MAURICE Fitzpatrick and I stand at a frontier of Catholicism in the modern world.
We witness an act of history that will bring love and caring to hundreds of thousands of African people.
We are with Fr Donall O’Cathain SMA in the village of Kigberra in north west Nigeria.
Donall has come to buy land from the local chief. It will be the place for the next step in the work of primary evangelisation and where you bring faith and prayer, you also bring water, education and development.
Kigberra is having its market day; lorries and cars, animals, people and produce are everywhere.
We drive through a cauldron of heat and colour, a cacophony of noise, to get to the house of the Imam. The heat is oppressive.
Forty degrees we reckon. We park under the tree at the edge of the square and are made welcome in the home of the Chief.
We are aware that where we have come from, two hours down the track, is where Christianity stops. We are now two hours into the new world that Donall is exploring for Christ.
The Chief is a young man, educated and well spoken. We watch and listen. Donall sits with him on the floor and does the business.
Documents of ownership and exchange of ownership of land are in front of them.
Signatures are applied and we leave to step out the site. The Muslim men and the Catholics walk the land together.
Two hundred and eighty steps one way, 150 the other. We are in the countryside, just a mile away from the Chief’s house and must return to him to complete matters.
Amos, a tall broad-faced and smiling man, marks the territory with the cuts of his axe. The land papers are completed, the deal is done and all for under the naira equivalent of £200 sterling.
Maurice and I have brought £5,000 from the girls and families of St Mary’s High School in Newry to the table. At the moment the Newry Africa Link (www.newryafrica.com) has another £12,000 waiting. Today we have been at the very edge of the Catholic universe on planet earth. We are part of history.