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Today’s missionary hero is an Irishman who spent almost his entire life in the African nation of Sierra Leone. His name was Felim McAllister.
Felim was born in August 1941 in Donabate, County Dublin, in Ireland.
In 1967, he was ordained for the Holy Ghost Fathers, more commonly known today as the Spiritans. He was sent to Sierra Leone in west Africa. Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries of the world.
It was in Sierra Leone that Fr. Felim labored as a missionary priest with other Irish missionaries for 26 years. Fr. Felim trained catechists, raised funds for various projects, built churches and schools in many towns, and built a hospital in his final assignment location, Panguma.
Unfortunately, a civil war was raging in Sierra Leone in Fr. Felim’s last days. A week before he was killed by rebel forces, he wrote a letter home. In part, it said, “Tongafield—the wider parish—is destroyed by the rebels with hundreds of houses burned and every house and store looted. I am busy trying to feed 12,000 displaced persons from the regions. The rebels were approaching but turned away three miles from Panguma, but our place is the next obvious target. There is real danger that the country could slide into anarchy similar to Somalia. The people do not trust the army.”
Fr. Felim was right; Panguma was next on the list of targets of the rebel forces. On March 12, 1994, rebels killed Fr. Felim McAllister as he tried to ferry the mission personnel to safety by car. He was 52-years old.
After his death, Fr. Felim’s supporters in Ireland sent money to rebuild the children’s wing of the hospital in Panguma.
Fr. Felim is buried in Sierra Leone, but a memorial has been built at Donabate Church in Dublin, Ireland.
In the photo above, we see two of Felim’s brothers holding a photo of Felim.
