Our Lady of Good Counsel Postulancy Formation Community
Kisumu, Kenya – Our Lady of Good Counsel Postulancy Formation Community is located on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya, East Africa. In this community, young women desiring to become School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND) in the Province of Africa are received and mentored in their initial preparations towards religious life.
Therefore, the primary ministry of professed sisters in Our Lady of Good Counsel Postulancy Formation Community is to accompany young women in their process of formation and discernment over a period of 22-23 months. During this time, postulants attend various classes and workshops organized to help them in their discernment and growth both within the postulancy and also outside with others who are also in formation. They are also provided with opportunities to be physically involved in the lives of the people especially the poor through their weekly Friday ministry of outreach.
Recently, a workshop was organized for them. It was attended by 64 postulants, novices and their formators. This was in an effort to expand our formees’ perception of themselves and the realities around them. Additionally, the postulancy program provides opportunities that broaden the postulants’ sense of religious life within SSND, the church and the world. The sisters facilitate other activities including cooking, baking, singing, sewing, gardening and physical exercises.
Their engagement in weekly ministry of outreach to the poor in preparation for active apostolic religious life. Currently, the postulants are engaged in pastoral work in St. Paul’s Kanyakwar Parish. They team up with catechists and Small Christian Community (SCC) leaders to visit the sick, the afflicted and the discouraged in their homes. Others minister in Kisumu Urban Apostolate Program (KUAP) – Pandipieri. This is a rehabilitation center for street children. While other postulants reach out to children in Kisumu Children’s Remand Home. This is a government of Kenya facility for rehabilitating the juvenile offender and offering refuge for abandoned or threatened children. In the past years, postulants have ministered in Kodiaga Annex Prison and St. Monica’s Mission Hospital.
Individual sisters ministering at the postulancy have been invited to reach out to formees of other congregations as spiritual mentors. Occasionally, they have also been invited to facilitate perpetual profession preparation programs for candidates of other congregations.
In conclusion, through the postulancy program and guidance of the sisters in community postulants are supported to discern and to respond to God’s call for them.