A Discussion with Stephen Msele, Founder, Undugu Family, Xavier House, Kampala, Uganda

With: Stephen Msele Berkley Center Profile

June 19, 2012

Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in June 2012 undergraduate Shea Houlihan interviewed Br. Stephen Msele, S.J., a Jesuit from the East African Province who is the founder of the Undugu Family Groups, an organization devoted to sport and culture with hundreds of chapters located in four countries. In this interview Br. Msele discusses how his Jesuit formation process led to the inspiration to found Undugu Family, the challenges involved in launching and sustaining the network, and the importance of building a sense of brotherhood through education and groups like Undugu Family.

How did you first join the Society of Jesus?

I was sent to the novitiate in Zambia. The best possible way to be a companion of Jesus, I thought, was to receive the thorough formation of the Jesuits, and with my love for young people, the Jesuits gave me the best opportunity.

I took my vows, so they sent me to get a master’s [degree] in philosophy in Ireland. After a year, my world turned upside down because I was so disillusioned with the missionary work about the Church, especially because of the work in Ireland. There, the people are so busy they don’t even greet one another, and these people are the ones who introduced Christianity to us. I asked myself, “Is this what Africa is going to turn into?” You go to church and you only see older people.

Someone told me, “You are going crazy,” and I told him, “Are you sure you are not going crazy?” He said, “You came here because you want everlasting life,” and I thought, “Why would I want everlasting boredom?” He said, “You are forgetting. Are you not even afraid of hell?” I said, “You mean I am not in hell now?” We continued, and he said, “You are here because I am here. You have to go on working because our Father is still working.” I remembered those were the words of Jesus. That statement gave me all the reasons I needed; he gave me a lot of joy and encouragement. Secondly he told me, “All these years you have been looking at everything and the Bible upside down.” I began to understand all of the Bible and catechism. I realized after 2,000 years, all of us have been looking at things upside down. My joy, pain, misery are all rooted in this experience. It happened in 1985.

When did you begin to organize groups dedicated to brotherhood?

While I was in Ireland, we started a movement called the International Student Alliance (ISA). We had student groups and parents. We had celebrations everywhere. Even the rector and professors wondered if I was working on my thesis.

When I came back to Africa, it was so easy to mobilize ISA groups everywhere. We had started a lot of agricultural projects and cultural activities. Unfortunately, after I mobilized these groups, after six months many of them closed after I completed my regency and had to leave for a high school in Mwanza, Tanzania. I became the sports master there, and the school became famous for sports.

The International Christian Alliance (ICA) was changed to Urafiki [a Swahili word for friendship]. To celebrate our friendship with Jesus, we did activities and sports together, always together. By changing it to Swahili, it cut us off from the ICA and we lost touch with one another.

After returning from Nairobi in 1987, when I had gotten a master’s [degree] in theology, I went to Dadoma as a priest. As a priest, [organizing groups] was easy and enjoyable; the diocese did the paperwork, and I mobilized the small Christian communities. Regardless of tribal connections, the youth were great. We were too big to hold in the parish, and there were so many youth sports and activities. The only problem was space. We applied to the government for more land for the Urafiki activities. The government was willing to give us prime land, which everyone wanted and which had been designated for forestry. We started building football and basketball arenas. As soon as I made those plans and we had put up temporary structures, I was told to go back to my studies. It was intended for people of all religions—Muslims and Christians, and everyone had helped build it. Now it has been turned into a typically Catholic center, and all the non-Catholics were alienated from the center.

How did the idea for Undugu Family come about?

I was sent for further studies to the Philippines for a master’s [degree] in pastoral studies. That’s where the issue of Undugu Family was born.

During my final year, just when I was deciding on my thesis, there was a very serious genocide happening in Rwanda. The genocide was covered very well and in detail, when those people were slaughtered and they would float into our country and all those photos were viewed. It was covered for 100 days. I got so angry with everyone, including God. I got so angry that I couldn’t eat.

During that same night, early in the morning, I had another dream. This time I was walking in the genocidal fields in the moonlight. After a certain distance, one of the bodies rose and turned towards me, still seated among the bodies, and she signaled me to come. She said, “Sit here, my son, sit here.” Even before I could sit properly, I saw the face of a woman. I have never seen such a sorrowful woman—it passed into me like electricity. I told her that I had to go, but she held the seat of my trousers and told me to sit with her. She told me, “I have not left you, or Africa. I don’t have any glory except what I have with you and my other sons and daughters. Even when you see yourselves, Africans, naked on the TV, you are actually seeing me. Your shame is my shame.” Then she said, “People say I have all the power, but I have no power except that which I have with you and my children when you are reunited. I am trying to convince the fighters, I try to call attention, and finally I myself fell from the blows.”

After a while, I told her, “I did not understand, but now I do. I promise you that I will do nothing but make sure your sons and daughters don’t do this kind of thing again. I will do just what I can. That will be how I spend the rest of my life—to make sure they celebrate brotherhood.” I tell you, as Jesuits we have taken a lot of vows, but this vow is the vow that I have lived the most faithfully through now. Since that day 16 years ago, in conversation I cannot spend more than five to 10 minutes without talking about Undugu. I cannot avoid being faithful to it.

Undugu’s mission also came from another source. During the time of Rwandan genocide, the entire Church came to the Pope’s call for a special Synod for Africa. They went to Rome for that synod. Coincidentally, the bishops had arrived on Good Thursday. On Good Friday, that’s when the genocide began. Between their arrival and the start of meetings the following Wednesday, they saw the same images that I saw. The combatants killed the archbishop in Rwanda almost immediately, and then the other Catholics. They were Christians and Catholics slaughtering other Christians themselves: patients turning against nuns, brothers killing brothers within Church corridors.

So when that first meeting of the synod started, everyone was dumbfounded. All their pretty working papers were for nothing. They asked, "How can we explain this to the world?" Rwanda has had Christianity for more than a century. Ninety-two percent call themselves Christians; more than 60 percent were Catholics. Most of the schools and hospitals were run by the Church. How do you explain this? What kind of Christianity is this? Throughout that meeting, the genocide continued.

For me, I was following the documents and news from the synod. When the secretariat finished the first document, it showed me clearly what my thesis had to be. It was the vision of the Church as the family of God—we don’t recognize the Church as Christian without explaining it in terms of the family, with God as Father and Christ as Brother. It was the first time that a document of the Church referred to Jesus as the Lord of Life. I have never seen another document of the Church that has filled me with such consolation. I picked that vision of the Church as a family of God, and I came up with my thesis, “Spirituality of the Church as a Family of God: A New Paradigm for the New Covenant.” My thesis became an antithesis to the spirituality of the institution at which I studied, with its spirituality of servanthood. Instead, I argued that we are sons and daughters, and in simplest terms, friends. I showed how that was the mission of Jesus. When the professors saw my final document, they immediately said no. I spent six months revising, but all it did was make me even more convinced about my argument.

After getting my degree, I received a letter from the East African Provincial to be a parish priest and superior of Jesuits in one of their cities, Mwanza, in Tanzania. I was appointed to commission an apostolic mission of the Jesuits in East Africa. The place he sent me was a Jesuit Refugee Service camp that received refugees from Rwanda. In one week, Mwanza had received one million refugees; in two weeks, two million—the camp was bigger than the city. Listening to all those horror stories, it became real for me. I realized that whatever we do in this world is sand unless we build on brotherhood, because at any time, everything can turn to smoke. Then I decided we had to do something immediately: Undugu Family.

The message is, let’s talk about a brotherhood with God as the parent. Even the Muslims and Protestants took it up. It just kept moving. I have never met anyone who has said, “This is not for me.” We started Undugu Family sports and games. Sports could bring all kinds of people together. But the parish wasn’t enough, so we had to build new facilities. The parish became so vibrant and congested.

Why did Undugu focus so much on sports activities, at least at first?

I thought that anything that would bring us together and would help bind us together was an act of prayer. For us, play is prayer as long as we do it together. Our venues (dance hall, soccer field, business) were just like churches, and our activities were prayers—for unity, for peace, for prosperity, for happiness. Since then, sports have remained very important, but now music, drama, and dance are more popular. Also, sports can be very expensive to host, and the fruits are not as great because the competitiveness disturbs unity. Music is wonderful. Undugu Family bands are called to Muslim weddings, government rallies, birthday parties, etc. We are accepted everywhere, sometimes where others cannot go.

How did Undugu start in Uganda?

Undugu started in Uganda when I mentioned to a cook here at Xavier House what I did. She told her brothers, who told their friends, and they gathered in the garden here in Xavier House. They were too noisy, and we shifted to a garage and then the parish, but it became too inconvenient and noisy. From then on, we started meeting in the neighborhoods. Once we have a first group, someone can never make it but then they start their own group.

How did an Undugu Family Group form at OCER?

As soon as OCER’s founders invited the first students, we found that some students already belonged to Undugu groups, so they started one at OCER. At that time, the provincial actually officially authorized me to start an Undugu Family Group at OCER in 2006. The need was so much greater in the north, and the Jesuits recognized we needed it there.

Tell me about your 10-year anniversary in 2006.

We had groups from everywhere and met on the parade grounds here in Kampala. More than 4,000 people met here. For a first conference, it was very public. Even the speaker of Parliament and other government officials came. The big turnout was confirmation that this was God’s mission, not mine. By that time, Undugu groups were fantastic informal schools for encouraging and training music, dance, drama, and other things. It had become an informal school of leadership and income generation.

What happens at a meeting?

We eat together, dance together, and have evaluation discussions. Evaluations are required for every meeting. In them, every person tries to share his consolations and disappointments about being themselves, in the group and beyond. Then we discuss how the time period before the next meeting will be more fruitful.

Where are all the chapters of Undugu Family?

Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, previously Australia. I am also aware of branches in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I communicate with about 60 groups which contain anywhere from four members to 300 members.

What are the current and future challenges you face?

We lack one thing: venues. If we had a bigger land area where we could establish facilities for these activities (computers, leadership, presentations, functions, etc.), we could make a lot of money by hosting presentations and functions at a central location.

The other challenge has to do with the old way of doing things. You constantly have to swim against the tide—everything is great when we are together, but separately the prejudices creep back in. We have no external sources of support helping us. Other than the Vatican II document, no other document has been as gracious as the Synod for Africa.

Who leads the meetings?

We don’t recognize a group until they have four experienced leaders. They need one leader to direct each activity, so there is an activity director, a secretary (keeping notes), a chairperson (who ensures there are regular evaluations), and a treasurer (trustee for loans, etc.). Once they have these four, they can call themselves a group. The founder, when they invite me or another founding member, is the founder and animator of that group and the advisor, who shouldn’t have any of those four leadership posts.

We used to have a centralized office, but when I was assigned to the mission in the north (just after the tenth anniversary), we decided people had to survive without me. Whatever they couldn’t do without me, they had to eliminate. We don’t have regular funding for a centralized secretariat. We lack professional appeal, even though we have had groups of doctors and lawyers, etc.

How is Undugu Family related to peace and reconstruction?

Sometimes those meetings turn into conflict resolution. For example, we had a group near Karuma [town in northern Uganda] that included Muslims, born-again Christians, Catholics, etc. Conflict in that area flowed from tribalism, religious division, etc. After one of our evaluation discussions, though, everyone was so happy. We did a lot that day.

How is Undugu Family related to education?

We have a lot of children who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS and conflict, and they immediately forget their sorrow—they have mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters. Strangers think we are groups of orphans, but they don’t think of themselves that way. They have educated one another. They pay for each other: even when some are too poor for school, they share money and training for schooling.

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