Dear Brothers,

While here in Africa, we cannot forget our three brothers who were kidnapped one year ago, October 19 2012. Fathers Jean-Pierre MUMBERE NDULANI, Anselme KAKULE WASUKUNDI and Edmond BAMTUPE KISUGHU are unjustly absent from Assumption and from their respective families.  We still have no news and every lead explored has failed to produce results.  The wait is long and painful.  We pray that the kidnappers give us credible news with authentic proofs.

What has marked our region the most this past year has been the passing of the baton from the generation of the founders to a new generation of religious in Togo. As a matter of fact, the departure of Fr. René Mihigo, who bravely accepted an assignment in another new foundation in Goma (Congo Kinshasa), means that none of those religious who came here seven years ago still remains in Togo. Fortunately, one of them, Fr. Jean-Paul Sagadou, has provided some continuity in the area, having moved next door to Burkina Faso to open our new community there. There can be no doubt that the seeds that they planted have borne fruit. Here in West Africa there are now 20 religious (9 formators and 11 young religious in formation) as well as 6 novices, 7 postulants, and 10 pre-postulants.

Fr. Rafanambinantsoa Joseph Étienne Ratalata, 43 years old, is the sixth child of nine (four boys, five girls). Three of his sisters are religious sisters. His family is from Fandrandava, a village located some 30 miles from Fianarantsoa where his father is a teacher at the Catholic mission school. It was there, with his father, that he went to grammar school. Afterward, he did junior high school with the Jesuits at Collège Saint-François-Xavier in Fianarantsoa from 1983 to 1987, and high school at the inter-diocesan seminary from  1987 to 1991. He first came to know the Assumptionists when he met Fr. Maurice Laurent who later welcomed him as a candidate in October 1991. Two years later, in 1993, he entered the novitiate under the supervision of Fr. Daniel Carton, and made his first vows the following year. Then it was off to philosophy at the major seminary of Vohitsoa (1994 – 1996). In 1997 there was a break in his studies as he spent an internship at the Assumptionist-run parish in Ejeda, under the direction of Fr. René Le Bec. Once he completed his theology (1997-2000) and his diaconate year, he was ordained a priest at the parish of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption in the Sanfily section of Tuléar on August 15, 2001, by the local bishop, Most Rev. Fulgence Rabeony.

From my trip to Brazil for World Youth Day, I think the best part, in order of preference, was the pre-WYD mission week in the beautiful region of Minas Gerais where the Assumption has left its own mark, a history one can see in life’s day-to-day experiences. During the time we spent in Eugenopolis, Vieras and Queirozes you could feel the kindness of the people toward the Assumption wherever we went…in the welcome we received, the hospitality, the closeness, the simplicity.