I have been asked to write something about my impressions as one newly arrived in the US Region. Impressions may not be accurate perceptions; they are just impressions.

I am Mulumba KAMBALE MATSONGANI, an Assumptionist priest, from the Democratic Republic of Congo. I joined the Assumptions in 1994. Two years later (1996), I made my first religious profession. Then, I did philosophical studies in Butembo/DRC, pastoral experience in Arusha/Tanzania and theological studies in Nairobi/Kenya. After my theological studies in 2004, I was assigned in DRC to work in the Administration and Finance office of our College and in Vocation ministry.  Since September 2008, I have been master of postulants until recently when I was appointed to Emmanuel House in the USA for business studies at Assumption College, Worcester, MA.

It's been ten years since Radio Moto of Butembo-Beni (North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo), sponsored by the Assumptionists, began announcing the Gospel. It began rather modestly in the boarding school of Institute Malkia wa Mbingu (Queen of Heaven Institute) run by the Oblate Sisters of the Assumption. The first studio was located in a small upstairs room, which quickly proved not to be viable. Electricity came from the diocesan power plant, which only operated in the evenings. 

In 1816, when Emmanuel d'Alzon was only 6 years old, his family moved from the town of Le Vigan to the chateau of Lavagnac which his mother had inherited. Located in southern France near the village of Montagnac, this beautiful aristocratic residence was the place where d'Alzon grew up and where he would often come back once he set out to do his studies in Paris, Montpellier, and Rome. Even once he became a priest in Nîmes, he would return here to draw healing rest.

This past August 22 Bro. Donné Romuald Marcellin Randrianantenaina was ordained to the priesthood during the closing ceremonies of the bicentennial of Fr. d'Alzon's birth in the Vice-Province of Madagascar. The event took place in the Assumptionist parish of Our Lady of the Assumption in Tulear.

During a celebration the evening before,  after his parents gave him the traditional blessing, Bro. Romuald gave a moving testimony about his somewhat unusual path to the priesthood.