Denver Catholic

41 DENVER CATHOLIC | APR-MAY 2024 I t was 61 years ago, on a remote road in Africa, that Deacon Hugh Downey's life changed forever. I didn't ask to get into this," Deacon Downey said. "God played a trick on me. He suckered me in. It was 1963, and I was driving on a road in Africa and saw a priest walking down the road, or who I thought was a priest. So I stopped and offered him a ride. He took me to his village, and that was the day that my whole life changed." 2024 marks the 50th Jubilee of the Permanent Diaconate here in the Archdiocese of Denver. Through preaching, service, worship and prayer, deacons serve the people of God in uniquely special ways through their various ministries and lives. This article is one of a series of articles the Denver Catholic will pub- lish in 2024 which will feature local deacons and/or a diaconal ministry. There are many Deacon Saints who were martyred for their faith. In this year of Jubilee, the deacons of the Arch- diocese of Denver are asking for prayers through the intercession of Saint Deacon Martyr Euplius of Cantania. L A L M B A That rather unremarkable moment marked the beginning of what has been quite a remark- able life of ministry and service for Deacon Downey, who serves at Spirit of Christ Parish when he's not in Africa. This chance meeting would be the genesis for Lalmba, a ministry started by Deacon Downey and his wife Marty that is still going strong today. Lalmba serves the poor orphans and widows in Africa who are often ravaged by disease and war. "Lalmba is Tigrinya word which means high mountain, literally translated," Deacon Downey explained. "But it was a mountain that was known as a place of peace. During war time, people would flee to the mountain and live there as refugees until things settled down, then they'd go back. We started out in educa- tion because we saw education as their way out. If they're not educated, they're not going anywhere." Lalmba was founded in the 1960s in Eritrea, a small and poor country on the eastern Horn of Africa near Somalia. Eritrea is certainly an impoverished country by the world's standards, but "poor" is a relative term, as Deacon Downey explains. "We call them poor, but they don't consider themselves poor, because everybody's poor," he said. "If everybody's poor, then we're all the same, right? So I wound up being the rich guy in the village, and there was need of a school. So I thought, I'm no engineer, but I can build a school. "It seemed like a simple thing to do to build a school," he continued. "But when that was done, oh, there's another village that doesn't have a school. So we wound up building nine schools in nine different villages." Lalmba remained in Eritrea until 1970s. It was then that the Eritrean War of Independence broke out, forcing Lalmba to relocate its oper- ations to nearby Sudan. They began to serve refugees who crossed the border to flee from the war. The need for medical care also became more apparent, so they used what resources they had to start building and operating clinics and hospitals in the area. ⊲

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