HEAL Blog
Welcome! Here we will post news and highlight the faces, needs, and services of HEAL.Teachers Celebrated by BOMCA on Special Day
Among the many ways of showing appreciation for teachers, one familiar American gesture is placing an apple on the teacher’s desk. In Nigeria, good teachers are highly valued and celebrated, although not in terms of the size of their paycheck. In observance of World...
Nigerian Military Making Life Difficult for Students
From August through October, SS-3 (Senior Secondary Level 3) students in Nigeria take the annual West African Education Exams (WAEC) as preparation for University-level education. Unfortunately, current civil unrest driven by human rights abuses are posing a danger to...
BOMCA Students Win Debate Contest!
BOMCA Academy recently won the preliminary round of a debate competition between secondary schools in the Ahiazu Mbaise LGA. Vice-principal, Nanim Nidiamaka, selected and trained the 3-member secondary student debate team composed of Cal Alexis, Ugo Modesta, and...
MOJ Novices educating the Masters in faith!
Many years before HEAL became a formal entity, a former colleague of Rev. Leo Okonkwo pressured him to abandon the religious aspect of his mission and focus exclusively on clean water well projects in his home country of Nigeria. Leo refused, because his work on...
Devotion to Mary Is Key in Servant Leadership Formation
In Jesus’ first miracle, He replenished the supply of wine for the Cana wedding guests at His mother Mary’s request (See John 2). This familiar Gospel reminds us of how Our Lady is always pleading for us with her Divine Son. As a boy, Rev. Leo Okonkwo found himself in...
New Postulants Spell Relief for MOJs
Jesus looked out at the helpless crowds, telling His disciples that the harvest is plenty but the laborers few and to pray that God send more laborers. (See Mt. 9:37-38) In HEAL’s mission, the Masters are our harvest, our planted seeds waiting to be watered and...
Health Inspector: Students Must Be Socially Distanced!
“You can poison your family and friends, but not the general public!”, a food sanitation instructor exclaimed humorously yet seriously to vendors who would be serving food to the public at the “Taste of Chicago” summer fest. I took that class back in the late 1980’s,...
Students win quiz competition, advance to debate finals!
Carpe Diem means “seize the day”, and that’s just what the vice-principal of BOMCA Academy did on behalf of her students. The BOMCA Debate Squad Recently, a trio of men arrived in Akpim village and informed Nanim Nidiamaka of a debate competition for students in the...
The Masters Trained in Singing the Psalms
Waking up in the middle of the night in a convent in a tiny village in Cameroon, I walked down a dark hallway with hands stretched out to feel for any invisible hard edges. I made it to the chapel door, entered, and knelt in a pew seeing nothing except a flickering...
New Postulants Try Out the MOJ Sisters
In the movie Field of Dreams, a farmer walking in his cornfield hears a mysterious voice whisper, “If you build it, he will come.” He obeys the voice by building a baseball field on his farm, which draws the spirits of historic players who appear on the field to play...