Name: Dennis Makokha
Hometown: Eldoret, Kenya.
Stage of formation: Postnovitiate

Dennis Makokha, now in the postnovitiate stage of Glenmary formation, renewed his Glenmary Oath on June 28, 2007, during Glenmary’s 14th General Chapter and continues discerning his vocation as a missionary priest. After attending Chapter in Nazareth, Ky., Dennis spent the remainder of the summer at the Glenmary mission in Louisville, Ga. His time in Louisville  allowed him to grow in the understanding of what it means to be a mission priest.

Dennis, a native of Kenya, believes that pursuing missionary priesthood “is just following the Gospel.” He frequently recalls something his father told him. “He said if I want to be a missioner, I’ll never know where I’ll be called,” and Dennis finds that to be true of his call to work in the United States.

Dennis was among the first group of international students to discern a vocation with Glenmary and says he feels drawn to the missionary priesthood in the United States because he wants to return the blessings he received from missioners who served in Africa.

With his call to work in the United States, Dennis is sacrificing the familiarity of his home and family as he embraces a new people and new culture. “I’ve been called to leave everything and go to places I never thought of,” he says.

Louisville, Ga., certainly falls into that category. Dennis spent his days in Louisville working in the local food pantry and visiting with people in the county, including a man who was recovering from an accident. He enjoyed the areas of rural America in which he has worked, even though they are different from the rural areas he knew as a boy growing up in Kenya. For example, Louisville “is a small town, but there are a lot of people from different places, not just the South,” Dennis says. “There are Latinos and people from India, and people from other places in the South.”

During his time in Louisville, Dennis says he saw the poverty of the area. “There are many single mothers and you see many young people who are not working,” he says. “But the people are good, and they’re in no hurry.”

Dennis also learned that the slower pace of life that one finds in the South is part of the culture. “It is Georgia,” he says, “and I had to adjust to that!”

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