Update From Utegi # 1 – January, 2026

Karibu! Greetings from snowy South Bend where we’re having Mass this evening in an igloo-church, or ‘ice-cathedral,’ made by the ingenious students of Notre Dame.

These cold months have me greatly missing my beloved Utegi where I got to live a year without winter. But even as I’ve settled into my studies here at Notre Dame, living and ministering to the residents of O’Neill Family Hall, part of my heart – and indeed some efforts – remain with the people of Utegi. Beginning with this January, I am hoping to write a monthly update on the various projects and ongoings back at St. Felista’s parish. Thank you for coming along for the ride!

10 of our students at an all-day check-in before returning to school

Wanafunzi Kwanza. Students first. Last year living among our people it became so clear to me just how much potential our gifted and energetic young people had – and how few opportunities were before them. With the direction and advice of our local priests, I wound up finding sponsors to send a dozen of them to study at trade school, many at our very own ‘Audrey Veldman Vocational Training School’ on the other side of the Serengeti from Utegi. One of the greatest gifts of the year was getting to know these students and, through the generosity of friends and family, giving them the opportunity to learn a trade, find meaningful work, and hopefully eventually give back to their families and communities.

At the end of the year, two of them graduated, but the remainder hoped to go back for another year. So I spent a decent amount of energy following up with their sponsors and finding a couple new ones to send 11 the students back to trade school and begin sponsoring a new one, Brigid, for university studies.

Thanks be to God, I have raised 70% of what’s needed for their studies this year and trust that I will find the rest in due time.

Our students towards the end of last semester

Trecta ikachapa kazi. The tractor’s getting to work. Another significant initiative that I took up over the course of last year was repairing our John Deere 5750E. When I arrived, Fr. Andrew had just inherited charge of the machine with the mission of farming some of our own parish lands and helping poor parishioners till and plant their own. There was one problem: most of the tractor was broken.

‘Our Lady of Hope’ parked with the plow in our driveway, headed to work.

After countless phone calls to my dad and uncle about tractor maintenance, working with a couple different mechanics, and learning far more about tractor mechanics than I had ever expected, we wound up replacing most of the major systems on the tractor: hydraulics, steering and tires, gears, and the 3-point hitch. What felt like an endless and fruitless battle, thank God, wound up being very successful. The beautiful machine which Fr. Andrew and I jokingly refer to now as Our Lady of Hope, since for so long it was Our Lady of Sorrows, has been working very well – plowing and planting for the past few months.

Our hopes, eventually, are to expand the kind of agricultural work we do beyond planting major crops with a tractor and into regenerative agriculture – but having this machine working is the first step to reaching the more full sustainable picture.

Habari zingine. In other news, Father Ronald Katongole – who I served alongside as a seminarian – was just ordained a priest this month. Here’s a picture of our ~40 parishioners who traveled for the ordination which apparently took no less than 6 hours… lots of great music and dance, I am sure.

At the parish, the Christmas season is time for first communion – here are some of our little one who recieved the Sacrament for their first time, and got some bonus sodas to go along with it.

Majenzi yanaanza. Construction begins. Lastly, the exciting news from January is that St. Felista’s Academy which we began to dream about this time last year is on its way to becoming a reality. We will break ground this February with hopes to complete construction in May and open the school in July for Pre-K and Kindergarten students. We have raised sufficient funds for construction and are on our way towards covering the operating costs for our first year. May God who began this good work bring it to completion!

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