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Church adopts Tanzanian village and visiting priest

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By Lindsey Hilty, Staff Writer 10:22 PM Monday, March 15, 2010

WEST CHESTER TWP. — God works in mysterious ways, but one area woman said she never imagined he would work through T-shirts.

It is an irony Joan Ziegler Seibenick, communications coordinator for St. John Evangelist Catholic Church, and Father Daniel Malingumu of Tanzania now view as part of a bigger plan.

In 2007, St. John and Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Montgomery teamed up to adopt a village in Tanzania called Mbola. Malingumu was assigned as liaison between the Ohio churches and the villagers.

The churches are nearing their goal to raise $250,000, Seibenick said. In a time when the economy is bad and pocketbooks are tight, she said members of the parishes have continued to provide funds to build Mbola a new school and provide tools to improve food, water and infrastructure. The organization, Millennium Promise, provides the villagers with seeds, fertilizer and other basic needs to give them a hand up, rather than a hand out.

Malingumu visited the United States in 2008 to report on the successes of the project.

Malingumu was eating dinner at Seibenick’s when she told him the University of Cincinnati T-shirt he was wearing would never do. The next day, she gave a confused Malingumu a Xavier University T-shirt and took him on a tour of her alma mater’s campus.

When he returned to Africa, he said he was looking at that T-shirt and realized he needed an education so he could better counsel his people.

In his country, 25 percent of students do not attend school past primary levels. Without education, he said, a country cannot sustain itself.

Malingumu worked out a deal with Xavier, and with financial support from his archdiocese, the priest returned to the United States this winter for a two-year community counseling master’s program. Area parishioners have provided him with money for books, clothing for cold weather and friendship.

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