What a Little Brotherly Love Can Do
By Susan Brinkman
PHILADELPHIA -- "This is the day I was praying for and it has come. My family was scattered all over, but God has brought us together. This is the day that I will never forget in my life."
The day Kuderha Mashanda Naitali landed safely in America after fleeing the Congo in the fall of 2003 was the happiest day of his life. From a country where brothers are killing brothers on a daily basis, he found a new home waiting for him in the "City of Brotherly Love." There he was reunited with his wife and 11 children.
"My God, whom I believe is able, has done a wonderful thing in my life," Kuderha wrote in a letter to the group of Villanova University law students who made his escape possible. "We are deeply touched in our hearts because of what you have done."
His story began three years ago when his wife, Kabengo, fled to America with their youngest child, Moses. She settled in the West Philadelphia parish of St. Francis de Sales and had no idea if her husband and ten other children were dead or alive.
The family's plight came to the attention of the law students who adopted the cause of finding the family and bringing them back together. It was no easy task, but Kuderha and the children were eventually located in a Kenyan refugee camp, where they had been living for two years.
"At times, we would go hungry due to lack of food and some money," Kuderha recalls. "We have undergone a very hard time . . ."
He once made a living in photography, capturing Africa's wild beauty on film. But one day he stumbled upon a different scene in a village where rebels were committing atrocities. He started taking pictures of what he saw, but the rebels caught him. They confiscated his camera, beat him, then decided to kill him. Before they could carry out their murderous intentions, a skirmish erupted with the locals. During the ensuing battle, Kuderha managed to escape. He flew into the rugged hills of the Congo and didn't stop until he reached the safety of Kenya.
"It was a miracle of God that I didn't lose my life," he said.
"As the mountains surround Jerusalem, the Lord surrounds God's children," he added.
This is a man of deep faith, the kind one acquires only in those dark spiritual regions that accompany great suffering. A Pentecostal when he left the Congo, he experienced the helping hand of the Catholic Church and it left a deep impression on his heart. By the time he landed in the United States, he had made the decision to become Catholic.
"The Catholic Church helped my family in Africa and here in the U.S.," he said. "In Nairobi, Kenya, after I left Congo, Sister Roxanne and Sister Monica helped us every month to pay for our house, food, and clothing. They also helped with my children's school fees. My wife Kabengo is Catholic, and our children had been in Catholic school in the Congo. Sister Roxanne also helped us to get to the U.S. and encouraged us to go to church every Sunday in Kenya ...."
The same charity has surrounded him since he arrived in Philadelphia and joined his wife in St. Francis de Sales parish. Eight of their children were enrolled in the parish school, thanks to the monetary assistance of neighboring schools and convents. "I don't know how to say all the ways the sisters at St. Francis de Sales gave us help."
They were only too happy to oblige.
"This is such a special family," said Immaculate Heart Sister Frances Small, who is preparing Kuderha and his family for reception into the Church. "They have been through so much, things I don't even want to mention, yet they're so joyful."
God is the joy of this family. He is their Rock, and their salvation. "We have undergone a very hard time, but in faith we have stood and trusted in God," Kuderha says. In spite of working long hours every day, he rises at four a.m. to pray and sing Psalms of praise to the God who delivered him from the hands of death.
His children have the same prayerful spirit and skip down the street to school singing aloud, "We'll walk in the Light - beautiful Light, walk where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright!"
Eight of them will follow their father into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil: Moses, seven; Amani and Koko, eight-year-old twins; Chimanuka, nine; Sifa, 14; twins Mali and Maombi, 15; and Nsimire, 16.
Fifteen year old Mali, whose Swahili name means "wealth," gave a perfect summary of her family's faith. "I feel that God is with me," she said. "I'm not afraid of anything."
Susan Brinkmann writes for
The Catholic Standard and Times in Philadelphia.