These reflections were written by Fr. Paolo Guarise a few days after Fr. Avi’s death, which took place in Cremona, Italy, on 18th March 2020.
News of His Passing
When the news of the passing of Fr. Francesco Avi reached Kenya, it left great sorrow. His person was very popular not only in Tabaka where he worked for 32 years, but throughout the Camillian Delegation and in the diocese of Kisii. Yet he was not a man of many words. He did not have the gift of preaching or languages: he coped with English, but he chewed Chinese badly even though he had sweated a lot on it.
His evangelization was expressed above all through action, through the medical and surgical profession. How many men, women and children did Father Avi operate in his long activity as a Camillian missionary that has spanned more than fifty years? In fact, his activities involved two countries distant from each other, culturally different, but equal in their social and spiritual needs: Asia and Africa.
Missionary in Formosa
The missionary activity of P. Avi began in June 1966 when – after completing his studies in medicine and surgery at the University of Padua – he went to the Island of Formosa (now Taiwan) to take the place of another great missionary doctor, Fr. Aldo Antonelli, also hailing from the Region of Trent. Father Avi made his “apprenticeship” in the operating room under the guidance of a well-known surgeon and lay missionary Dr. Janez, who had flown to Formosa from his native Yugoslavia to stay there all his life, taking care of Lotung’s patients.
After returning to Italy for a couple of years for a traineeship P. Avi (we have always called him with his surname) “definitively” settled in Taiwan where he was entrusted with the hospital of Makung, in the Pescadores Islands. Here he was soon appointed director of the hospital and achieved great success for his industriousness, for his loyalty to his medical-surgical, social and religious commitments (he was also superior of the community).
After a few years, when he had now found fertile ground for his activity as a Camillian missionary, which he had desired since he was a child, the Lord called him elsewhere, precisely in Kenya, to respond to an emergency situation at the hospital of Tabaka – recently acquired – which otherwise would have had to be closed.
Missionary in Tabaka
Obedient to his Provincial Superior, Fr. Forsenio Vezzani, Fr. Avi immediately left the Pescadores and went to Kenya on 30 July 1976, where he threw himself headlong into the activity to revive the hospital that was drifting, even if he did not take any preparatory courses to become familiar with the local language and culture (the much proclaimed “inculturation” of those times); and how could he afford it? Where would he find time for “inculturation”?
After less than a year, the emergency in Kenya was ended, so Fr. Avi returned to the Pescadores Islands to devote himself with his usual enthusiasm to “his” hospital in Makung, where he remained for another ten years. But obedience asked him once again to leave the beautiful “Formosa” for Africa. Here he was again in Kenya, where he would remain for 32 years, a place where – borrowing an expression of St. Camillus – “he consumed his life in this holy service”, a service that consisted of treating the sick tirelessly. This expression is not a hyperbole, it is pure truth.
How many times did the night watchman come in the middle of the night to knock on the bedroom window that overlooked the entrance square saying in an excited voice: “Padre, nenda haraka kwa operating theatre!” (Father, you are requested immediately in the operating theatre!). At this point, without a moment’s hesitation, the Father got up and went on to continue the work he had done during the whole day that had just passed.
What about sleep? One day I saw him arrive with swollen feet, making it seem that he had elephantiasis, a disease not rare in those days in Kenya. He, with a disarming smile said to me: “It is not the first time that my feet swell like this…” Who knows how many steps he took in a day, back and forth, up and down the hospital stairs: luckily enough, at that time there was no smart phone with the step-counter app.
“Vir Justus” Who Was Not Lacking in Good Humour
If we had to summarize in a few words the qualities of this true missionary, I think that the Saint who can be approached is St. Joseph. Among other things P. Avi passed away on March 18, eve of the Feast of St. Joseph. It is above all the obedience and the concealment of the Bridegroom of Mary that shone in the life of Fr. Avi, obedient to his superiors (even when the act of obedience was demanding), meek, modest, hard worker, vir justus, a man of faith even if sometimes he could not understand why certain behaviors.
As a good mountaineer P. Avi was a bit stubborn in his ideas, but they were ideas that had a single purpose: to improve the patient’s condition, make him less hospitalized, alleviate the financial burden he had to clear. But P. Avi was not always serious and over-committed. A simple anecdote confirms it. One day I was in the refectory and I heard him calling me shouting: “Paolo come, come to the operating room to give me a hand”.
Every now and then I went to see the masterpieces he was to perform with the scalpel. This time it was a woman who was about to give birth, but she could not make it… P. Avi kept saying to the delivering woman: “Push, mama, push!”
At one point the young mother clung to P. Avi’s neck to build strength with her abdomen and push harder. At that point P. Avi broke into a scream saying: “Hey, look, I’m not your husband!” After a few moments – with a more acute scream than that of P. Avi – the newborn saw the light. Living in the Novitiate, I often tell novices episodes from the life of St. Camillus and the Camillian martyrs of charity. I don’t think I’m wrong if in the future I will add some episodes of the authentic Camillian whose name was P. Avi.
Goodbye to Tabaka
Although reluctantly, it was time for Fr. Francesco Avi, a Camillian religious and missionary doctor, to leave. Father Avi came to this painful decision because of his advanced age and health problems. If it had been for him, he would have continued to visit and operate his patients at the Tabaka hospital where he spent most of his life.
Fr. Avi spent the day before taking the plane back to Italy at the St. Camillus Seminary in Nairobi, where he greeted confreres, seminarians and nuns. During the farewell dinner we – seminarians and formators – organized a short “ceremony” to show the esteem and affection we have towards him. We made Father Avi an “elder Masai” by covering him with the colorful Masai cloak and putting in his hand the scepter (rungu in Swahili) which together characterize each Masai elder of this part of Africa.
With this “ceremony” – which Fr. Avi greatly appreciated – we wanted to tell him that, even if he returns to Italy definitively, he will always remain our “mzee”, our elderly patriarch who continues to transmit his wisdom, his affection, his experience as a faithful Camillian religious and diligent missionary doctor. In a moment of pause I sat with P. Avi and asked him some questions, a sort of interview, to make the life of this confrere of ours known to the youngest. Fr. Avi left the mountains of Trentino (his home region) to come to the mountains of Africa, namely to the Highlands of Kisii County.
Early Life
Avi, where were you born?
I was born on August 4, 1934 in a small village (Vigo Piné) in the municipality of Baselga di Piné, in the province of Trento.
How many were you in the family?
My family was made up of 4 children. First a sister, then a brother who died at the age of 60. A second brother was a Camillian religious Brother who died at the age of 30, following an operation.
What was his name?
Brother Avi Lino. Then the last of the family, which is me.
What was the occupation of dad and mum?
Dad was a carpenter like St. Joseph. However, following the injuries sustained in the 1915-18 war, he was bedridden for several years. I met him at the age of 6 at the hospital in Trento, where he died. The mother was a housewife very devoted to the practices of piety, family and charity. According to the villagers, she was the benefactor of several families.
Life in the Seminary
When and where were you ordained a priest?
My Ordination took place on June 21, 1959 in Mottinello Nuovo (Vicenza), where at that time we Camillians attended theology courses, at the hands of Mons. Girolamo Bortignon, bishop of Padua.
How many were you?
We were a large class: we were ordained in 10. Now we are only 3.
How was your missionary vocation born?
In the seminary I have always been a member of the “mission group”; in the fourth year of theology I was also the secretary. It had not been long since the Camillians of our Lombardy-Veneto Province had opened a Mission in China (in 1946). On his visits to Italy, Father Antonio Crotti was not without enthusiasm for it.
Seminary and Medical School
P. Avi, you are also a doctor. When did you do your medical studies?
After the Ordination, I was assigned to the Community of Padua as hospital chaplain. It had happened that Father Antonelli, a missionary doctor in Taiwan, was not physically well and had asked the Provincial to start some other confreres to study medicine to replace him. The then Provincial Superior, Father Fontana, asked me if I would like to study medicine to then take the place of Father Antonelli. I asked him three days to think it over, then I made myself available. Among other things, there had been some not too encouraging precedents: of these young Camillian priests who had recently studied medicine, all three at the end of their studies had left the Order to embrace secular life.
How many years of study did you have to do?
Six years, at the University of Padua, from 1959 to 1965. Then, after six months of personal preparation, the state exams in Turin. Then obeying the orders of Father Crotti, I immediately left for Taiwan (which was then called the Island of Formosa).
Start of Missionary Life
How many years did you spend in Taiwan?
In all twenty years. I soon met Dr. Janez, a lay missionary from Yugoslavia, a very good but also very demanding surgeon, who suggested I attend his operations for a few years (it was 4 and a half years), but then go to some other hospitals “to get my bones and be independent”, and then return to Taiwan again. I went to Italy for a period of one and a half years. In Verona I met Father Adolfo Serripierri, also a missionary doctor who was doing the pediatrics internship at the hospital of S. Bonifacio in Verona. He introduced me to the primary surgeon of that hospital and I was accepted as second assistant in the surgery department because the titular doctor was absent for a specialization course. After six months I was accepted into the orthopedics department where they did not yet have an assistant. Under the direction of the head physician in the surgery department, I began to perform my first, even rather demanding, operations. With the then surgeon, Dr. Luigi Benini, I soon became friends, and afterwards he came many times to visit me in Tabaka, willingly offering to operate and making sincere friendship with the staff.
Then you went back to Taiwan?
Yes, I went back to Taiwan in 1972, and first I started to study the Chinese language. I was sent to the Community of Makung, in the Pescadores Islands (an archipelago of about sixty islands located between Taiwan and Hong Kong), in our 70-bed hospital. I was often the only doctor. I performed several operations, even very demanding ones, with the help of a nurse. In 1976 I received a call from the Provincial Superior Fr. Vezzani who told me that in Africa, precisely in Tabaka, there was an urgent need – only for a limited period of time – of a doctor-surgeon because the resident doctor was about to leave at the end of his contract, and our Camillian doctor, who was supposed to take over, had failed to come. I replied that I would go to Tabaka under two conditions: a) that I would not be the only doctor in that hospital, but asked to look for at least one other doctor “vaccinated” for Africa; b) that they did not close the hospital (as they had decided to do) so that the staff remained at their workplace. The Provincial assured me that he would respect my conditions. He was true to his word!
So you left Taiwan and went temporarily to Tabaka to save a critical situation?
That’s right. I arrived in Kenya in July 1976. Father Rino Meneghello, who had already obtained my entry visa, was at the airport to welcome me. Some time before, Father Spagnolo, Brother Fabio and Brother Albano had preceded me; now they were in Nairobi to improve their English and study tropical diseases. A month later we all met together in Tabaka (three Sisters Ministers of the Sick arrived in the meantime) and in September we officially started the “Camillian” management of the hospital.
I arrived in Kenya in January 1984 but I did not find you. Where were you?
After ten months of intense work (in that period the doctors Cuneo and Invernizzi joined; imagine that the normally hospitalized patients went from 40 to 130!), I returned to the Pescadores Islands (May 1977). After 9 years (1986) in Tabaka there was the same situation regarding the doctors; therefore a new request came from the Provincial Superior who asked for my presence “for a period of emergency”. I went back to Tabaka, and I have stayed there until today!
Missionary Activity in Africa
Retracing these 32 years of missionary activity in Africa, even in summary form, is not possible due to time constraints. I simply ask you: what is the best memory or experience you want young confreres to know?
There would be many memories. I remember a very difficult intervention, in which I did the best I could and in the end, the situation being still critical, I said: “St. Camillus think about it!” And everything worked out in the best way. I would have many successes to remember, but… In confirmation of this I sometimes find people who stop me on the street, even on the streets of Nairobi, and say to me: “Oh, Fr. Avi! Don’t you remember me? You operated on me in Tabaka many years ago. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to continue living!” It is nice and satisfying to treat people not out of interest, but simply because they were in need.
Do you remember any negative experiences that you would absolutely like to forget?
I don’t think I have any in the medical field. I have not always managed to bring patients back to better conditions, but this was due to the fact that they arrived in the emergency room too late, in extreme situations. I remember instead that I got to meet some episodes of doubtful behavior, of beautiful and good hypocrisy, even if veiled. People who in my presence behaved gratefully, but who then openly criticized the hospital and its management. In this regard, a recent phrase from Pope Francis comes to mind: a non-believer is better than a hypocrite believer!
What do you think is the flagship of the Tabaka hospital?
I am not saying what is the flagship of the Tabaka hospital, but what must be the flagship, that is the union between us, our human and spiritual testimony. If people see that we work honestly and with a profound religious spirit, then they will respect and follow us. Each of us must try to be more convinced, more observant, “personally and communally more radical”. We must bring out the religious foundation in our work. We also learn from other “religious faiths and voluntary movements” to live our Camillian vocation: let’s not be ashamed of our being consecrated Christians!
Fr. Avi, what would you like to say by way of conclusion? What is the legacy you want to leave to the Camillians of Kenya now that you leave this country?
To sincerely and actively love God and the Church, to love the sick and the confreres. Try to form a family in which you help each other without hiding anything. There are negative experiences and there will always be, but we must talk about them with sincerity and mutual love. We must live our faith and consecration with honesty and faithfulness, especially now that the Delegation is about to become a Vice-province. We must be and demonstrate it: “I am happy to have consecrated myself to God and to neighbour in the Camillian religious life!”
By Fr. Paolo Guarise