By Marie Mulvenna

Last August, Maureen Grimmer and Kevin Conboy were married. At that time, they decided together to give a year of their lives to the Lord. This year finds them serving as teachers in a Catholic mission community in Kenya, East Africa.

Eventually Maureen wishes to become a doctor of medicine and Kevin hopes to become a lawyer. But right now, they are fulfilling their promise by serving as missionaries. In 1977 they will return to the U.S. and their relatives. Kevin is the son of Mr. And Mrs. Joseph Conboy of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish here.

In their mission community, they are rapidly adjusting to new surroundings, customs and way of life and write detailed letters of their new life style to their parents. They both teach for the Consolata Fathers in a high school near Mujwa, near Kenya and have 49 sophomore girls at the school which was started but one year ago.

The students, they report, live at the school where a new dormitory was recently added, housing two grades of girls for a total of 93. The girls are taught in one room; there are no labs, no extras and one book for every two students, which Maureen and Kevin report is a good ratio there.

There is also a 5x8 foot blackboard and that is it, Maureen says. It makes the job a fairly challenging one.

In the Catholic compound which surrounds the old church there are a number of aging buildings, a garden, the beginnings of a new school and a number of domestic animals. There is running water and, if filtered, it is drinkable. Electricity is available only from 6 to 10:30 p.m. and occasionally there is hot water for showers, fueled by logs under the tank. For the most part, food is cooked on small “giko,” hibachi-like grills using charcoal for fuel. It is a long and show process and many hours are needed to make the available beef a bit more tender.

Kevin and Maureen report that the area is blessed with very fertile land and large crop of vegetables and fruits are readily available.

On the weather side, they report it is hot but not unbearable, with daytime temperatures about 75 and 50 to 60 in the evenings. When it rains in Mujwa the red dust of the area turns into red clay and they both commented they were not particularly looking forward to the next rainy season.

At their school posts, Kevin teaches English, history and geography while Maureen teaches math and biology. The headmistress of the school also teaches, as does one part-time person. Maureen notes that she and Kevin teach 2/3 of the courses but they love it.

Both Kevin and Maureen graduated from LeMoyne in 1974, she with honors in biology and he with honors in theology. After graduation, Kevin entered the University of Georgia law school and Maureen worked on a study of hypertension at Syracuse University. Before their December departure for Kenya, Maureen continued her duties at Syracuse and Kevin manned a suicide line at St. Joseph’s psychiatric hospital there.

Mrs. Kathy Conboy says she is very pleased at their decision to give a year of their life to the Lord and reports their need for supplies for teaching. She also reports it takes “forever” for mailed items to reach them and she has been sending small packages off to Africa with great regularity. In a recent letter from her son, he suggested she mark everything with “for the missions” in hopes it might expedite delivery.

And on this end of the mail system, Mrs. Conboy and the rest of the family eagerly await more news from Kenya and descriptive accounts of the life of a young couple who wanted to serve in a very special way.