Pastoral
work at Lavigerie formation house, Jinja
Pastoral work is one of the pillars of our
formation program for the first cycle. This year, we have thirty eight students
who reach out on Saturdays and Sundays to seventeen different areas of
apostolate.
I as a formator believe that, we and the
students in formation need to be nourished and challenged by divine and human
realities, which are outside our formation house; our comfort zone and
security.
Together, we reflect, share and pray about
situations in which students find themselves. Examples of these situations are:
prison ministry, youth ministry, outstation ministry, serving people with
disabilities, hospital ministry or being for the first time involved in
interreligious dialogue and ecumenism among others.
The formation to be effective and healthy
needs constant inputs from real life situations. It helps the students to grow
spiritually, emotionally, rationally and socially in their personalities.
The specific experiences of life test the
motivation, the attitude and the goals of a candidate to become a missionary of
Africa.
During the three year pastoral training, the students are
appointed to three distinct apostolates. Apostolate helps the candidate
to balance the academic schedule at the institute.
A pastoral diary helps them to see where
they are, and this leads to questions. The ultimate question comes to the
surface: Do I love my apostolate, the people to whom I have been sent? If he
cannot answer this question positively or has hesitations, he has a serious
question to answer: that of his vocation.
I am convinced that pastoral work is an
important part of formation. It is forming young adults to mature. And that is
life-giving.
Fr. Hans Pfeifer
Formator, First cycle, Jinja