Africa: Encounters, Experiences, and Enrichments: Encounters, Experiences, and Enrichments

This volume is a collection of fifty short stories that chronicle the encounters, experience, and enrichments of Fr. Ron Sajdak over a period of twenty-two years as he interacted with people of different African cultures. Many stories standalone while others are in a series of about four or five chapters.

It is often said that "God works in mysterious ways," and this collection gives witness to the humorous as well as the profound ways that was manifested and recorded in the author's life.

Rev. Ronald Peter Sajdak, is a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Buffalo, NY. His first encounters with African cultures were from1983-1993, while working within the Archdiocese of Washington, DC. He held a full-time position as a Catholic Youth Minister, Coordinator of Worship, and Director of Religious Education at Our Lady of Sorrows in Takoma Park, MD. Many families from various African backgrounds continually joined the parish. Exposure to and working with these families and their children challenged an openness in him and a deep hunger for the enrichment that such experiences can provide.

Returning to Buffalo in July of 1993, he entered Christ the King seminary. His hunger for diversity continued and as God would provide, he met a few Cistercian monks originally from Nigeria who lived at the seminary and attended theology classes with the students. These friendships fed the deep longings for diversity in his spirit.

After being ordained a transitional deacon in June of 1995, Fr. Ron met his first South Sudanese African. This young gentleman, along with his wife and daughter were one of two Sudanese families who were resettled in Buffalo to escape from the twenty-five-year violence of civil war. That friendship bore fruit. Each time a new African family from Sudan moved into the city his young friend would say, "I think you should meet them." Soon the ROTA: Reaching Out 2 Africa ministry was born as a way of assisting these new families with their basic resettlement needs. ROTA has also been instrumental in a variety of other ways such as assisting African Clergy while visiting Buffalo as well as supporting activities in their home countries. This work has included various building projects in several African countries.

Fr. Sajdak currently is Vicar Forane for the City of Buffalo, Interim Pontifical Mission Director for the Diocese, and Chaplain of Catholic Academy of West Buffalo, which is a multi-cultural Catholic Primary and Middle School. He is also the founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit, ROTA, Reaching Out 2 Africa, Development Group Inc. www.reachingout2africa.com