By EmmaLee Italia, Contributing Editor, and Dorothy K. LaMantia, Correspondent
When Mary Goss travels to Uganda twice a year, she doesn’t view it so much as a mission trip but a return to where she has left her heart – with the people who now call her “Mom.”
“‘Mom’s here,’ they all say,” Goss affirmed. “‘She’s not visiting; she is home.’”
And that’s how she feels, too, despite the 7,000 miles between Holy Trinity Church in the Diocese of Kasana-Luweero, Uganda, and Goss’s origin in the Diocese of Trenton. Founding the nonprofit Yamba Uganda (“Help Uganda”) out of her Toms River home in 2011, she has forged an unforgettable bond.
“Their poverty really got to me,” said Mary. “But the people’s resilience, the joy they have in each other and their relationships are awesome. They have so little, but they are so happy. … It boils down to love.”
People of Uganda use the title “Mother” or “Mama” not only for their biological mothers, but also as a term of endearment for those who extend care and love to them.
Over time, Goss said, “I became ‘Mom’ to the people. I never dreamed I would have a family there.”
ONE TRIP TURNS TO MANY
A member of St. Luke Parish, Toms River, Goss has served the Church for many years, including as director of religious education for 20 years in St. Luke’s and in St. Monica Parish, Jackson, and as a lay ecclesial minister. She was inspired to expand that ministry during her first visit to Uganda with Catholic Relief Services in 2002.
Starting out with no firm intention that she would be getting involved, the experience brought greater clarity about what she wanted.
“The faces of the children, many orphaned by the AIDS epidemic, the suffering of the people and the beauty of Uganda’s red earth moved me,” she continued. “At Mass near the end of our trip, I prayed, ‘God, please don’t let me forget this.’”
Two years later, the grandmother and retiree returned to stay in the convent in Luweero and assist the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Church, in caring for the sick and the hungry. It was a visit that would evolve into two six-week trips a year.
“Many times, I carted ten 50-pound bags containing clothing, food and medicines for the parish on board the airplane – because if they were shipped, they would not reach the destination,” she explained.
Through the support of Yamba Uganda and Msgr. Kennard Tuzeneu, pastor of St. Mary Parish, Barnegat, the Ocean County faith community helped sponsor Holy Trinity Parish in Ziroobwe, forming a partnership with its then-pastor, Msgr. Vincent DePaul Mukiibi. Their friendship and shared mission helped to support the parish’s St. Augustine Elementary School and helped to build St. Mary High School nearby.
And with contributions from individual sponsors, the projects keep coming.
“We have since built 15 churches,” Goss said. “When we open them, you can hear the joy from three blocks away … Our clinic is now a level three health center,” an alternative to the hospitals in Uganda, which require money up front for treatment.
All improvements and building projects are undertaken with the input of the people they benefit, she noted. “Even water tanks – we talk to them, ask them where they want it; we always try to have local contribution, and they take ownership of it.”
FRUITFUL LABOR
Now vicar general for the Diocese of Kusana-Luweero, Msgr. Mukiibi travels to more than 20 churches – sub-parishes of its cathedral parish – to reach his flock, traveling sometimes 20 kilometers by motorcycle to celebrate Mass and break bread with them.
“The dearest thing is to go deep into the bush and visit people, to pray with them and bring them food and clothing,” Goss said of her biannual trips. “When I first started, I realized I could actually save a life. To see the fruits of your labor is a blessing … to save a life is incredible.”
Other Yamba Uganda projects include a “Feed a Family” monthly program, as well as motorcycles for priests, bicycles for catechists, solar projects, mosquito nets for beds, tuition scholarships and more.
Goss stays not in a hotel, but in the village. “I stay with the people I serve, and I leave my clothes there,” she said. “Big kids now laugh, because they have photos of me with them at six years old, and I have the same dress on.”
During her first trip to Uganda, Goss sponsored Perpetua, then a tiny two-year old who lost both parents to AIDS. Mary remains “Mother” to the girl, who is now 24 and a teacher.
After accompanying Mary on trips to Uganda and seeing for themselves the imminent needs, both Msgr. Tuzeneu and Father G. Scott Shaffer, pastor of St. Joseph Parish, Toms River, began sponsoring children – one of whom is now a doctor. Other dedicated parishioners have also traveled to Uganda across the years with Goss, and have sponsored children.
To Ugandans, “all of us in the U.S. are rich … because we have food, lights in our house, water, medical care, indoor plumbing – basic needs we take for granted,” she pointed out. When a 70-year-old Luweero man finally got lights in his hut through a solar project, he told Goss, “I never thought I’d have lights on at night! I stayed up all night because I was afraid it would go out!”
Yamba Uganda relies on the generous donations of individuals and funds raised through sales of handcrafted jewelry and baskets made by Ugandan women, which Goss and a team of volunteers organizes each Christmas in St. Luke and St. Joseph Parishes, Toms River. Prior to the pandemic, she also held craft sales in St. Aloysius Parish, Jackson.
Meanwhile, an ongoing Uganda ministry continues in St. Mary’s, Barnegat; a contributing ministry, “Ladies in Stitches,” collects donated fabric and its members sew clothing for Ugandan children.
Donovan Catholic High School, Toms River, sponsors two children as well, and has contributed to many projects.
Goss runs Yamba Uganda on her own without a salary or administrative fees; all donations and sales support the projects for Uganda.
“Some of us have forgotten that we are all called to help the poor,” she reflected. “Give back to the world whatever you can.”