God’s plans sometimes start deceptively small with hardly a hint of the realities to come.
In 1994, Father Joseph Sserugo, a member of the missionary religious order known as the Apostles of Jesus, made a visit to St. Vincent DePaul parish in Richboro, Pennsylvania. He went there, as he went to many other places, to make a missionary appeal. At the time, Father Joseph was then serving in Darfur, Sudan.
During that time, a number of parishioners in Richboro had begun a high school youth ministry, performing weekly summer service projects year after year, in Camden, New Jersey (at the time the poorest city in America) and Fayette County, Pennsylvania (at the time one of the poorest counties in the eastern United States) and other troubled areas. After years of service, one of the parishioners in that group suggested that the group needed to be more greatly challenged. Thereafter, the group began praying for greater challenges, thinking perhaps they would be soon traveling to New Orleans or Mississippi to help Katrina victims.
But God had other plans...
Upon their return from their 2006 service project in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, the entire group of teens and adults, as tradition dictated, returned in time for Saturday evening mass. Each of the 50 members sat together at that mass.
That night was a momentous night for them; they heard Father Joseph Sserugo celebrate that mass, telling them about his transference to Ibanda, Uganda. Right before the final blessing, Father Joseph, pointed to the group and said, “You must come to Uganda.” On that invitation, the visionary member who had initially demanded greater challenges for the group, blurted out, “We are coming!” That was the beginning of Building a Bridge to Uganda.
