AMECEA: The Feeling of Inadequacy Accompanied Me Throughout my Service at AMECEA, Says Fr. Lugonzo
Describing his appointment to the helm of the Regional Bishops’ Conference Secretariat as “very unexpected,” former Secretary General to AMECEA Very Rev. Fr. Ferdinand Lugonzo said that he was barely five months old as Director of Canon Law at Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB), when he was informed of the new appointment at AMECEA Secretariat in July 2011, an appointment he said to have received with a lot of mixed feelings.
He felt that the appointment was such an enormous responsibility and a big challenge because he had not received necessary formation or preparations for it.
“The feeling that I was appointed to an office that probably I was not well prepared for has accompanied me for the last seven years that I have served AMECEA,” he revealed.
Fr. Lugonzo had been elected Secretary General of the Association during the 17th AMECEA Plenary Assembly, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya seven years ago. He had just come from his home Diocese to the National Office at KCCB and had just set his goals and started rolling his programs across the Dioceses in Kenya when the appointment to serve AMECEA happened.
“At that time, I had no prior experience of being Secretary to the Bishop or Bishops Conference. Therefore, feeling that I needed the necessary preparations in terms of who a Secretary General to such Association would be has accompanied me all throughout my service at AMECEA,” Fr. Lugonzo said.
“The handover I had was within a very short period and it was more of a documentation handover. It would have been better if I journeyed with my predecessor for a while, to help me understand better the institution’s structures and mode of operation. I think my background in Canon Law because that is what helped me settle in the office as Secretary General of AMECEA.”
He credits the then chairman of the AMECEA, Most Rev. Tarcisius Gervazio Ziyaye, Archbishop of Lilongwe as having been very helpful in guiding him and providing the necessary directions that AMECEA should have taken. Another person he said to have been very instrumental in providing direction to him is the Archbishop of Nairobi, His Eminence John Cardinal Njue.
chairman of AMECEA, he assisted Fr. Lugonzo in settling to
his new office as AMECEA Secretary General
The development of various policy documents to guide the operations at the Secretariat; entering into Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to provide clear indications on how to partner in the implementation of AMECEA Pastoral Strategic Plan; entering into an MOU with the Shalom Centre for Conflict Resolution and Management; the expansion done in the residential house at the Secretariat so as to improve its capacity to accommodate all the members of the Executive Board; as well as the improved relations with SECAM, the continental Bishops Conference, are among the successes Fr. Lugonzo accredit to his tenure.
“Another success story is that when I took over the office, the Capacity building program was just in its baby stage. We have helped mature this program and have managed to carry out capacity building trainings all through my two terms of service, and this continues,” he said, adding that towards the last days of his second term AMECEA has signed yet another agreement with Missio Aachen in partnership towards capacity building from the perspective of self-reliance of the local churches.
Fr. Lugonzo also visited all the Episcopal Conferences of AMECEA in bid to enhance the solidarity and visibility of AMECEA within the membership.
“I want to point out the fact that though it has not been easy, during my time we have been able to do four solidarity visits, which are at the heart of AMECEA; and these solidarity visits have borne fruits. We made a solidarity visit to South Sudan when the war had just broken out and we were able to express the solidarity of AMECEA with the people of South Sudan and the Church in South Sudan. We also made a very successful solidarity visit to Eritrea. The fruits of our prayer and the presence of the solidarity team in Eritrea is that we are now associating AMECEA with the peace and reconciliation process that is taking place between Eritrea and Ethiopia,” Fr. Lugonzo explained.
During his tenure, AMECEA also made a second solidarity visit to the Church in South Sudan aimed at enhancing the unity and solidarity of the Conference, being that it is a Conference that brings together the two countries, Sudan and South Sudan. Additionally, it was during Fr Lugonzo’s time tenure that AMECEA, in partnership and collaboration with IMBISA, made a solidarity visit to Burundi in the wake of the political strive that was recently in Burundi.
“Looking into the future of AMECEA,” says Fr Lugonzo, “the mere fact that we have been able to initiate the Mixed Development Project on our Gitanga Plot is a milestone. It might not be complete now but my prayer is that this project is completed because it assures AMECEA of its sustainability in future.”
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By Pamela Adinda, AMECEA Online News
