Poverty in Africa (Blog Action Day)

Since it is blog action day and the topic is poverty, I feel that it is a responsibility to post my experiences with poverty in the amazing African country Tanzania. I went to Tanzania on a service project with my benedictine school and became deeply changed by what I saw and the people I met. We drove across the country from the capital Dar es Salaam for 30 hours to reach a remote section of the southwest province Songea. On our mission, we visited several Benedictine abbeys and convents and experienced the poverty of rural Africa. From my experiences, I have come to the realization that the greatest force against poverty in Africa and also in all corners of the globe is the presence of the Catholic church. We visited communities where children suffered from malnourishment and ringworm and parents struggled to get work and provide for their families that lived in brick huts with thatched roofs. But these communities we visited all grew around the Catholic communities and in our case, the Benedictine abbeys and convents that were doing the great work of the Lord. Honga Abbey is the second-largest Benedictine abbey in the world (in number of priests and brothers) yet this abbey is the center of a large rural village connected to Songea (the regional capital) by a small and windy dirt road. Originally, this place was in the middle of nowhere, but do to the funding of the Holy Church, this abbey has become a center for prayer, medicine, and commerce. The abbey has a Vocational Training school for woodcarving and furniture (Tanzania's main craft is woodworking) which is sold around the world, a autoshop which has the best tools and auto mechanics in the southwestern part of the country, and three schools which attract students from the far-away capital Dar es Salaam itself. Honga Abbey also has a great medical facility that specializes in pre-natal and natal care. This was only one of the abbeys/convents we visited and all of these places showed me how powerful and efficient the Catholic church is in serving the Lord and dealing with poverty. There is certainly a great deal of work needed to be done, but I think that international attention has to turn to giving more support to the Catholic Church and other Christian religions which do far greater work and with efficiency to combat the problems of our world. During my trip, in which we saw a major portion of the country, I did not once see a vehicle or organization of the UN at work, and this has furhter convinced me that attention and support should not be given to them as much as it should be given to the works of the church. God bless and if anyone has any questions please ask.