CELEBRATIONS BEFITTING THE SILVER JUBILEE

All Jorech,

The preparations on sunday, the eve to the of the monday celebration was a clear manifestation of how much love the members have for Fish.

They trouped to the cathedral as early 6.00am and in different styles.It was all cheers and hugs as old friends met to celebrate an era that was considered a great success. The ladies dressing styles could easy pass for a wedding function.Accompanied by members of their families,the present old Fish members could be seen exchanging pleasantries about their families.

The younger generation were also not left out,them too had come determined to argue the point that the Fish should continue to grow as there were people to benefit from it.

Arrival and Tree planting session:-

At around 10.30am, His Grace The Arch-Bishop Zaccheus Okoth arrived at the cathedral to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Fish Youth Movement in style.The Arch-Bishop together with the Parish Priest of the cathedral Rev.Fr. Dr. Charles K'ochiel led the Fish Family with their guests to the garden for a tree planting session.Several trees(ornamentals) and fruits were planted to symbolise the rebirth(revival) of the Fish youth movement.The tree planting ceremony saw all the clergy present given a chance to plant the atleast a tree in memory of the occassion,these were Rev. Fr. Joseph Gitonga of Alendu, Sr. Mary Hellen of Chiga and the younger Deacon Hillary of Mill Hill Missionaries whose priestly ordination is set for 10th of this month at Tumsifu Center Kisumu.

The Holy Mass

After the colourful sojourn at the garden, the procession for the big event at the cathedral chapel began immediately. The fish family had a joyful procession characterized with dance and choruses under the stewardship of the seasoned Fish soloist J. Gumbe Alaka.As the procession got into church the singing was taken over by the St. Benards choir which was also conducted by one of the old Fish members - The chief celebrant was full of life and very charismatic as he delivered his sermon to fully parked church. Among the notables within the congregation were Rev.Sr. Sylvester of the Franciscan Sisters St. Joseph in Kibuye convent, old Fish youth guardians led by Mzee Adoyo of Magadi,In his sermon,the Arch-Bishop gave the history of the Fish stating how the founder had approached him with the idea of starting a youth group within the cathedral where Fr, Tony was then the assistant Parish Priest, a station he had been posted to immediately after his priestly ordination. The Arch-Bishop confessed to supporting the then young enthusiastic mill hill priest even in identification of the name FISH which he said was very relevant to the Kisumu youths and equally acceptable within the church.

Having celebrated the many anniversaries of the Fish group before, the Arch Bishop could not hide his pride as having been part of the success of the group he said had produced many succeessful personalities including the clergy, proffessionals in various fields and many lay leaders.He further emphasized that considering the fruits of Fish group,he would personally take the initiative to mobilize the all the dioceses within his province -Kisumu Arch-diocese so that they allow the Fish Groups to be started in those sees. This he said would continue to the whole nation and beyond if the Fish leaders were ready and capable of handling the awareness campaigns and trainings that go with that kind of mobilisation.

The Arch- Bishop was very emphatic that the Fish Group had a bigger role to play even on other societal matters,".... with your capacity and structures,you can even undertake the civic education successfully,more so for the constituonal review campaigns...." he challenged the Fish family to undertake the civic education aggressively to enable members of the society vote in the upcoming referundum responsibly.

During the mass, there were three infant baptism of sons of various Fish members. As the three little ones were baptised, the Arch-Bishop explained that those baptisms had been given to symbolise the rebirth of the Fish movement and challenged the present members to carryout seriouos "fishing expeditions" that the fish had been known for."......go out there and bring in more youths,all parishes must have Fish groups and remember that you are fishers of men......" After the baptisms, the fish members were called upon to renew their membership vows as a sign to recommitting themselves to the work of evangelising more youths. The session of renewing the vows relived the nostalgic enrollment ceremony that all news members had to be taken through before they could be initiated fully into the Fish family. Songs of praise and the holy spirit rented the air as the renewed spirit of FISH flowed within the church.In his closing remarks, the Arch-Bishop urged the Fish members to renew leadership trainings,various activities and group actions that had distinguised the from other youth groups.These same sentiments would be re echoed by the Fish Chaplain Fr. Kochiel and variuos speakers at the reception hall.

RECEPTION:

After the colourful holy mass that ended at around 3.30p.m, the Fish members held a procession to the grave yard to lay a wreath of flowers on late Rev. Fr. Sylvester Sulwe's tomb and conduct short prayer for his departed soul. This short ceremony was to appease the spirit of late father who was very supportive of the idea of Fish group when it was started in 1985.

The Fish family then proceeded together with all the guests to consume the delicasies that had been prepared for the occassion. The meals accompanied with soft drinks were served to all and sundry. It was real parting and feasting akin to what we see at the state house functions or the function we attended at white house to inaugrate one of sons who had worked hard to succeed George Bush Junior. Inside the hall after the meals, entertainmet was galore punctuated with numerous speeches. Speaker after speaker urged the fish members to revive te group so that the younger generations could also narrate the same sweet stories maybe at the golden jubilee.

Congratulations to the silver jubilee comittee members, all the Fish members and friends who heeded the call for support,financial and otherwise to make the celebrations such a huge success.Kudos to Cosmas for steering us to the succeessful beginning of a new era and to Brenda for being such a prudent financial manageress, all the team members for your perserverance and committent even when things looked very grim, Rev. Fr K'ochiel for the spiritual guidance and standing with us at times of difficulty.Fr.J.J, James Okal,Martin Okore,Jeremiah Ochieng and many others for the selfless contributions that set very good president for supporting the Fish in the near and far future activities.The editorial team under the leadership of Peter Mitto Okal for the lovely newsletter that gave us a wonderful reading for the day. For sure am lost for words, I dont know how best to thank everybody but kindly accept my heartfelt gratitude on my own behalf and that of the Fish Board.We appeciate all prayers,masses and devotions that were offered for the success of our Silver Jubilee.

The task ahead of us is an enormous one and it requires more concerted efforts than ever before. We cannot afford simple power struggles because I believe we have overgrown them. We must learn to listern to each other even if we feel they are not as smart as we are. The biggest diservice we can do to the group and to ourself is to fail to handover a better group than the one that was left to us. Egos aside, can we revive FLTP, sports,drama,social days,faithwalks,vocations days,Fish ma etc etc.

The Arch- Bishop agreed to be invited to give brief talks on leadership if we organise the leadership trainings,George Orido has offered to sponsor the 1st drama competition and preparatory directing and acting training preceeding the competition. Benard Ogendi agreed to coordinate various members who can initiate junior football clubs that would culminate into a senior football club from Kisumu within 4-5 yrs.Martin Okore and others have accepted to help our team organise fundraising activities for Fish activities such as Gala nites,Gospel bash,breakfast meetings and even harambees to finance the youth activities.

It is high time we thought outside the box and enlist the support of everybody even who were able to join us for the silver jubilee. Can we join our hands together for this noble task?In the Fish spirit of volunteering and sharing can we continue to offer what we have or can do in this revival exercise. Our brothers who love siasa , tuwache siase tafadhali and lets learn to build each other.May God Bless you and God bless FISH!!!!

Steve Kizito Owiti
Interim Board Chairman.