Story of Divine Providence Region

The story of the FMM presence in East Africa begins with the response of the sisters to the suffering of people displaced by war, food insecurity, and sickness. In 1982, after an invitation from Jesuit Superior General Pedro Arrupe to join the newly created Jesuit Refugee Service, the Institute missioned four FMM sisters as an international medical team.

The team responded to Bishop Gasparini of Awassa in southern Ethiopia, who had appealed for help for people internally displaced by the Ethiopian-Somali conflict in the Ogaden. From the mission at Gosa among the Gujji people, the sisters reached out to the southern Borana people living in camps and later adapted their service to the emergency needs caused by the great famine of 1984-1985 in Ethiopia.

In 1983, Superior General Sr. Alma Dufault visited Gosa and helped confirm the Institute's decision to make a permanent insertion in southern Ethiopia. Because of the difficulties of Ethiopia as a base for the future, leadership looked to Kenya, where opportunities in Nairobi and the wider East African mission opened a broader vision for a new international region under Rome.

That fresh beginning took shape when seven sisters from different countries formed the founding community of Bethany-Othaya in Kenya at the end of 1984 and the beginning of 1985. Although the original vision of sending a community to southern Sudan became impossible because of renewed civil war, developments in Kenya and Ethiopia moved quickly under Sr. Angela Hurley, Regional Superior.

From 1985 onward, communities expanded in Gosa and Garba Tulla, then in Bushulo in 1987, Mujwa in 1988, and Karaba in 1989. Later, Wang'uru became the pre-novitiate, Gikambura was chosen for the novitiate in 1996, and Addis Ababa became an important service community in the same year, with ministries among families, schools, and national religious formation.

In the years that followed, the East African mission kept growing and adapting. Mujwa closed in 1998 after handing over ministry to a local congregation, Garba Tulla closed in 2001, and the community of St. Michael's in Otiende was opened for service among the urban poor of Kibera. The General Council approved the new Region of East Africa, Emmaus, on October 31, 1999.

The new century brought Seven Martyrs Community in Kakuma in 2001, Holy Cross Mazoria Community in 2009, the closure of Gosa in 2020 after thirty-eight years of service, and finally the 2023 restructuring of the Institute. Today the Eastern Sector of the Divine Providence Region, made up of Ethiopia and Kenya, includes nine communities, three in Ethiopia and six in Kenya, with a temporary insertion in Kipsaina preparing the future community in Eldoret.