Last month, we said farewell to Fr Francis Preston SDB, as he left for Kenya. Here, he tells us about settling in to the life of the thriving Don Bosco Utume community.

It's four weeks since I arrived in Nairobi and joined the Don Bosco Utume Community, so perhaps an appropriate time for an update on how things have been since my arrival.

The Community have made me very welcome. There are seven members of staff: the Rector is Fr Simon who is from Kenya and is also the Vice Provincial. The Vice Rector, Fr Casimir, the Bursar, Fr Henry and the Dean of Studies, Fr Chris, are all long standing missionaries from Poland. One young Tanzanian priest, Fr Peter has just joined the staff after completing his studies in Pastoral Theology and Youth Ministry in Rome. An elderly priest, Fr Ernesto, who spent many years as a missionary in Sudan and South Sudan and who is now the confessor to the Community, and myself, are the other two SDB members of staff.

There are 49 SDB students studying theology at Utume in preparation for their ordination to the priesthood. The majority are Africans from the English, French and Portuguese speaking countries of Africa, but there also 8 students from Vietnam, two from India and one each from Myanmar and the Ukraine, all of whom now belong to one or other of the African Provinces. It's been a privilege gradually getting to know them all.

The last few days have been particularly interesting. Last week one of the caskets containing relics of Don Bosco that travelled around the world in preparation for the Bicentenary arrived in Nairobi. The Rector Major has given it as a gift to the Salesians in Africa. It will eventually be installed in a special sanctuary in the Church of Don Bosco in central Nairobi, but for the time being it has a place of honour in the large community chapel here in Don Bosco Utume. (Read more about this on ANS)

This week the students have midterm break so on Monday the whole Community, apart from the Rector who is attending a meeting in Burundi, travelled three or four miles to the Resurrection Garden, the very extensive retreat and pilgrimage centre run by the Archdiocese of Nairobi. The centre has beautiful grounds and excellent retreat and conference facilities. It was the venue for our quarterly day of recollection. I was asked to give a talk in the morning and then to preside at the afternoon Mass (pictured above) which was celebrated in honour of St Daniel Comboni, one of the pioneers of the Church's missionary work in Africa.

On Tuesday, the whole Community travelled in two rather elderly buses to Lake Naivasha for the annual "Big Picnic". The journey to Crayfish Camp, which the students had chosen as the venue for the Picnic, should have taken us about two and half hours. Unfortunately the bus in which I was travelling was stopped by the police at a check point just 30 minutes from our destination and our driver discovered to be lacking the necessary paper work. All of which meant a detour to the local police station and the magistrate's court, and an unscheduled stop of nearly an hour in the police car park while the situation was resolved. When our bus did eventually reach Crayfish Camp just before noon we were able to cool off in the swimming pool in the grounds and then enjoy a lunch cooked by the students of barbequed goats meat and pork. Thankfully the journey back to Utume passed off without incident. All in all it had been a very enjoyable and relaxing day and one that I won't forget in a hurry!