Maridi Team Blog: A gracious, generous, loving and faithful people
After willingly releasing his wife, Jane to make 7 visits to Maridi Diocese in the last 11 years, Rory Corbett finally sets foot in Maridi. Before returning home with the team, Rory shared some of his reflections…
So, I finally came to Maridi having listened to Jane for so many years. It has turned to be all that she said and more. Though it sounds like a cliche it really has been humbling the way that we have been received from the time we landed through a long line of the school children, all dressed in their uniforms, singing to us, to having our feet washed. It produced very mixed emotions for all of us. Since then the overwhelming impression has been of the enthusiasm that all those we met have for Our Lord and their great faith, constantly expressed at all the services we have been to. One has felt that to discuss faith and the need for it has been an insult to these people, who have so much to teach us. We in the west have nothing to teach them about faith, how to express it and certainly not how to show it during services.
The other real pleasure has been the way that the group has gelled. Some of us knew most of the group and others few, but through prayer, and on occasions it has been very intense and emotional, we have been able to deal with some of the real challenges that we have heard about, of man’s inhumanity to man during the civil war and by LRA incursions.
As we approach the end the memory is of a gracious people, a generous people, a loving people, a faithful people, led by a very special bishop, Bishop Justin. We have a message to bring home and I look forward to being able to return soon.
[Rory Corbett]