When in 2015 the Network had to find a new president for the Executive in Rome started a few months search to find the suitable person among the member Congregations present in Rome. A huge challenge because nearly all the roman contactpersons of the Network in Rome have a full time job as a member of the leadershipteam or as Justice & Peace promotor, as bursar, etc. To accept a new task on top is not evident. Everybody could understand that. Nevertheless… After about three months the SMA could agree that Father François de Paul HOUNGUE (Benin) should be the president of the Network and work closely together with the members of the Executive secretariate in Brussels, where Fr. Chika Onyejiuwa Justus is the teamleader, and of course all the members of the executive comittee in Rome, in particular the vice-presidents, the secretary and the bursar. They did well and we thanked them wholeheartly at the general assembly in November for their commitment these last three years. We are very grateful the AEFJN could benefit not only from the competence of François, but also his patience, his laugh and gentleness with all in Africa and Europe.
Fr. François has been co-opted, according to our Statutes, as a member of the actual executive in Rome, for as long as his congregation will admit it because in 2019 they’ll have a general chapter and we all know what can happen … We still need his experience !
Let’s go ahead for the coming months or years with the new team ! Thanks for all that you are doing yourself to keep our Network alert and to make our world a better place because of more just relationships between North and South, between Africa and Europe !
André Claessens MSC
