8 years ago, St. John parish opened a school in South Sudan; the work continues despite war and upheaval
May 16—ARUA, Uganda — It's a long, long trip from the St. John the Evangelist parish in Rochester to the refugee camps in Arua, Uganda, halfway around the world.
And whenever Monsignor Gerald Mahon returns from Africa (he has made the trip three times), he always returns invigorated and inspired, even if a little jet-lagged.
Since 2015, the Rochester parish has financially supported and sponsored efforts to educate South Sudanese children through years of upheaval, war and dislocation. A K-8 school, consisting of 10 collapsible classrooms made by McNeilus in Dodge Center, opened in 2015 in Yei, South Sudan along the country's southern border. Many church members, including Mahon, attended the dedication in 2016.
Then civil war broke out in the world's newest country, sending a million refugees across the border into Uganda. The school went with the people, relocating in five refugee camps scattered across northern Uganda.
Mahon made the trip last month with the Rev. John Lasuba, formerly an associate pastor at St. John and the current pastor of parishes in Byron and Kasson. Lasuba, a South Sudanese native who was taught by Jesuits in Catholic school, became the inspiration for starting the Catholic school in South Sudan.
After arriving in Arua, Uganda, after a 25-hour flight, Mahon and Lasuba joined the school principal in a two-hour drive over rough, dirt-covered roads to get to a camp. After the trip, they returned to Arua, and the next day headed out in another direction to another camp.
The students are taught in huts. The families live in huts. Their financial circumstances are unimaginably bleak. Some have lost parents in the violence.
In addition to the 224 children who are taught in this school, St. John pays the tuition of 54 other students so they can attend boarding schools. Since the students have nothing, everything must be paid for: Shoes, books, bedsheets and blankets, a basin and towels, a calculator and ruler — even a mattress.
Yet it is their opportunity for an education that gives them hope not only for themselves but for their home country, which they yearn to return to and help rebuild with the skills they are learning in these classrooms, Mahon said.
The hope resonated in different ways. Mahon saw it in the hut-classrooms where students were encouraged to clap by their teachers when a student got the right answer. They clapped a lot.
"I see these teachers full of life. These kids with their big smiles and eyes of joy," Mahon said. "It's transformative. They have so little, and yet they are so full of life."
He also saw it in their aspirations and hope for the future. Mahon heard students talk about being hairdressers and seamstresses. They hope to acquire skills in construction and agriculture and to start their own businesses. They are natural entrepreneurs, Mahon said.
That hope, however, received a setback when civil war broke out in Sudan last month, forcing hundreds, if not thousands of people, into South Sudan.
Mahon said he talked to many of the parents of the students, and all expressed a desire to return to their home country "like yesterday." Some asked him if he could connect them with people in the U.S. who could help them become entrepreneurs. Some of the men have left the refugee camps and returned to South Sudan to start businesses and a new life.
"I am just amazed by the passion they have," he said.
At one of the school sites, Mahon asked the kids if there was anything else he could do for them. They asked for a soccer ball and so Mahon bought a dozen of them, six for the primary students and six for the older students.
Mahon said it was hard not to compare their gratitude and resilience with the mood in the U.S. where the U.S. surgeon general recently warned of a crisis of loneliness in the U.S. Even amid their dirt-poor circumstances, the South Sudanese people had a connectedness to one another and a "relation way of being" that made them vibrant.
Mahon said one reason for the trip was to reconnect with the schools and return to Rochester with first-hand accounts of the students.
He plans to ask members of the St. John church to sponsor students as they make the transition into high school. It will cost $1,192 to support a student in the first year and $4,000 for four years. The donations would cover not only tuition but essentials such as shoes, bedsheets and blankets, books and pencils, a basin and towels. They also need a truck to haul things.
People can contact Mahon at
if they wish to sponsor one or more students.
"I'm just amazed at the passion they have," Mahon said. "We would look at it and wonder, how can they move forward when they don't have anything. That's not their disposition. They can move forward with nothing."
