Stephanie Kilroe has spent most of her adult life in academic and development work. She has published two other books: Etafeni: Model of a community-built, community-staffed centre, and Anne Hope, The Struggle for Freedom.
She is now retired and lives in Hermanus

Stephanie is irrepressible, so is her writing. Sixty years after completing a graduate thesis on the church in Ethiopia, and after decades serving those in need, she tells how her faith has been recharged by participation in the life of a black township Catholic parish, sadly remote from the experience of most white Christians. This is a very human, discerning and challenging story of vibrant faith that exudes hope in dark times; it is also an invitation to join Stephanie and Patrick in crossing boundaries that prevent us from seeing and experiencing the joy of those on the margins who are irrepressibly at the centre of what really matters.
– Prof John de Gruchy, Struggle theologian and author of Going against the Stream.

I have known Stephanie through her development work over many years. She is a woman of faith with a deep love for Africa and its people. She understands that synodality, listening attentively to the other and walking alongside them, is the beginning of Christian community, something to which all of us, as Church, are called. This small book is the fruit of much thought and years amongst the poor, happily creating, with them, something good.
– Christine Bodewes, Porticus, Building a Vital Church, author of Civil Society in Africa, the Role of a Catholic Parish in a Kenyan Slum.

Having served both Xhosa-speakers and "foreign nationals" living in their midst for most of my priesthood in Africa, I strongly recommend this small book to all who take Catholic Social Teaching to heart. Stephanie is a lay woman who has had a unique experience of the joys and struggles of our brothers and sisters in the townships and rural areas."
– Fr Dick O'Riordan, author of "Roots in Exile: Fifty Years as an Irish Priest in Africa".

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