A young Maryknoll priest describes a collaborative mission in Tanzania to help Emmanuel, a 29-year-old living with disabilities in a poor area.
Spend time with Emmanuel Boniface and you’ll hear a lot about his favorite soccer team. Emmanuel is an ardent fan of Yanga, the Young Africans Sports Club of Tanzania. He does not let his difficulties with speech get in the way of a good conversation. Emmanuel has a way of speaking to your heart, and his eagerness draws you in.
I met Emmanuel and his mother, Albentina Mhoni Mnyama, while visiting the sick, elderly and infirm of our parish’s Small Christian Communities. Here in Mabatini, a poor and undeveloped area outside the city of Mwanza, I serve at Transfiguration Catholic Church. In the community, people with disabilities such as Emmanuel face many challenges.
These challenges start at home. Emmanuel is unable to walk, struggles to speak, and experiences muscle spasms. He used to drag himself across the floor on his hands and knees, with his upper body doing most of the work. When I visited, I saw how Emmanuel needed help moving from his bedroom to the living room and onto the couch.
After I administered the Anointing of the Sick, Albentina explained how her son’s mobility could be improved by a wheelchair. This would also allow him to go outside.
I sought out Anna Johnson, then serving as a Maryknoll lay missioner in Mwanza. A registered nurse, Anna ministered to persons with disabilities, helping many children who have physical and developmental issues. She met with Emmanuel and his mother and soon afterward provided a wheelchair. Albentina remembers Anna’s intervention with deep gratitude, thankful for the gift of mobility given to her son.
In the past, Emmanuel had received help from other Maryknoll lay missioners, learning to read and practicing physiotherapy exercises for upper body strength.
With the wheelchair, Emmanuel now spends more time outdoors. Best of all, when his favorite soccer club plays, Emmanuel can access the public halls where games are screened; he even arrives with his own chair!
Through further visits, I saw how Emmanuel’s enthusiasm for life was being stifled. Although at 29 he is the eldest of Albentina’s children, he needs the most caregiving due to his multiple congenital challenges, including cerebral palsy. His younger siblings go to school, while he cannot. Even regular activities of daily life pose significant difficulties, for example, accessing the family’s outhouse.
I am reminded of the Church declaration on human dignity last year. Emmanuel’s desire to live in dignity is rooted in a collective human desire we all share: to experience a dignity “bestowed upon us by God” (Dignitas Infinita 11). It is a desire that God took as his own. In the fullness of time, God missioned his son, Jesus Christ, so that the dignity of humanity — including Emmanuel — could be raised and affirmed.
It occurred to me that something needed to be done for this young soccer aficionado living in Mabatini. Emmanuel’s living space needed to be renovated. This was an invitation to participate in God’s mission, a mission of infinite dignity.
Albentina consulted with her in-laws and other members of her Small Christian Community. Maryknoll benefactors provided funds, and fellow parishioners procured the materials required for renovation. A modest bathroom was adjoined to Emmanuel’s room, giving him some privacy and creating a sense of dignity where previously there had been none. By God’s grace, and through the generosity of donors, we flew Maryknoll’s flag of compassion here in East Africa.
For his part, Emmanuel offers a glimpse of the human dignity that “transcends all outward appearances” (Dignitas Infinita Presentation).
Featured image: Albentina Mhoni Mnyama, her son Emmanuel and Maryknoll Father John Siyumbu collaborated with other members of their parish, Church of the Transfiguration in Mabatini, to improve Emmanuel’s quality of life. (Courtesy of John Siyumbu/Tanzania)
