When O’Chieng, the newest seminarian to serve the Diocese of Dodge City, arrived in Kentucky two years ago to work with the Glenmary [Catholic] Home Missions in Appalachia country, he instead found not only rural America, but one of the poorest areas in the United States.

"They live in trailer parks, very old ones," said O’Chieng, 25. "During the winter there is no heat, and during summer it is very hot. They can’t afford clothes for their kids. Some kids are playing by the creek with no clothes.

"I couldn’t figure out how that could happen in America."

He also said that because Appalachia is deep in the Bible belt, the small Catholic communities faced discrimination from the much broader Baptist community.

During his two years with Glenmary, he also served those living away from Appalachia -- in the deep south -- where he risked life and limb to visit migrant families living in camps as indentured servants.

"They come through Arizona or Texas with coyotes, and they are dumped into a camp," O’Chieng said of the Mexican migrants. "The following morning they are taken to work on the farms. They receive no food or water, and they don’t get a salary. The farmer uses the money to pay the coyote. After six months they are free to go on their own."

Until that day arrives, the migrants are not allowed to leave the camp.

"We were going to camps to give them food and clothing, and to take those with medical problems to the doctor," said O’Chieng, who speaks Spanish. "That was only in absence of the farmer. If the farmer is there, they would not allow us to take them."

He said that a priest who served the area had once had his life threatened by a farmer who said he would shoot the priest if he ever came back to see the workers.

Although his experience with Glenmary allowed him to work with the blossoming Hispanic population – helping them obtain driver’s licenses, taking people to hospitals, etc… — the Catholic organization did not have a continuing education program. Seeing his future as a priest in flux, O’Chieng, who had attended a seminary in Tanzania, began seeking out seminaries.

"I felt it was not what I was looking for," O’Chieng said. "From the beginning I was motivated to work in rural places. I was looking around and saw that Dodge City was a rural place. I started communicating, and was invited to meet the bishop."

After an initial trip here in March, O’Chieng decided that Southwest Kansas would be his future home. He is now in residence at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe rectory.

O’Chieng is the middle child of seven boys and five girls; their parents are farmers.

"They keep some animals, cows, goats, sheep, donkeys, and chickens, and then they farm the land, growing corn, beans, sugar cane, cotton, and many foods — oranges, mangos. I come from around Lake Victoria where it’s flatter."

O’Chieng became motivated to become a priest while a young man. After high school, he said he stayed at home for three years before joining the seminary in Tanzania where he majored in philosophy.

"When I was nearly finished, I decided I wanted to be a missionary priest," he said, and that’s when he found Glenmary Home Missions.

"My idea of America was like one big New York. I said, let me see this rural America, what it looks like."

What does he think of southwest Kansas?

"What I find is that people here are more friendly," he said. "The way they speak is also different. These people speak good English. In Appalachia, they speak with different accents that are difficult to understand."

O’Chieng will spend the summer in Dodge City, and in the fall will head off to seminary to continue his studies so that he can one day serve the rural people of the Diocese of Dodge City as Father Sylvester O’Chieng.