A woman, probably thirty or so, flagged me down for a ride
as I was returning to Ndoleleji in Tanzania from one of my rounds of the
outstations. I didn’t recognize her, but she told me she was one of our
catechumens. "I am a believer, Padre!" she said after we drove quietly for a
while waiting for the conversation to begin. "What started you as a believer?" I
asked.
Then she told me her story: "My brother was a teacher. He was baptized a
Catholic at Teachers’s Training School. There are no other Christians in our
family. My brother became sick. He tried local medicines, and then spent all of
his money in different hospitals. I went to visit him. A nurse told me "Take
your brother home. Take care of him! Wash him! Don’t be afraid! You will not get
his disease. We cannot help him. Nobody can." [It most certainly was AIDS.] I
took him home. Nobody would see him, or come near. Everyone was afraid. Not even
our parents would come. I loved my brother. We came from the same womb. I took
care of him, cooked his food, and ate with him. I didn’t care if I got his
sickness. I was ready to die with him. I loved my brother.

    One day my brother told me, "My sister! You are a good
person. You are the only one who helps me. You must become a believer and be
baptized." He told me, "Please go to the next town. The Padres have an
outstation there. Ask the Christians to pray for me." I went there on Sunday
when they pray together. I told them about my brother. That week a group of the
Catholics came to visit my brother. They brought food. They sat with him. They
prayed with him. They came every week. They were with him when he died. Not one
person in our family came to bury my brother. No one in our village came. They
were all afraid. The Christians washed his body and buried him. I want to be one
of them, Padre! I am a believer!"

    In June, 1994 this woman was baptized taking the name
Veronica. She is one of the "New Africa" whom we hope will rise from all the
suffering and dying in the "Old Africa" today.