LETELLIER, Man. – Father Patrice Tshiosha Kasonga is preparing for his third white Christmas.
The small French-Canadian community where he lives is different from his home village in central Africa, but on Christmas Day the mass he leads will be mostly the same, his role will be the same and his joy will be the same.
“I declare that it is a new world, a wonderful world,” said a beaming Kasonga about rural Manitoba on a cold night two weeks before Christmas, as he sat in his kitchen.
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Although he is the only African in Letellier, and half a world away from the rest of his family, he does not feel out of place.
“It is my family. It is my country. I do not feel a stranger. I am happy,” said Kasonga, who came to Canada from Congo in August 2004.
Kasonga is part of a growing trend that is reversing the longtime practice of missionaries from Europe and North America going to Africa and Asia to spread “The Word.”
For several years, African, Latin American and Asian priests, ministers and pastors have been coming to North America and Europe – especially rural areas -because mainline churches have had difficulty attracting and keeping homegrown clergy.
A number of African priests serve Roman Catholic parishes south of Winnipeg and elsewhere across the Prairies. Other Christian faiths are also bringing in pastoral leadership from far away, where religious commitment and the desire to become clergy are stronger.
Kasonga was happy in Congo and had no plans to emigrate until his bishop asked him to move to Canada.
“It was not a dream of mine to come to Canada,” said Kasonga, who lives in a spare but comfortable priest’s house beside his church on the main street of Letellier.
But at a conference a few years ago, Kasonga’s Congolese bishop met the archbishop of Winnipeg and heard that it was difficult for the Canadian church to find priests for many parishes. He offered to find out if any of his priests would be willing to fill the need in rural Manitoba.
Kasonga was willing to come but anxious about how he would be treated. Years before, he had spent more than seven years in France receiving theological education and found that he always felt uncomfortable.
“I was feeling always an outsider in France,” said Kasonga, who is francophone but is learning English.
“Here, after three months, my feeling was that I am at home.”
Kasonga is a large, jovial man. He laughs warmly, readily and heartily at many points in his conversations.
Parishioner Leola Parent, who used to help translate English for Kasonga before he became relatively fluent, said Kasonga’s approach to worship is different, but “they are getting used to it,” she said with a laugh.
While the basic liturgy is the same, Kasonga has added a few elements that were common in his home village to make the worship experience more personal, enthusiastic and warm.
“People’s birthdays are put into the bulletin. Father wishes them a happy birthday (during the service), and we start clapping and singing Happy Birthday,” said Parent.
“We didn’t do that before.”
Kasonga said his Canadian parishioners are different from those in Congo, where large numbers of young people would travel for kilometres to enthusiastically celebrate the mass. Here the people in the pews tend to be older and more restrained. But he hopes that he can inject joy and delight in the mass and draw lapsed Catholics back to the church.
“It is my prayer that with the help of God, by my presence, by my engagement, it is possible,” he said.
“I am seeing that it is true.”
Kasonga is halfway through a five-year commitment he made to serve here. He answers both to his bishop in Congo and to the bishop of St. Boniface in Winnipeg. After five years, they will review his performance to see whether he should continue to shepherd this flock, or perhaps return to Africa.
“I hope they are happy with my work,” said Kasonga.
He, with the help of local people, has begun the arduous process of trying to bring across a number of his relatives including two nephews, his sister and her four children.
Although Kasonga does not dwell on the problems in his war-ravaged homeland, he noted how different peaceful Canada seems.
“Our country is not at peace. Security is not easy,” said Kasonga.
Although he is far away from his family and is a lone African among a foreign culture, Kasonga doesn’t feel sorry for himself. Instead, he sympathizes with the early missionaries who travelled to his land to spread Christianity.
“This is a good experience,” said Kasonga, pointing to the electrical lights, running water and protection from the weather that his Manitoba home provides.
“I am beginning to understand that it was not easy for missionaries from here to come to Africa, because life is hard. Oh, it is hard. For me, it is different (in rural Manitoba). It is easy. It is wonderful. It is the best condition of work.”
His optimism extends to the prairie weather. He has discovered he loves white Christmases.
“Manitoba is very, very cold, but now I understand that there really are four seasons.”
