Transfiguration

In the days we had left in Zambia several daunting tasks remained. Cook some passable burgers for the Capuchin brothers, visit three different cities, give a philosophy conference to the Poor Clares, play with some kittens, create a program to assure that girls like Agness don't get denied scholarship opportunities in the future...and find a great local school for Miss Kapesa here in Zambia. Based on the recommendations of our friends, we went against all Irish-American wisdom and enrolled Aggie at Cavendish University, an internationally recognized British school where she will study year-round to complete a Bachelor Degree in Information Science Technology. Tonight we toasted here with orange concentrate and on Monday, August 11th, her 21st birthday Agness will formally be enrolled in college. Goodbyes with Agness fit between the final performance of "We're all in This Together" of High School Musical fame and evening prayer and dinner with the Franciscans. There are moments when Meghan's talent awes me...and watching 50 orphans dressed, choreographed, and singing along in perfect mimicry of Broadway-style dance truly rendered both the teacher and students brilliant...that will show up on youtube upon our return.
So tomorrow we depart, and after layovers in Nairobi and London we will arrive home on the Feast of St. Clare, exactly four years after I left for Africa for the first time. Much to my chagrin, I turn to Disney and the words that repeated hundreds of times in harmony out of the girls' mouths this week, "We're all in this together, and it shows, when we stand, hand in hand, make our dreams come true."

In Christ,
Luke Patrick

Nam in quem locum quisque cedierit, ibi debet incumbere, ut surgat

For on whatever place one has fallen, on that place one must find support and rise again. St. Augustine, De vera Relgione, XXIV, 45.

Almost four years after promising a teenage orphan in rural Zambia that the people I loved would do everything they could to help her, Agness Kapesa's third, and perhaps final attempt, at entry into the United States met with the same response as the first two. She was greeted by the Consular Officer Malia Heroux, who recognized Agness and dismissed her as not meeting the qualifications designated by U.S. law for entry into the country.

Many of the best men and women I know would have been unable to deal with this rejection. Agness once again noted the "will of God" at work in her life. The generosity of you who read this blog is not bounded by the same arbitrary pettiness that leads consul officers to write statements like "unfortunately, all countries are not created equal" in the literature passed out to applicants for VISA. In the face of this seemingly crushing callousness, Agness focused on the love and sentiment that has echoed so loudly in her life from across the Atlantic. Confronted with arrogance and indifference of some, she knows of the care and love of others, and in this balance her life remains. She worked hard this year, and a girl who believes and fights like her doesn't finish the day with tears and whining, but rather a resolute turn to what comes next. The evening prayer for the day had within it a reading that seemed fitting, "May you be made strong with all the strength which comes from his glorious might, so that you may be able to endure everything with patience." Her sponsors in America will ensure that her education continues here, and as Meghan aptly quipped, "Now our families will just have to come here to meet you."

In Christ,

Luke

Game Time

At 3:30 Am Eastern Standard Time on Monday July 28th, Agness will enter the U.S. Embassy to apply for her student visa for the final time. The enormity of the situation has been bracketed in true Zambian fashion with moments of humor and joy. For example, Meghan has been conscripted by the City of Hope orphans to teach them the choreography to "We're all in this together" of High School Musical fame. Perhaps even more telling, if less contemporary, is the fact that an entire orphanage can sing the chorus of "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio. More than working with AID's victims, hugging babies, shaking hands with lepers, or teaching philosophy...that is perhaps the greatest accomplishment of this lifetime... In any case, we living quite well on the hospitality of Franciscans. Please pray for Agness during the coming week. We now have a date and time for her judgment. Just under 9 days away for those of you inclined to Novenas.

Pietas,
Luke

The girls at City of Hope think I look like Victoria Beckham and Luke looks like Frodo. We had dinner last night with 9 other volunteers from Ireland, Austria, Germany, Spain and Ireland by candlelight bc we were lacking electricity. The power cuts out often here. One owl is still alive in our roof. Twix bars are the same here! The people are incredibly generous and loving and God willing you will all get to meet Agness. One more thing...we are in an internet cafe and the guy who works here has played the same rap song 16 times...i have been counting. I gotta get out of here.
Love you,
Meg

Feast of St. Bonaventure

Days II and III: Ride in the back of an open pickup truck with people from Ireland, Austria, Spain, Belgium, and America to a local French Bakery run by Polish immigrants in Zambia...check. Help a Congolese Nun write a grant proposal to an organization in Sweden...check. Go to lunch at the home of a young Zambian couple and leave with enough tomotatoes to supply Maggiano's...check.

Needless to say the days have been eventful. Most of the mornings are governed by prep of documents and Agness's interview. In the afternoons we get to steal some blessed moments with the other orphans at the City of Hope. The nights usually provide some hilarity. For example, the guesthouse we have been given has lots of noises...the hissing and thumping in the ceiling have been well documented, but when you wake up to the sound of someone else using the bathroom, in a home you thought otherwise unoccupied it tends to scare even large Irish Americans. The Philosopher Hegel coined a famous philosophical phrase, "the owl of Minerva flies at dusk." Years later this has essentially been dumbed down into hindsight is twenty-twenty. So, when you are a big guy you shouldn't go chasing people around your house at night, they might turn out to be cute little Tanzanian nuns, just saying. AND...if you are scared of noises in the roof, you should make sure they aren't beautiful owls before you tell the not-so-ecofriendly maintenance men, just saying. So, we are saying our prayers on this feast day of the great Franciscan, St. Bonaventure and working to make sure that Agness gets a chance to meet all of you.

Pietas,
Luke Patrick

DAY 1

We landed earlier than expected in Zambia due to some negotiating at the airport in Nairobi...of course these negotiations also cost us any prayer of seeing our bags in a respectable amount of time despite assurances they were, in fact, on the plane. Like any homecoming, the first few hours were filled with surprise greetings, not the least of which was a return to the City of Hope Orphanage where we were mobbed in a delightful fashion by the girls. The highlight of the first night was watching Meghan in a new quarters...an entire house provided for us by the Franciscans. It so happened that last night the power was out. So no bags, no water, no power. This left my intrepid wife undaunted, but the bats nesting in the ceiling may have pushed her over the edge...slightly. We managed a good night's sleep and Mass in the morning with the Brothers. Today we began arranging meetings with the Diocese and Agness, to prepare for her big day at the Consulate. Thanks to everyone who commented, and please share this cup with anyone who wants it. We can be reached in Zambia via phone or text at 610-348-5238 if anyone has any great news, or perhaps Presidential influence. Please pray for us as we go forward. Pietas, Luke

Bats make a really strange noise when they are stuck in the vent in your ceiling. Baby chickens are really cute...they live in our front yard! We still haven't showered. Luke smells good. :)
Love,
Meghan

Agness Kapesa- Easter 2006

The young woman in the picture is Agness Kapesa. She lost both her parents to disease before she was a teenager. Three years ago in a tiny town in the furthest reaches of Zambia she dreamt aloud about studying in the United States of America. She graduated high school, took a job twelve hours a day, six days a week at a bakery in the capital city, Lusaka, worked and waited. Over Easter 2006, she was greated at work with the news that Silver Lake College in Manitowoc, Wisconsin had offered her a full scholarship, room and board, expenses, and tutoring. The picture above shares that moment with everyone. In the summer of 2007, after a year of working on the paperwork with the faithful and generous Franciscan Sisters at Silver Lake and an incredible team in the admissions department, I returned to Zambia to help Agness with the application for a student Visa to the United States. It is here that the real story began.

The United States declares "every alien...shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer, at the time of application for a visa,and the immigration officers, at the time of application for admission, that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status..." Herein lies the difficulty. Agness is an orphan. She has been provided for by the Salesian nuns of Zambia, has a bank account grounded in substantial donations from American sponsors, but she does not own a home, she has no parents, and the family she does have in Zambia was not enough to convince the Consular Officer that she would return to her loved ones. She was rejected. Twice. A year later Agness has been working based upon the recommendations of the American Consulate. She intends to return to Zambia to employ the fruits of a degree in Information Science Technology. Agness is a woman of serious integrity who has fought through stigmatization of orphans, and hopes to set an example for the younger girls that follow her. It is up to her, and those of us who know her, convince the American Consulate that Agness Kapesa will do something most of us take for granted...go home.

Hundreds of letters flooded the Consulate last year. It did not work. The poetry of Emma Lazarus that sits at the feet of our Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" We do not have the luxury of Lady Liberty's silence. So many of you sent letters on behalf of Agness that she marveled at how big America must be. Members of the State Department, young women and men on the staff of Congress, and others all intervened. The size of America can scarcely make us proud, but the size of your heart that day should.

This year Meghan and I return with some backing from the State Department, some new intricacies in the paperwork, and a wing and a prayer. We ask that all of you follow this blog. Spread this story to your friends and family. If you are smarter, holier, or more influential, than your humble blog hosts please write us with your suggestions or offer comments. Pray for Agness and the heart of the Consulate Officer that sits in Lusaka as you read this. That woman or man will arbitrate the immediate future of Agness Kapesa. Meghan and I depart for Zambia after the celebration of the 4th of July. The days to come will hopefully bear out the fruits of a year of tears, effort, on prayers by Agness and on her behalf. We invite you to "share the cup" in this and other stories to come.

Pietas,

Luke