PLENTIFUL VOCATIONS

THE SMA AND THE CHURCH IN AFRICA:
For 150 years the SMA has been sending missionaries all over Africa to preach the Gospel and to establish the Church. Today we are happy to witness the fruits of this work - the Church is growing faster in Africa today than in any other part of the world!
This is a great blessing but it is also a great challenge to find enough priests to serve the increasing numbers. Many local Churches in Africa are blessed with priestly vocations, but there are still many others who are looking outside for help. One of the aims of the SMA is to provide priests where they are needed in Africa.
Traditionally SMA priests have always come from Europe and North America . Today however, as the need for priests in Africa grows, the number of missionaries from these traditional sending-countries declines. In order to continue our commitment to help the young African Churches we have in recent years established new branches of the SMA in other parts of the world ( Argentina, India , Philippines, Poland and most especially in a number of African countries where the Church is already strong) to prepare a new generation of SMA missionaries.

PRIESTLY VOCATIONS ARE STILL PLENTIFUL:
Priestly vocations are still plentiful in these new areas. However, finding the necessary funds to train these new priests, to send them on mission – and then to care for them (and the communities they serve) once they arrive on mission – is a major problem. Most of our new priests come from so-called “less-industrialized” nations where faith is strong but resources are scarce. It can take up to 10 years to train an SMA missionary priest and this presents us with a huge financial burden.
Efforts to raise funds locally in each of these new areas are already successful, but it will be a long time yet before they will be able to cover all the expenses involved.
It costs, on average (in 2007), $4,000 per year to train each student. With about 250 students we must find $1 million every year for this work! The job of the SMA International Development Office is to find ways of helping to raise this amount until these new branches of the SMA are self-sufficient.