MORE COUNSELLORS FOR KUMBO DIOCESE

45 GRADUATING COUNSELORS TAKE UP COMMITMENT TO WORK
By Livinus Tal Bam



A total of 45 counselors to give counseling words of hope to people living with terminal illnesses and marital problems gone through a successful nine months course with the Diocesan Family Life Office of Kumbo. Equitably distributed all over the territory that makes up the diocese of Kumbo, more and more persons will begin benefiting from the services of these fresh minded counselors. The 13th graduating batch of this department has taken up the commitment to take up their work seriously.

From a distant, if there was anything that exposed the joy of the graduating students on this 20th day of July 2007, it would have been the success story of their end of course in the counseling exercise. And so, the initiative takers came out on this long awaited day to celebrate and wave out the thorny moments they went through in the course of the training exercise. With a long list of challenges ahead of them immediately after the joyful graduation ceremony, Bishop George Nkuo of Kumbo thinks that it is time rip enough for them to implement in a diligent way what has been taught to them to the society.

In a solemn Eucharistic celebration at the St. Jerome Biblical and Pastoral Centre, Kumbo in which he was chief celebrant, Bishop George called on the would be counselors to always make themselves available to people in times of need. As Christian counselors, he made them to understand that the greatest ritual they shall be expected to carry on shall be the ritual of human need. He cautioned them against the poor attitude of attending to their clients to judge and condemn them, but exhorted them to serve as a source of hope and inspiration through which the clients shall be reassured of the tragedies surrounding their health and marital homes. Taking into account that the 13th graduating batch of counselors were going to be Godly with their clients in their compassion and love, the bishop foresaw a handsome pay back of their work in the many people to be liberated from their too much worries. He ended his sermon with a carry home message in which he called on all the counselors to carry home with them the Mercy of the Almighty to those they were going to begin administering to them through their readiness to restore hope to the sick and to revive the marriages of the people. Within the mass, the counselors all pledged with God to be their guidance in their work while promising to keep the clients’ problems secret.

Talking to participants at the celebration, the counselors through their representative Rev. Sr. Mercy qualified the outgoing batch as one with a difference. According to the address she presented to welcome the people to their graduation ceremony, the batch was one which contained the highest number of priests, Religious and traditional rulers to be trained as counselors. Apart from taking up the challenge to carry out their responsibility diligently by administering well to the needy in the society, the outgoing batch thinks that it is not yet over with the Diocesan Family Life Office of Kumbo as they go being ready to turn to the teaching staff at any time they need them for assistance. With the presence of traditional rulers in their midst, the counselors believe that this will solve another vital part in their area of work as they will help to sensitize other palaces of the cultural practices which speeds the spread of HIV/AIDS pandemic in the African society. Citing Jesus Christ as an all round preacher and considering the importance that counseling plays in our society today, the students called for more priests to get involved in the exercise to add counseling to philosophy, and theology to make their priesthood complete, a request they forwarded to the bishop.

The students have congratulated themselves for the commitment and concern they showed one another during their stay at the diocesan family life office to receive training. Their various social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds posed no problem to their training session. They have however, recognized the contribution of each and every individual to their success during the time. To demonstrate mastery of the work they will be expected to take up shortly after the graduation, the students presented dramas and choral music passing across counseling messages. Created in 1982, the Diocesan Family Life of Kumbo has excelled in training counselors who are equitably distributed all over the diocese in the various parishes and helping the masses with their diversified ill health and marital problems.