Name: Levis Kuwa
Hometown: Ol'Kalou, Kenya
Stage of formation: Prenovice

Levis Kuwa, 24, from Ol’kalou, Kenya, is the son of James Mwangi Kuwa and Jane Wangare Kuwa. He studied philosophy at the Consolata Institute of Philosophy and has spent two years in discernment with Glenmary. This past year he worked as a volunteer chaplain at Kenyetta National Hospital, the largest hospital in Nairobi which serves the poor. He is discerning missionary priesthood and brotherhood, but is leaning towards brotherhood.

More about Levis Kuwa

Levis Kamau Kuwa, from Ol’kalou, Kenya, discerned a vocation with Glenmary for about two years before coming to the Glenmary House of Studies as a prenovice in 2007. As a boy, Levis had a desire to join the Augustinians, a monastic order. After a few months in the monastery, Levis determined that he was not suited for that lifestyle and decided to investigate other religious orders. He discovered the Glenmary Web site and was intrigued with the idea of ministry to the marginalized. “Ministry to people who are forgotten is what God wants me to do,” Levis says.

Levis, 25, studied philosophy at the Consolata Institute of Philosophy and has extensive experience in hospital ministry, although the hospitals in Kenya are considerably different than those in the United States, he says. Six days a week Levis visited hospital patients in Kenya. In his work there, he found people that had not had visitors for as long as two years. Asked why people would be hospitalized for such an extensive period, Levis explains that in Kenya, a patient is not discharged until he or she is able to pay the hospital bill.

“I met a lady who had gone to the hospital to have her baby and wasn’t able to leave until the baby was three years old,” he says. There is a private wing to the hospital where patients who are able to pay for services receive superior treatment while others unable to pay receive less treatement, which Levis sees as enormously unjust. “There were some very desperate cases,” he says. “It was a big hospital and nobody seemed to care.”

Levis has also ministered in a home for children with disabilities although he never considered that work to be a formal ministry.

Although there is a need for people to serve the poor and marginalized in his native country, Levis believes that his service will be more concentrated in the United States. “If I work at home, I’ll have distractions. Here, I can give the whole of me,” he says.

Levis admits that when he first arrived in the United States, he expected that the entire country would resemble his first impression of New York, but since then has learned that the country has much diversity! He has also learned that his habit of drinking hot tea is a curiosity in western Kentucky, where tea is usually served iced.

Levis has not decided whether to pursue priesthood or brotherhood, but says he knows “I have something to share, and I will go where the Church needs me.”

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