WISE MEN FROM THE EAST ARRIVE EARLY - BY CAR

A VISIT FROM MY FRIENDS FROM TOGO IN AFRICA

Part of our (myself and an anonymous friend) "R.J. MISSION PROJECTS" fund is to support international seminarians at Saint Meinrad Seminary. Three of those friends contacted me recently to see if they could come and visit now that the semester has ended. All three are from Benedictine Monasteries in the French speaking nation of Togo - a narrow little country in west Africa (in green on the map below).

Three monks studying at Saint Meinrad from two DIFFERENT Benedictine monasteries in the French speaking country of Togo in Africa. Brother Cajetan on the left and Brother Justin on the right are from the Monastery of the Ascension. http://www.abbayedzogbegan.com/photorama.php?lng=fr Brother David in the middle is from the Monastery of the Incarnation: http://www.agbang.org/welcome.html

BROTHER CAJETAN'S AND BROTHER JUSTIN'S COMMUNITY

BROTHER CAJETAN'S AND BROTHER JUSTIN'S MONASTERY

founded in 1961 from France

BROTHER DAVID'S COMMUNITY 

BROTHER DAVID'S MONASTERY

founded in 1985 from Germany

MONK'S DAY OUT IN LOUISVILLE

Left to Right - Brother Cajetan, Brother Justin and Brother David, all Benedictine monks from Togo studying at Saint Meinrad Seminary, arrived before noon. 

We had a nice lunch at the Red Lobster Restaurant. 

This was Brother Cajetan's (left) and Brother Justin's (right) first trip to a Mall. 

They fit right in to Mall life. You would never know they were monks from the other side of the world. Brother David picked out a UK hat. I reminded him that UK stood for the University of Kentucky, not the United Kingdom!

It's a small world! We ran into this Mall worker (red shirt and big hair) who is from Tunisia in northern Africa (see top of Africa on the map above). 
Since both Tunisia and Togo are French speaking countries, they spoke for a while in French.

Before they headed back to St. Meinrad Archabbey, they wanted a photo in front of my condo complex. I think they had a wonderful day out!  I certainly had a great time showing them around. Monday, they will visit St. Paul Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery in New Jersey, for the holidays. They need to see something besides southern Indiana, as nice as it is, while they are in the United States. They will probably get to see New York and maybe Washington DC.