Blessed Trinity Catholic Church

Chris McClare's Zambian Project.

In July 1993, whilst serving a Pastoral placement for a month at the drop-in centre in Sheffield, I stayed at the Mother of God parish where Father Willie Killgannon was parish priest.  A polish priest, Father Kryztof, was staying there for three months to study english before he went on missionary work in Zambia.  He invited me to visit Zambia but I declined.  Fr. Kryztof was shot in the leg by bandits in 1998 whilst out there.  He was sent back to Poland for a year to recover.  Before he returned to Zambia again, Fr. Kryztof stopped for a couple of weeks in England.  Whilst here, he invited me to go to Zambia again.

This time I could not refuse, as here was a man of God who had been shot, and despite this was going back to Zambia.  He went back, not to the Mission where he had been shot (Mpanshya), but to Christ the Redeemer parish in Makeni, a suburb of the capital, Lusaka.

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This parish had a sub-parish (a poor relation), called St Anthony of Padua, where I first worked to build a community school attached to the church.  This was a two-storey school due to lack of ground owned by the parish.  We raised money at Blessed Trinity church in Wickersley and also in a number of other parishes across the Hallam Diocese.  Thanks to the generosity of Bishop John, the priests and people, we were eventually able to build the school.  Help continued to be provided to Makeni through both Patricia Hope and Eileen Lockwood from Our Lady and St. James church in Worsbrough, Barnsley.

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Whilst in Zambia, I met a couple from Birmingham, Sid and Brenda Rowlins, who encouraged me to join VMM, who I was with for six years.  I finished up working in Mpanshya parish, building 2 small churches or chapels in the outstation of Mpanshya Mission, around 150 miles East of Lusaka.  The parish priest, Father Lecek, then asked if we could build a small community school at another outstation called Mulamba.  We again raised money at Blessed Trinity and in neighbouring parishes to build a 2-classroom school with a small office, constructed from bricks made in the community.

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In the years since, we have built a number of buildings for the community at Mulamba.  In 2007, the Scots Border Youth Group, 40 in number, started and funded the building of a 2 house block for nurses, so that they could stay and work at the medical centre in Mulamba.  

To this day, now mainly through the efforts of Blessed Trinity and Rotherham Deanery, we have in Mulamba: 

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• A Roman Catholic church. 

• A 5 classroomed community school. 

• A medical centre. 

• Accommodation for teachers.

• 7 small houses for nursing staff.

• 2 water boreholes and tank store with a solar pump (courtesy of the British and Irish embassies). 

• Basic plumbing with running water to 2 nurses houses and the medical centre.

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The community has grown at least three-fold since we began the development there.  ​The community school in 2003 had 95 children, today it has 450.  In Lusaka, unemployment is over 70%.  Most ordinary people live in compounds where conditions are very poor and unhygienic.  Zambia in many parts is a big, fertile land and although there is little to be had in terms of wages in the village, people are able to grow their own food and sell a little of it.  Children can grow up in a good rural situation rather than the dire, squalid circumstances of the city.

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I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has in the past, and still are supporting our project in Zambia.  Without the people donating and giving money, there would be no Zambian project.  

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May God bless you all for your generosity.

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Yours in Christ,

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Christopher McClare

December 2018

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