Am Fr Ronald, working in the Parish of Maria Assumpta -Acornhoek, the Diocese of Witbank in Mpumalanga, Northern part of South Africa. Acornhoek parish was founded by the Comboni Missionaries in 1954 but still with vast zones of first evangelization.
I first arrived in South Africa in 2016 as a student, studying theology at St Joseph’s Theological Institute in KwaZulu Natal province. Having landed in South Africa, I started my apostolate with the community of South African Indians, then a few months later, I became interested in the community of Zulu people and I fell in love with the Zulu (South African) way of worshiping, which comprises of full participation of everyone with dancing and singing during the liturgy. I fell in love with this kind of worship and it inspired me to desire to work in South Africa.
Indeed, after my theological studies, I requested to render my services in South Africa and I was granted the permission to serve in this beautiful rainbow nation. Returning to South Africa after my ordination was one of the happiest days of my life. Having arrived in South Africa, I was immediately sent to learn Sepedi (Northern Sotho), a language that I would be using for my pastoral work.
After completion of my language course, I was sent briefly to Holy Family – Waterval Parish before moving to Maria Assumpta – Acornhoek Parish where the majority speak xiTsonga and a few speak sePedi. Acornhoek Parish is a vast parish with 38 outstations; four of these having no Church buildings; we pray under the tree. Many of them are difficult to access, especially during rainy seasons due to the poor roads, and most times, the distance between one Church to another is an hour’s drive. We are only two priests working in the area yet to be able to cover a good number of Churches, we need to at least celebrate four Masses every Sunday, which is quite hectic because of the drive through the rough roads. Maria Assumpta Parish is a welcoming, cheerful, and lovely community of Christians with whom you can easily feel at home. It is a lively community, the liturgies are always lively, and they express their faith through singing and liturgical dances.
This attracted me and made this mission become my first love. What I love most is visiting the local communities during the weekdays, either for Mass or to pray for the sick. The great sense of hospitality and the welcoming environment encourage and give me the energy and desire to do my ministry and reach out to the people in their homes and localities to share with them the good news. There is a great support of the faith with great generosity even though many are from humble backgrounds, small-scale farmers and some who rear animals on small scales for domestic consumption.
Mission in this part of South Africa is like a first evangelization; the faith is still weak and as a result, we have many Christians baptized but who do not understand their faith. They tend to change their religion, stop attending Churches, or prefer to go to grooves or parties instead of going to Church.
One of our main tasks is to liberate the people from many forms of chains like; traditional and false images of God where they believe in upernatural powers. We encourage the Christians to at least belong to a group or a sodality. The sodalities and groups we have are: St Anne sodality, Daughters of St Anne, St Joseph, Sacred Heart, Catholic Women Association, Catholic Young Adults for young people between the ages of 25 to 40, the youth between the ages of 15 – 25 and Vana va Maria (Children of Mary). These groups meet monthly and organize moments of prayer and retreats to enhance their spiritual growth. Moreover, the desire to get miracles in life drives people to look for pastors who promise them miracles and most times, they leave the Church and follow the pastors. Also, the traditional religions communicate more to them than the religion brought from Rome as they always refer to it as the Marhoma, the Church of Rome.
There is also a strong belief in the power of traditional healers called Sangomas, as they assume to read people’s lives and offer solutions to their problems. So, the same Christians who come to the Divine God at another time go to the shrines to consult the ‘sangomas’.
There is a lot of competition among the various faith groups, seen more often during funerals where they want to see whose Church is the best. On the other hand, as far as family life is concerned, there is a deep crisis; there are many single mothers and very few structured families. Most marriages do not last and children are most times left with the grandparents.
Besides these challenges, we still have a strong group of Catholic faithful; the children, the youth, the young adults and various sodalities who are very strong in their faith. This gives me the zeal to offer my life more and more for the mission, to be a light for the people and a salt to bring taste in the life of people and also to give them hope.
After COVID-19, the number of young people in Church reduced drastically, with schools running on weekends. Now with some effort, my interest has been to bring the young people back to Church and to make them feel important. I dream of a young Church, a Church that is run by young people because the young people are not just the Church of the future, they are also the Church of the present time.
