The following story first appeared in the Autumn 2006 Glenmary Challenge.
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Welcoming Two New Members
By Father Steve Pawelk

GLENMARY COMMUNITY GROWS: Dennis Makokha and Austine Duru sing with other Glenmarians as their First Oath ceremony and Mass begins. Both Dennis and Austine are pursing missionary priesthood.

On June 30, an ordinary Friday afternoon, an extraordinary event occurred. Two young men professed the Glenmary Oath for the first time: “I ( Augustine O. Duru, Dennis K. Makokha), a novice of the Glenmary Home Missioners, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, do solemnly promise and swear before God to dedicate myself for one year to the missionary apostolate in the rural areas and small towns of the United States and to the Glenmary way of life according to the Glenmary Constitution and Directory.”

Any time someone makes a solemn vow or oath before God, it is an extraordinary event. In professing First Oath, these two men, after several years of formation and after having completed the novitiate, willingly gave themselves in service to God. They accepted the sacrifices necessary in order to live a missionary life: poverty, chastity, obedience and prayer.

“It has not been easy,” Dennis says. “You have friends, then they leave the program and you wonder what’s wrong with me? Basically, it is the call of God that keeps you going.”

This was also an extraordinary event because Dennis and Austine’s Oath ceremony marks the first time in over 10 years that two men professed First Oath at the same time. Five years ago Glenmary had no student under temporary Oath and only one in candidacy.

When Austine and Dennis professed their First Oath in June, four others were preparing to follow them into the novitiate and another four were expected to begin prenovitiate this fall. “I hope this one step of professing my Oath may encourage or inspire others to do the same,” Austine says.

There was also a bit of history made June 30. Glenmary accepted the first men from Nigeria and Kenya in 2001. Dennis and Austine are the first Africans to become members.

“Ten years ago, no one in Glenmary could have imagined two men from Africa becoming members of Glenmary,” said Glenmary president Father Dan Dorsey during his homily at the profession Mass.

“Dennis and Austine are unlikely missioners in Glenmary,” he said, in that they have journeyed from Kenya and Nigeria, countries where missionaries helped develop the Church in the past. Now those countries are sending missionaries to the United States and—in the case of Dennis and Austine—to our home missions.

These unlikely missioners to rural America “are gifts to us,” Father Dan said. “And they are also a great gift to the people of our missions. These missioners will help assure that home mission ministry to the folks of Appalachia, the South and Southwest will continue.”

This historic moment was not lost on Dennis or Austine. “I desired to be a missioner in America because European missionaries came to Africa,” Austine says. “And I wish to give something back by offering myself and my service to the Church in the United States.”

Being Kenyan and serving in the United States is “a big challenge,” Dennis says. Some in Kenya thought he was crazy for coming as a missionary to America, a fully developed country. “My response is that missioners are needed in developed countries too and, like Austine, I want to return, as a home missioner, the favor that was given to Africa by so many missionaries.”

The paths both have taken to arrive at their First Oath have been similar, yet very different.

Austine came to Glenmary in November 2001 as part of the first group of Africans accepted by Glenmary. He has studied in San Antonio both at the Mexican American Cultural Center and at St. Mary University. He has also spent a summer at former Glenmary missions in Beaver Dam, Ky., and Crosset, Ark., and studied for two years at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Dennis has been a pioneer during his time with Glenmary. He was the first international student to experience the former residency program in Owingsville, Ky., and was the last student to experience the former candidacy program in Hartford, Ky. (Glenmary has updated its formation process. There are now three phases: prenovitiate, novitiate and postnovitiate). He also spent time at Glenmary’s mission in Swainsboro, Ga.

Both Dennis and Austine now enter the final phase of formation—postnovitiate. Austine will return to Catholic Theological Union in Chicago this fall to continue his theology studies.

Dennis, like the pioneer that he is, will enter St. Meinrad Seminary this fall—the first Glenmary student of this era to study theology at this Indiana seminary.

Read more about Glenmary's men in formation

Read more about the First Oath Mass and ceremony