Accidental African Blessings

As I pondered on a title for this book, I thought about
my first life and work experience in Africa. How
I suffered several severe cases of malaria, how difficult it
was to adjust to the hot humid climate and the discouragements
from my relatives and friends back home that I was in a wrong
place to which I almost succumbed. The only thing that made me
stay was a sense of duty to the other five Jesuits working with me. As this mission was only new I did not want to demoralize any of them. This decision has later proven to be one of the best decisions I have ever made. All that experience brought many turns to my life in Africa, bringing me from Nigeria to Zambia to Ghana and back to Zambia again. These events were like
accidents. Accidents are unexpected, unplanned and often
painful. It was just an accident of history that the mission was just getting started and that it bad so few people on it. It might have been another accident of history that the Biafran War began just as I made my way to Nigeria that made it more difficult to recruit new members to the mission.. These accidents of history brought me to a painful decision to return to Nigeria when I didn't feel attracted to the prospect. Yet, this painful experience turned out to be a great blessing for me. I came to love the people and the continent more than I could ever have imagined, and found myself greatly enriched by the experience. It is this development in personal growth that I want to share with the reader.

Cover Design by Danny Chiyesu