27 August 2015, The Tablet

New lessons from old truths

by Mark Faulkner

 
For many missionaries in Africa, the message of the Pope’s encyclical is something they have been living with for many years, writes Mark Faulkner.In the austere beauty of northern Kenya, Sr Rebecca Janacek, from San Antonio, Texas, runs a health centre and frequently drives for hours across poor roads to operate mobile clinics in distant villages. With the help of Sean McGovern, a Holy Ghost Missionary from Ireland, she is also pioneering a solar oven, which has the potential to revolutionise the lives of the women of the nomadic Pokot community she serves. The women have to walk further and further each day into the bush to cut down trees and collect firewood. Rebecca and Sean’s ingenious contraption absorbs and concentrates the heat of the sun, slow-cooking the food in the
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