Eleni Tsegaw, a member of the Missionary Community of St. Paul the Apostle, describes her vocation that arose from leaving her home country of Ethiopia and the joys that have filled her life as a missionary.
I had just finished high school and I was thinking what to do with my life, whether to continue studying at college or perhaps start working. While pondering on this, I met Cecilia from the Missionary Community of Saint Paul the Apostle (MCSPA) for the first time. She had been a year in Ethiopia to carry out projects aiding the most needy in the Valley of Angar Guten. What she was doing seemed very interesting; I wondered why she was doing this, what moved her to come from so far. Why was she helping people with whom she shared neither bonds nor connections? But I kept all these questions in my heart as I did not speak English and Cecilia could not speak Amharic!
Cecilia suggested to me to study English so that we would be able to talk and so that she could explain to me all the things she wanted to develop in Ethiopia. I studied English for six months so as to have some spoken foundation. Then I travelled to Angar Guten to see what they were doing and what they had there. I was very impressed by all that they were doing there: they had a dispensary and a mobile clinic.
Guten, at the time, was a small village that lacked electricity, water and many other things. Initially the Oromos and the Gumuz inhabited the Valley of Angar Guten, but with the famine of the 80s, the Ethiopian government brought in other tribes from northern Ethiopia, like the Amhara and the Tigray. This made the Valley a very special place to work in, as the needs of each tribe had to be catered for. I used to walk in the afternoons with Cecilia, and the children followed us all along the way. She suggested that I do something for these children as they could not go to any nursery as there was none around and so only a few of the children could go on to primary school.
In the beginning I saw clearly that something had to be done for those children. They were in need of many things. My intention was to stay for a short period of time and then return to Addis to continue with my studies and with my life. But God had other plans. It was for me to follow Him, not just for a short time but for the rest of my life. This was something I did not understand at that time.
That first trip was very special as I got to know regions of my own country for the first time. So I returned to Addis Ababa to study child-care. All that time I could not stop thinking about the children of Angar Guten. On finishing the course, I returned with Cecilia and we started there a nursery – the first one at Guten! In fact, it is more a Centre of Life than a nursery because there is a place for everyone: children, mothers, older siblings etc. There are even Muslim children; everyone has a place there.
We carried out different activities for the children and their mothers, and I eventually got more involved in it that, unknowingly, I even forgot the idea of returning home to Addis Ababa to go on with my life. My life was now at this place, with these people – Cecilia, Paco, all the members of MSCPA.
One of the many visits of Paco to Ethiopia marked my life until today. Then he said that it was necessary for me to leave my country, at least for twenty years. I thought he was joking! He also told me that no one is a prophet in his own country. Now I know it was a way of opening my eyes. He saw in me the possibility of flying, like an eagle and being free to do good.
At the time it was very hard for me to understand the depth of this message. Now I see that it was providence: the hand of God inviting me to be part of the universal Church, to a wider, more bountiful and complex plan.
Leaving my country gave me the opportunity to travel to Bolivia and to live there for more than a year, at Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Cochabamba. There we worked at various development programmes. In Colombia I lived at La Calera, on the outskirts of Bogota, and worked in mother and child care. Afterwards I went to live in Germany with a group of young women from our community, all from Africa. In the beginning it was difficult because of the language, climate and culture. Eventually all that difficulty transformed into a gift for our lives. We learned how to move around the world, to find extraordinary friends who are still present in our lives and who keep supporting us.
During those years at Paderborn in Germany, we were never alone. Others from the community, such as Paco, would always come to visit us. They always encouraged us to push on. There we unrelentingly went about giving talks on Africa in parishes, schools and to different groups.
With each talk I realized how much I yearned to return to Kenya or Ethiopia, and how my vocation was becoming stronger. I also realized that when I gave another picture of Africa, people would fall in love with Africa and they would be ready to help. Not all in Africa is tragedy as is often portrayed in the media. It is a continent full of joy and with people who possess enormous potential, just waiting for someone to lend a hand.
Afterwards I went to live in Mexico and started from scratch once again – each new beginning was hard for me; now, I had to speak Spanish, make new friends … new house, new people. With the help of Lourdes, Rosa and the other women from the community, everything became easier and I gained a lot from those years. We worked in the neighbourhood of Ajusco, in the outskirts of Mexico City. There we worked with families who had migrated from other parts of Mexico without anything to find opportunities in the big capital.
We have always focused our interest on children because they are the most vulnerable. Hence we had a nursery, which later turned into St. Joseph’s Mother and Child Centre. I was impressed how each time we asked for help in the country, people would always respond positively and we never lacked support. Both, the Central de Abastosand private companies would donate their products for the smooth running of the Centre.
But the story does not end here. After getting used to Mexico and its people, I left once again but this time to Africa – to Kenya, to Turkana. And the story began again: new language, house, people …
When I look back, I can only say my life has been a blessing as it has been years of moving from one place to another, and it has brought me a lot of happiness. Today I want to thank everyone, especially Cecilia, because she stirred up my vocation and helped me to be strong and to follow Christ; Paco who pushed me to leave my country and showed me that I could move to anywhere, to be universal – to live anywhere with different peoples and feel that every place is home.
I now understand my vocation as a small seed that God placed in my heart, which even I did not know existed in me until I met Cecilia and she awakened it. Then others came: Paco, Lourdes, Scholastica and all the others who have helped me along this journey, who have made me strong, humble, patient, demanding … so many things that I would run out of ink in describing how much they have all contributed to my life. I would like to invite many other young persons who come to visit us in the missions to take that next step – that of staying here forever and living a fulfilled life of service for others. Because I discovered that this was the path to happiness.
Eleni Tsegaw MCSPA
