Chicopee minister travels to Africa

By Helen Collier

Special to the Chicopee Herald

CHICOPEE Reverend Kelly Gallagher, minister of Christ's Community Church in Chicopee, along with two other members recently flew to Africa where they will be working on films "about the refugee situations ... particularly refugees who are a result of the conflict in Darfur."

The congregation has recently started hosting used book sales in order generate money for donations to go to some of the neediest areas of Africa. Gallagher will help direct the money to where it can do the most good based on her personal observations from her tour of Africa.

If sales go well church members will most likely hold book sales on a monthly basis. For their first sale they had collected between 700-1,000 books, CD's, videotapes and craft items in donations.

Gallagher and her team have kept their church informed about their travels with happy reports of finally landing in "big city" Nairobi, Kenya's capital city. Nairobi was surprising to Gallagher and her team because it reminded them of big cities such as New York, and Tijuana, Mexico. Since they're landing they have gone wild safaris, and have searched high for other organizations that would help them while they are guests in Africa.

It didn't take them very long until they have got the support and protection of some very important people. In her second e-mail to the church Gallagher wrote "On the last night of our safari, we spent the night guarded by Masai warriors!"

She also wrote that they "don't have words for how incredible the safari was. The people with easy smiles and laughter and a language shared built on communication itself. It was just amazing."

Their travels have led them from the Serengeti to Ngorogoro to Lake Manyara, to a cultural program at Mwa Ta Mumbo village and then to a Masai village at Longito.

Along the way they are exchanging and sharing cultures with the local people they come across. At one school that they visited ". they sang about water pollution. We taught them 'Row Row Row Your Boat' in exchange."

They had also gone to a Tanzanian church where they were generously greeted.

Gallagher wrote of that visit, "The music was powerful. I imagine the sermon was as well, but since we only know a little Swahili we only caught a bit such as Jesus is like a banana. The minister was playing with a Swahili slang term, which we learned as a greeting. Everyone laughed, especially the children. Everyone was dressed up, some in traditional clothing and some in modern western dress and some in modern African dress."

They are planning on attending a church in Sudan as well.

Even still with all their travel and touring has not led the team to forget about their filming objectives. Thus far they have captured "more than 600 pictures along with hours of video tape."

Now they are in Nairobi filming interviews and making arrangements to travel to Sudan.

They are also "working on a video for Into Africa, the Eco-Tourism company which not only combines care for the environment within their safari but cultural exchange and half of their money goes to building schools and serving the community. "

They are planning to finally set out for Sudan by June 21 and will return to this country by the first week of July.

The Community Church of Christ is asking for additional donations of books, except encyclopedias, in efforts to relieve Africa's neediest people.