Mercy Awuor Omollo

PASTORAL COUNSELLING MID-SEMESTER ASSIGNMENT I have good souvenir of my father. Indeed, my father was a lovely person. I likes adventures and riding motorbike. He was a handsome man and I think it is what attract my mother to him. He had a great ambition for me than i. He worked as a manager in a big company. He use to invite me to work in that company when I was in holidays just to keep me busy. Something happened in the company and the company had a bank ought. He was then demounted from his job, it was a shock for him and for all the family. In order to save the situation, my Mum started working. He was not happy with my decision to join religious life. I was is only child and it was painful for him to see me joining religious life. My decision is the starting point of a bad relationship between my father and i. when I join religious life, my superior decided to send me in mission in Brasilia. It when my relationship with my father started again. But unfortunately my father died before that. I have happy memories of my father is ambition for me, and becoming a priest was for him a big blow. He was a very inspiring person to me. What I really appreciate from my father was is courage and is ability to go in adventure. He had many friends but most of them were Jews. And it is later that I come to know that my father was an illegitimate son of a Jews. I think he really suffered about the issue because he never talk to me about that. My father liked football and even offered me many opportunities to join a club of rugby but I decided to join the club of my school. My father was also a hard working person and he encourage me to work hard. I did not appreciate the fact that my father was involved in another relationship. That situation, bring a lot of suffering in our family. I was even taken by my father from my mother and lived with him for few years. That infidelity of my father worsen the relation that I had with my mother before. My mother was a simple, honest and loving person. She was from a good family. I think she never liar in her entire life. She usually bring me to visit her friends and my ant. When the issue of the infidelity of my father came to be known by my mother, he took me from her and it was something very painful for me. As my father, my mother was not also happy to know that I want to join religious life. But am quite sure that my decision bring my father and mother to come together again and to forget the past. My two parents like travelling and I remember that we want to Paris several time. She travelled to Mexico and in Italy for pilgrimage. Indeed, she was a widow for long time. My mother really sacrificed herself to save the financial problem of our family. After the death of my father, my mother was very close to me and even became part of our congregation and was appreciated by my confreres. I never heard someone saying something bad on my mother. My mother was always on time and was a reliable person. After she retired, she came to work for the congregation. She became sick and died almost in the congregation 12 July 2002. She had many friends although she was not an outgoing person who like parties. My mother was a honest and truthful person. I remember one day telling her some liars, she bit me. She was also committed in what she is doing, faithful. She had a sense of humor. I think there is nothing much to say about what I dislike from my mother. But when I was a child I remember that I was always sick and I think my mother was not too careful to my situation. I loved so much my mother. My parents was a loving couple. They got married on November 1939 few days before the Second World War. When the war began, my father was send in Egypt and in Irak. After the war, he came back and it is when he started another relationship with another woman. In fact, the woman also was in the Army. I think the infidelity of my father was the greatest event which traumatized me. My parent never separate although the pass through many problems and my decision was what healed their division. In the beginning, I was very close to my father but at the end I spent more time with my mother than with my father. I think I resemble more my mother than my father. The values that I receive from my parents, is hard working because my parent hated laziness. The use of one gift and find new opportunities. Try to be honest and faithful, to be committed and when we make a mistake it is not the end life still continue. With my mother I learned to have a sense of humor. My mother is coming from a good family of God fearing. The all was Anglicans. Only one of my uncle I did not know well because he lived in South Africa. He has a bad morality du to is addiction to alcohol. He is the only person on whom I can say something bad. I have a good souvenir of my grandfather. I was told that when he was working in a company which produce wine. To make a surprise to my mother, my grandfather kept a bottle of Champagne until the 21 anniversary of my mother. I fall in love three times in my life. The first time it was in college because I was in a mixed school. The second time it was a girl in the choir. Am aware that am not a charismatic person. Am not gifted in speaking to attract people. Am trying to be honest and to be faithful I what I decided to be come. Am trying to stay physically fit through sport, eating and drinking. Am not too sociable and I don’t like exaggerating. It is a bit difficult for me to tell what I like and what I dislike about myself. But I think I like listening people, I like my shape, I like singing and I think I sing quite well. I like things to be in order. I know few languages which helps me to keep in touch with others. I think am obedient and I hate the part of myself which like postponing things. I doubt too much about my judgments, I don’t trust myself. I think am a bit complicate when talking to others. I says many things at the same moment which make people to not understand me. Morally I think I have not been honest with my sins I always try to justify them. I need to have more confidence in my judgment, and not always change my decisions. I have also to recognize that God gave me some gift and I must use them. I have to be honest with my sins and my faults. Do what I think should be done not to always postpone. I imagine a world without suffering, a world where the rich are not abusing the poor, a world the strong helps the weak to grow. I imagine a world without barriers between peoples. I imagine a world where bad people change their way and become better person. I imagine a world where all humanity believe in God. I wish the world can overcome the problem of hunger by using technology to make the desert green and give food to all the world. I find it difficult to give the characteristics of the friends I wish to have. I think a best friend must be someone who is able to tell me the truth about me. A friend should not walk away when I make a mistake. He should be ready to listen to me as I must be there to listen to him. A person with whom I can journey. A person with whom we can help each other to become better people. I find difficult to be friend with someone who does not love me. And I always take time before putting my entire trust in friend. I remember that lady who asked me my number and we started chatting and I think it was something genuine and I really appreciate friend like that. I don’t like friends who like manipulating others. I have few enemies but I will not give you some names. There was an issue about some priests and as the delegate I had to take some decision. I called them and questioned them on the issue. I think they did not appreciate my action and since that period until now we are not friends as it was before. There is another brother, who after is perpetual vows, was involved in so many issues and people complain to me with some prove. I wrote to the superior general and things was not on is favor until now he never forgive that and I think he hate me so much. God for me is a great helper and I think although all these suffering I continue to move with is help. God is good to me and at the same time he is very demanding but with is grace I still stand. God support me in many cases, he is a father and is silently present, patient to me he make me focus and to act in a generous way. He is wonderful a solid foundation of my life. He is always blessing. All these years as a religious I think there are some values that I owned. Trying to be a loving person. I like prayer which really help me a lot. I like saying truth to people as possible. Honesty, patience, examination of conscience which helps me to face myself and to know my weakness and to understand others. Never give up although the difficulties just remember that God loves us. As Don Orione put it there is great victory of Christ mercy. Life is a journey and as such, we need sometimes to make a pause and look back to our past and see how we can take future with serenity. You seem having some difficulties to trust your decisions and you like postponing always what you have to do. Maybe in the future, it will be better if you can put on a paper what you wish to do and convince yourself of the importance of what you ought to do. I think that, that exercise religiously help us to understand better ourselves and to understand those who surround us for a better understanding of God and for a better relationship with him. The exercise will find it full significance if you really open yourself and let God talk to you. And if you go deeper in your inner been to find out what constitute obstacles in your spiritual, social, human dimension of your life. You need to go out and have fun that will help you to overcome your difficulties to be sociable. The exercise was helpful for me it helped me to go back to my past and I think it is something that I should be doing often to see myself in the mirror of life. It really help me to see that am not too good as I want to pretend. As someone says when we dance we think that we are the best dancer and we always need someone to tell us that we are not dancing well or we are dancing well.