From the CICM Formation Community in Zambia,
home of Fr. Anthony Lim

Note by Fr. Paul Staes: I had hoped to have a letter/report directly from our confrere Anthony Lim himself, but communications with Zambia are extremely slow. The interesting account that follows was written last year by one of the pre-novices under Fr Tony's care.

In our formation community, we are five people: our formator, Fr Tony Lim from Singapore, Amos Munthali, Kelvin Mutale, Francis Chilando and myself, Emmanuel Mwansa. We are all living in a good atmosphere with our formator. The formation house is built in the local style and with local material. The main house has a dining room, sitting room, kitchen and library. There are also seven small circular huts with a grass roof. In front of his hut, every student can have a small flower garden. The relationship among us is very good; we organize everything together with Fr. Tony.

Our day begins at 5:30am with morning prayer and personal meditation, followed by Mass in our chapel, which has the same design as our own huts. The tabernacle is a pot similar to the what people use to keep nshima, the staple food made from maize.

After breakfast, Amos goes on bicycle to St Augustine Major Seminary where he attends 1st year philosophy with 53 other seminarians from different Zambian dioceses. Kelvin, Francis and I do some gardening until 8:30am. Then we have daily course: Introduction to Philosophy, Old Testament, Basic Catholic Doctrine, Spirituality, Human Development, Missiology and English. It is a study program organized in collaboration with three other missionary Institutes. Classes are only in the morning, and we go for lunch in our respective communities.

After lunch, we have "siesta" followed by 2 hours of French classes, then manual work in the community garden. At 6:00pm we gather for evening prayer. We prepare supper together , watch the news, and finish the day studying in our small hut.

Every Saturday, we all go to a different place for doing some apostolate. In my case, I go to the community of the Sisters of Mother Teresa and spend the day with the sick and orphans. On Sunday, we participate in Mass at St Veronica Parish under the care of two CICM confreres, Fr Oscar Yamba and Peter Ruquoy.

I believe that little by little, this way of life helps us to preparing ourselves for announcing the Good News in another corner of the world.

Emmanuel Mwansa, 1st year pre-novice

To contact Fr. Anthony Lim, cicm
Email: alpleng3@yahoo.com