Name: Crispine Adongo
Hometown: Ulanda, Kenya
Stage of formation: Novice

When he was a student at the Jesuit School of Philosophy and Humanities in Nairobi, Kenya, Crispine Adongo met Dennis Makokha who was then preparing to enter Glenmary. Dennis talked to him about Glenmary and Crispine did further research about Glenmary’s ministry through the Glenmary Web site. Through that research he found that his desire to “sacrifice for the poor,” could be advanced by a life as a Glenmary priest. Today he continues to discern that life choice as a Glenmary novice in Maple Mount, Ky.

He says that life in Maple Mount has "taken another dimension." In addition to meeting the requirements of the novitiate program, he has enjoyed having time to develop his music talent by playing piano with Ursuline Sister Julie "who is in her eighties but still a genius in teaching music." (The novitiate is located in a house on the campus of the Ursulines of Mt. St. Joseph.) "The sisters are happy and ready to share with us their talents and experiences."

Crispine says he became interested not just in priesthood but in missionary priesthood because of the influence of a Comboni priest who served in his parish when he was growing up in Ulanda, Kenya. That missionary priest from Italy “planted something in my head,” he says. “I was attracted to mission work in a different culture.”

Glenmary’s mission chrism and its service in rural areas attracted Crispine as well. “Most of my life I’ve lived in rural areas,” he says. “I’m used to it.”

Continuing with the experience he gained in his parish in Kenya, Crispine was involved in the religious education of the young people at Glenmary’s former mission, Holy Redeemer, in Beaver Dam, Ky., while he was in Glenmary's prenovitiate program located in Hartford, Ky. “I like teaching,” he says. “It revives my spirit.” The small parish at Beaver Dam, returned by Glenmary to the Diocese of Owensboro in 2004, was very different from his home parish. “We had three Masses every Sunday—with 10,000 people at each Mass,” he says.

Crispine spent his college years at Arrupe College in Zimbabwe. There, he says, he experienced a more Westernized culture, so he has had a comfortable transition to life in the United States.

After he finished college, Crispine worked with street children in Nairobi at Charles Lwanga Boys Town where he counseled young people involved with alcohol, drugs and pre-marital sex. He encouraged them to stay in school and stay away from those who could encourage bad behavior. That, he says, is a ministry he would like to continue in the United States and in Glenmary.

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