Jbms Newsletter

Text Winter2013_Layout 1 07/11/2013 14:22 Page 1 JBMS NEWSLETTER Published by The John Bradburne Memorial Society PO Box 32, Leominster, Herefordshire HR6 0YB, UK Tel: 01568 760632 e-mail: [email protected] website www.johnbradburne.com UK Registered Charity No. 1046483 WINTER 2013 BIG THANK YOU TO FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS Huge gratitude goes to extend the existing one, the manpower and the skills out to all those who have which will mean a larger pro- are all there. So I think these continued their support to duction of eggs and poultry projects will be a blessing for help keep our work going this meat to provide home grown them. Since there are thou- year at Mutemwa. food with the excess sold at sands of people who visit markets nearby. It has greatly Mutemwa every year, the We would especially like helped to provide the resi- news will soon get round. to thank The Leper League in dents with new incentives, Here is a place that can run Birmingham for their wonder- and pride in what they can itself. ful support for projects at achieve at the Centre. Mutemwa, and also to the It is obvious that Africa Australian ‘Zimbabwe Chal- Tim and Jean Dufton sent must go solar. We have bright lenge’ team. The sustainable these photographs recently of sunshine more than 300 days way forward for Mutemwa is their visit to Mutemwa to see of the year. The problem has to strive to develop self-sus- the work in progress. been how to harness the taining and income generat- A new solar installation power. ing projects for the future. has begun to provide lighting What the Manager really Already this year there for Mutemwa which will make wants is the sort of structural have been two projects a huge difference to the way investment that would make undertaken to develop this the residents can live their the centre much more self- area. A pig rearing building lives. Also an irrigation project reliant, and the two projects has been put up in order to is being appraised to develop seem to me to fit the bill generate income from the a good area of the land at the perfectly.’ sale of piglets. Also a new site for agriculture. poultry building has been built Fr David Harold-Barry fully supported the projects by saying that ‘... if they can grow their own food and sup- ply their own power they will be a long way on the road to self-sustainability. There are a number of residents who can help in the cultivation of Tim and Jean Dufton of the plot, and take pride in the ‘Zimbabwe Challenge’ admiring Jean outside the new poultry unit work they do. The motivation, the young piglets JBMS was founded in 1995 to support the Mutemwa Leprosy Settlement in Zimbabwe in the name of its late warden. Text Winter2013_Layout 1 07/11/2013 14:22 Page 2 - 2- REFLECTIONS ON JOHN BRADBURNE By Fr David Harold-Barry SJ as a friend and carer of peo- I referred to my first ple with leprosy to Mutemwa. meeting with John. My last In these various roles one was in the month before his thing was constant; a search death in 1979. He came into for God and the way of life to my office at the mission and which God called him. This asked for some stamps. He search led him to cut down was sending out lots of post- on belongings, on clothes, on cards. Someone here today food. In the small hut, where may have received one of he spent his last years, there them. In retrospect it seemed was a two ring gas stove for like he was saying his good- boiling water and his main byes. But I remember him food seems to have been saying to me, “you are doing Lacto - a milk substance. His great work!” Jesuits are not friends would bring picnics good at saying that sort of John with Fr Dove in the and he would have a good thing to one another and so I early days in Africa meal on such occasions. Dr was struck by it. It was no Luisa, who was shot two lightly mouthed pleasantry. It My first meeting with John months before him, used to was a vocalisation of what he Bradburne was in October bring lasagne. But for the constantly did: he affirmed 1972. He was crouching on most part he fasted. people. Meeting John you the floor of a hut reading a always felt better about your- passage from St Paul in His simplicity of life is well self. He was one of those Shona to a person whose known. It was the fruit of his people who lifted you. In leprosy had not yet dried out. simplicity of purpose: his 1978 John was very sick on John was living at this time search for God. Many years the danger list in St Anne’s in the disused butchery of before, he had found in Mary, hospital. A severely physically the Mutemwa settlement for the mother of Jesus, a helper handicapped girl came to see leprosy patients 130km NE of in his search. His poems con- him and they spoke of poetry. Salisbury [now Harare]. From stantly recall his love for her. John asked if she had then until his violent death He always composed these ever written hers down. She seven years later I met him straight on to stencils and I said she couldn’t write. John frequently either at Mutemwa was often given the task of immediately replied, ‘never or at our mission centre, having them run off. He mind, Jesus only wrote once Silveira House, close to the would want ten or fifteen and that was in the sand.’ We capital. copies so that he could share all laughed and the girl’s face his compositions with friends. beamed with pleasure. John was in the last of the Caring for the leprosy I would like to stay with six decades of his life that patients, writing poetry, wel- this quality for a moment; had taken him from his birth- coming visitors: these were this ability to build people place in Cumbria, to Malaya the works of John that we up. Today many feel bad and India as a soldier, a could all see. But behind all about themselves. They stoker on a trawler, as a these was the inner life and are anxious: how can I be forester to the Quantocks in the inner search. Some of us acceptable to my peers? Somerset, as a monk to the knew bits of this, others other “Feel good” about myself. As Benedictines at Prinknash bits. Many here have their we describe it we sense that and to the Carthusians at own memories of John and it is building on sand. Parkminster, as a hermit to their own reasons for being an organ loft in a Naples here. His own concentrated After decades of search- church, as a bishop’s care- search enabled him to see ing for God, John had the taker to a country house in where others were. Like a ability to know people. He England, as a lay missionary climber he would see others revealed them to themselves to a garden shed in Rhodesia in the valley below making as lovable, as of great value. [now Zimbabwe] and finally their own efforts. People who came to him, Text Winter2013_Layout 1 07/11/2013 14:22 Page 3 - 3- spent some time with him and Rhodesia. In one sense he listened to him with their ears wasn’t very good at it: he and hearts, went away up- could put diesel into a petrol lifted. They found new tank and he could feed chick- courage. I have always found ens with fertilizer pellets and this with what we call ‘holy’ wonder why they lost their people. They give me heart. feathers. Their greatness of spirit does not make me feel small. On But at the other level, the contrary their greatness which I have already draws me on. indicated, he was magnifi- cent. When Jesus gave us The second, and only the sermon on the Mount, other point I want to make is and especially the Beati- that John Bradburne showed tudes, he was not thinking of that we are all called to people who were specially holiness. The second Vatican religious. He was addressing John with Simba Council opened the gates “the crowds.” It is surely clear that bit wider to a fuller that he was calling everyone sense they are the only following of Jesus. John was who wanted to be his calling in the gospel. John is fundamentally a lay person disciples to be “poor in spirit”. someone who lights up this who cared for others. Three This blessing describes all call in big letters, in bright or four times he tried religious those whose eyes are on colours. He reminds us that life in different ways. But he others and not on them- we are all called in this way eventually realized that he selves. They leave the ‘what and he makes us feel good was called as a lay person. At do I get out of it’ to God. This about the efforts we make the very time the Council was remains as crazy to a person along the way. preparing beautiful docu- in the twenty first century as ments on the Church and the it did to someone in the first.

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