Jesus said: "Let the children come to me and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it" (Luke 18: 16-17).
My first appointment as a priest was to teach in St. Aloysius' Minor Seminary, Kitiwum, Diocese of Kumbo, Cameroon. This is a minor Seminary High School where boys attend with the original intention of becoming diocesan priests for the Roman Catholic Church. I saw this as a blessing to be able to direct young minds to accept God and surrender themselves to serve him in the Holy ministry of the priesthood.
While teaching there, I discovered a lot about young people growing up. They are all full of enthusiasm and zeal to serve God.They teach us sanctity, prayer, honesty, truthfulness, simplicity,love, dependency, trust and a host of other nice things that we may think about. Some children do silly and stupid things as well, but as their guidance, we are supposed to help them in the spirit of St. John Bosco who could tame even the most difficult student. One could tell that some of them come from good christian families. Most of them would eventually discard the idea of becoming priests, but the christian values which they learn remain in most of those who do not become priests.
There were children from rich families, from poor families, from single parent homes, some were orphans and some vulnerable in that they either had terminally ill parents or wayward parents who did not care about their wellbeing at all. It is good to have poor parents than to have parents who do not care about the upbringing of their children. My heart had always pushed me to go for these children and assist them. We do not only teach children, they equally teach us.
The orphaned, the poor and the vulnerable children are a way that God shows to some of us to grow in holiness by doing something to help them. Our blessing may come from there. In some days to come, we will be presenting to you some testimonies from some children that have been helped through this approach which I started some ten years ago. I can feel their prayers, not only me alone, but particularly those who helped me to help them.
Please, do not be afraid to donate. Donate to Kumbo kids and we will give you the feedback as soon as possible. I know there are people out there with sympathetic hearts. Please direct your donation here and we will make a good use of it.
