BY IRENE LAMUNU
Sister Acen Florence is a Comboni Missionary sister. Her Mission story is a revelation of the hand of God at work. She was born on June 18 th 1993 to Anglican parents, Opowo Stephen and Nyachwo Catherine in Tororo Diocese and grew up entirely Anglican. Although her family has only three Catholics, going to Catholic schools changed her destiny. It is at these Catholic institutions that she was introduced to Catholicism. When she was in Primary four, Sr Acen decided to join the Catholic Catechism classes for First Holy Communion and when she revealed this to her parents back home, they had no problem with it. After her First Holy Communion, Sr Florence got ready to begin instructions for the Sacrament of confirmation. At that time, she also realized that in the Catholic Church, all prayers were in her local language and she understood all of them unlike the Anglicans whose prayers were in Luganda, which she could neither speak nor understand but rather cram the prayers in the foreign language. With her new found faith, she was happy because she understood everything.
After her primary education, she was admitted to Fr John Kigen Secondary school in Ngora where she studied her S.1 until S.5. In S.5, she dropped out and joined St John Bosco Nyondo in Mbale Primary Teacher’s College to train as a Primary teacher. As a child, Sr Florence had a dream of becoming a religious nun. She explained that seeing nuns at school as a child motivated her to become a nun when she grew up but at some point in life, her dream changed and she abandoned the idea. During her S.4 vacation, one of her friends requested her to draft an application letter for her to join a religious convent.
Her friend then encouraged her to also apply but she declined because her priorities had now changed. When her friend insisted, she wrote to the Little Sisters of St Francis but she did not get a response and she was happy that she didn’t get the feedback. While at school in Ngora, another friend who was applying to join the Comboni Missionary sisters (CMS), also told Sr Florence to apply. This time round, she had no excuse but simply wrote to please her friend. They never received replies; but fortunately, she had included her father’s telephone number in the letter.
One day, a friend called Sr Florence from her former school to tell her that she had received a letter. Since she was not at school, her friend decided to open it and she was told that she was needed in Kampala by the CMS immediately. She told her friend that she did not have money to travel to Kampala but it was an excuse because she had given up on the dream to become a nun. Then suddenly, the vocation Directress alled her and told her she was expected in Kampala on 2nd January 2012. Still, as an excuse to avoid showing up, she told the Directress that she did not have money.
The Directress was ready to send her money for transport. However, since she did not want her father to know what she was going to do, she requested her father for transport money telling him that she was traveling to Kampala for a ten day meeting. She reported to CMS in Mbuya and was taken to Namugongo for a 10 days’ orientation. After the orientation, she went to St John Bosco, Nyondo Primary Teacher’s College and later got a job in Kangole girls where she taught for two terms, then recalled to CMS to prepare for her Poastulancy in Nairobi. It was time to reveal to her parents that she was joining a Catholic religious sister’s convent. Her parents blessed her but that brought trouble in the extended Anglican family; her uncles were not pleased with this but she had made up her mind.
She was in Nairobi for two years; from 2014 to 2016 then to Novitiate in Namugongo for another two years and on 14th Sept 2018, she took her first vow as a religious nun. She was immediately assigned to mission in Sudan but would first go to Egypt from 2018- 2019 to learn Arabic and the Arab culture. In 2021, she went to her mission in Costi Parish in Sudan where she worked with children and youth and also teaching in a school for refugees from South Sudan. On May 2022, she was asked to go to Khartoum to Villa Gilda Comboni Girls School and Parish in the outskirts of Khartoum, a place she worked in until April 2023 when the Civil War broke out in Khartoum. Here, she was working with the youth, talking to them about the vocation.
According to Sr Florence, many youth need guidance on vocations but have no one to talk to them about it. She returned to Uganda when the government of Uganda evacuated Ugandans living in Sudan after the war broke out. She has been posted to Israel and will be working in Bethany.
