Cana Center

I took pictures for this post about two weeks ago, but things kept happening that seemed more interesting to share. Today I think it is finally time to give you a brief tour of the Cana Center. It is remarkable to me to think that it was as recent as 2004 that Fr. Leszek bought this empty hill that now holds the Cana Center (no kidding, just last night I met a guy who claims that Father bought the land from his parents). Fr. Leszek says that local tradition called this property “the hill of God.” How appropriate!

Today, this hill of God holds a retreat center with 40 rooms, a rectory, two convents, a public chapel, a Bible Center, a Catholic learning center, and the Divine Mercy Plaza (which I plan to share tomorrow in a separate post). Tucked in among these buildings is a large conference room, a soccer field, a basketball court, an outdoor volleyball court, and a creche. Fr. Leszek designed it all, with help from a gentleman I referenced in an earlier post named Cyriaque, and used local labor to build it.

The project has benefited the local community in many ways over the years. For example, every weekend from now until December the Cana Center will host a group of 50-70 teachers who will be learning how to incorporate the bible into their classrooms. Conferences like these bring Rwandans to Kibeho, many who have expressed they had never been here before. I may have referenced in an earlier post the busloads of pilgrims who visit the Divine Mercy Plaza. Finally, there are the occasional visitors like me from far, far away who make a retreat or pilgrimage here.

In the previous three pictures, we are entering the Cana Center (the Divine Mercy Plaza is to the right from the first picture) and the door at the end of the blue wall in the second picture takes us into the reception area in the third picture. The opening on the right (just passed the blue banner) leads upstairs to my room. The immediate left takes you into the dining room where I take my meals with the three priests (in Rwanda you don’t eat meals, you “take” meals).

Through the door in the far right corner of the above picture is the kitchen, pictured in the following two photos.

Last week the kitchen staff of roughly four people prepared an amazing lunch for almost 90 students from the Academy. I marvel at what they can do with what we would consider a rather primitive space!

This picture is of the main dining room where the large groups eat. I didn’t take the greatest picture here, as it cuts out half the tables and chairs, but you get the general idea. Wooden tables with 8 wooden chairs at each table. The windows to the right open to the courtyard pictured below.

This creche is at the far end of the courtyard. It was under construction when I visited in 2010; it is fun for me to walk past and remember how little of the Cana Center and Divine Mercy Plaza existed back then.

Almost every day there are groups at the Divine Mercy Plaza who are singing or someone preaching. It is almost always in a different language, so my mind generally just tunes it out as white noise. One day I was praying in the chapel and all of a sudden the melody penetrated my consciousness–it was the refrain of “Angels We Have Heard on High.” I was puzzled why in the world a group would be singing this song. As I walked past the creche on the way to my room, I saw a huge group gathered in prayer in front of the nativity scene. Ah, checks out!

Now we are looking back at the Cana Center from the courtyard. That door is welcoming us back into the reception area we saw in an earlier photo.

After the third picture I referenced an opening that leads upstairs to my room. At the top of the stairs on my immediate left is this lounge area. When I have traveled with a group I have spent some time out in this lounge, but alone it doesn’t serve me well. Part of the problem is that the light in this space is on a timer, so if I am sitting in here working the light keeps going out. Waving my hand doesn’t seem to catch the motion sensor’s eye very well.

Across from the lounge is a relatively small chapel within the Cana Center (there is a bigger, public chapel also on the property but as a standalone building). I consider this my own private chapel, as I would say I am in here 2-3 times a day and have only had someone else in there three times in four weeks. When COVID hit in 2020, Fr, Leszek painted by hand the scenes on the walls! In typical Fr. Leszek fashion, he just shrugs and says, “It gave me something to do for those nine months.”

I love that it is all set in the Rwandan hills, and in fact the white bird at right on the first picture is an inyange, a bird native to Rwanda. I also like how in the Last Supper painting behind the altar, if you look closely you can see Judas in lower left moving away from the group holding a bag of money. Finally, when I sit in the chapel it feels like Jesus is looking right at me. I love this little chapel!

Finally we get to my room. When I took these pictures, I clearly was thinking more about the layout than the cleanliness. I promise you the room doesn’t generally look this cluttered! At the very left in the first picture is an armoire that holds all of my clothes and a few other assorted items. That window in the second picture is about 20 feet from the Divine Mercy Plaza, so I get to hear EVERYTHING that goes on out there. Constantly.

It isn’t much, but it is home for these seven weeks. It has everything a man could ever want, with one exception: boy, do I miss television on the weekends! Fall Saturdays were made for college football and Sunday naps are best when there is a game on that I am only passingly interested in. I hate that I miss it so much, as clearly I have an unhealthy attachment to watching football. Fall is my favorite season for so many reasons, and football games is as much about getting together with family on cool, crisp days to cheer for our favorite teams. It turns out that Hulu and ESPN+ don’t broadcast in this region. There is a way to cheat the system by purchasing a VPN connection back into the US to trick Hulu into thinking that I am watching in America, but it doesn’t feel very honest to me. Regardless, it is good for me to offer up this little bit of suffering:)

Speaking of sports–shout out to the Huskers, Packers and Brewers…all had a winning weekend. Just because I can’t watch the games live doesn’t mean that I don’t check my ESPN app first thing in the morning to see how my teams fared!

God bless us all.