old, I feel so relieved and ready to now visit my family. I am not complaining but just sharing my experiences with you. As a missionary, I am aware that I cannot afford to say that my family comes first. Often, the missionary life experience is like what Horatius Bonar writes in his song, “Go, Labor on, Spend, and be Spent.” That was what Jesus did and that is what I felt called to do by choosing to be a missionary priest. 

I would like to caution everyone that please do not respond to any email or text messages claiming to be from me asking for personal favor. We understand that many scammers are now targeting Christians using the name of their priest or religious leaders to scam them. One of the first red flags is that most of those emails and text messages claim to be for urgent needs. Please, never ever send a gift card, money or any requested gift to anyone claiming to be me, no matter how urgent it appears. Always call our parish office to verify or report if you received any suspicious email or text messages claiming to be from me or Fr. Manasseh. 

Please note that there will be no Weekend Memo from next weekend until mid- November. However, you will continue to receive the building update at the same time, 5pm on Fridays.