children to feed. “I met Tabitha Festo just before I left Kibera,” he says, with more than a hint of sorrow in his eyes. She passed away a few years later. “She said to me, ‘You’ve asked all these youngsters what they feel about life here. You haven’t asked me.’” Barcott was brought up short, but as he
listened he was bowled over by the clarity of the plan she articulated for her future. She’d sell sakuma wiki(collard greens) – a Kiberan staple, she explained, “and knew the costs and profit margins”, says Barcott, “if someone could just invest in her idea”. “Up to that point I hadn’t given out money,”
Barcott adds. “But I unzipped my wallet, took out two folded 1,000-shilling notes, which is about US$26.” Barcott left the slum for his final year of study at the University of North Carolina. He returned a year later, wondering if he’d see Tabitha Festo. She soon heard he was around – white people are not exactly commonplace in Kibera – and he was taken to her home. As she beckoned him to her 10 sq. ft shack, Barcott’s jaw dropped. “She’d turned it into a clinic,” he adds. Neatly organised, basic med- ical equipment, people being treated. “I knew then we were on the way.”
T
en years and many visits later, CFK has been acclaimed as a model non- governmental organisation (NGO). The sports programme teaches healthy life choices to thousands of youngsters. The Tabitha Clinic provides world-class pri- mary health care to Kibera’s residents. There’s a programme offering HIV counselling, another for adolescent girls to help them gain confidence and skills, an initiative called “Trash is cash” to promote recycling and hygienic solid-waste management, and an education programme that pays children’s school fees and offers mentoring. Time magazine has described CFK as a “Hero of Global Health” and Barcott’s telling of the charity’s story, It Happened on the Way to War, published this year in Britain by Bloomsbury and in the US, has been named as the lead non-fiction title for this coming summer. Meanwhile Salim Mohamed, now 34, was
awarded an MA (distinction) in International Development from Manchester University last year. Although he had no undergraduate degree, the university was keen for him to study there. “What really happened on the way to war?” I press Barcott. “I listened. I wanted to help … so I listened. I realised that so much of what we dealt with in counter-insurgency could be better addressed on the ground through participatory development. I really listened and I learnt.” He pauses for a moment. “You know, talent is universal, opportunity is not. I’ve tried to volunteer my talent and time to help others make the most of theirs.”
■Canon Chris Chivers is vicar of John Keble Church, Mill Hill, London. For more information on Rye Barcott and Carolina for Kibera see
www.ithappenedonthewaytowar.com and
www.cfk.unc.edu
Hearing the call
Simple recruitment to the priesthood no longer works and diocesan vocations directors must be prepared to put in the hours to help men with the process of discernment, argues Stephen Langridge
When it comes to vocations, until recently “discernment” had become something of an ugly word. It often meant “procrastination”. A young person who said, “I’m discerning” usually meant, “I’m putting off making a commitment.” But if vocations directors’ hearts used to sink at its very mention, “discernment” is currently enjoying something of a revival. This new lease of life comes as vocations work moves away from a discredited recruitment model, exemplified by a 1965 catalogue of Religious life that I have. Alongside photographs of heavily habited Religious are the minimum requirements for signing up: “16 years old, sound doctrine and piety”; “18 years of age and a malleable character”; “a willingness to live as a member of the congregation”. Although it may raise a smile now, the old recruitment mentality still exists in some places. At least the catalogues were more upbeat than the recruitment slogan currently employed by one foreign diocese: “Are you feeling unsettled, bored, disappointed with your life so far? Maybe the Catholic priesthood is for you!” Pope Benedict XVI identified the
difference between recruitment and discernment when he told priests and deacons in Bavaria in 2006: “we cannot simply recruit people by using the right kind of publicity or the correct type of strategy. The call which comes from the heart of God must always find its way into the heart of man. And yet, precisely so that it may reach into hearts, our cooperation is needed.”
Discernment begins in the heart of the individual and, so that it may begin, today primary vocations work involves enabling young people to develop their relationship with God. Vocations discernment has two elements. At some point, the individual begins to feel a specific calling or simply a desire to serve God and his people more generously. That personal discernment can lead to disquiet and even fear. It may also be clouded by an individual’s generosity leading some to pursue a Religious or priestly vocation because they (wrongly) regard it as a greater sacrifice than marriage. The second element of discernment is that of the Church whose role is to confirm signs of a genuine vocation. This usually begins formally with the
vocations director and is carried through by the selection process and the subsequent years of formation. But a vocations director has another role as well. He has to accompany the individual, helping him clarify his call, allaying his fears and strengthening his commitment. A vocations director always has certain questions in mind. First he asks what signs a person shows of having a vocation. In other words, what attracts them? Do they have any idea of what’s involved? Do they experience it as a call from God? Then he asks whether they have the qualities necessary for priesthood: health, intellectual ability, capacity for work, human virtues. Finally a vocations director asks himself whether there is anything about the individual’s life that would exclude them from priesthood. He does so bearing in mind the requirements of canon law and the Church’s guidelines. Very few young people come forward ready to start seminary or enter a novitiate straight away. So recent years have seen the development of discernment groups such as the Quo Vadis Group in Southwark. They encourage and support potential vocations by putting them in contact with others like themselves.
A discernment group helps vocation
directors get to know candidates very well. It also offers the possibility of formation in Christian life: encouraging them to model their life and conduct on Jesus Christ, helping them develop a spirit of service, and strengthening their sense of calling through the establishment of a rule of life. The shift from recruitment to discernment has a consequence for vocations work that most dioceses have yet to come to terms with. It is no longer the case that vocations directors can sit at home processing paperwork. Now they have to get out and spend quality time with young people. As a rule of thumb, they need to dedicate at least 100 hours to each individual vocation. Some dioceses still feel they can’t afford to release a priest for full-time vocations work. The shift from recruitment to discernment suggests they can’t afford not to.
■Fr Stephen Langridge is vocations director for Southwark Diocese.
25 June 2011 | THE TABLET | 15
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