American teen brings children’s rosary to seven African nations

Asher Kaufman, an 18-year-old from Connecticut, has embarked on a monumental ten-month journey across Africa to foster the growth of the Children’s Rosary movement.

Leaving his home in September, Kaufman landed in Uganda on September 15. He has also been to Rwanda and Tanzania and plans to visit Kenya, Madagascar, South Africa, Cameroon, and Mozambique. His African trip will end in July next year, just in time for the start of seminary and his priestly formation.

The core of Asher Kaufman’s apostolate in Africa is the distribution of an incredible 64,451 handmade rosaries, shipped from the United States in eight barrels ahead of his arrival.

In each country he visits, Asher is working so that these sacramentals reach children in parishes and schools.

He says he wants to seed the continent with the tools for devotion, aiming to spark and sustain a deeper love for the Rosary among a new generation of Catholics.

In comments to CWR, Kaufman says the Children’s Rosary began years ago, in 2011, in West Hartford, CT, as a response to a call for help within the Church.

“Our parish priest, worried that collections were not meeting monthly expenses, asked parishioners to contribute more,” he told CWR.

When very little came in by way of contributions, Kaufman’s mother, Blythe Kaufman, had the inspiration to invite some children to come and pray the Rosary in the chapel for the financial situation.

“That same day, less than an hour later at the Sunday Mass, the collection brought in was so large it ranked right behind that of Christmas and Easter of that year, and this was just an ordinary Sunday in Lent,” Kaufman recalls.

This was the spark that led to the birth of the Children’s Rosary Movement. Blythe Kaufman and other parents began holding monthly meetings where the children came before the altar and prayed the Rosary. The idea then spread to parishes across the US and around the world, so that Children’s Rosary Movements were born in parishes, schools, and orphanages.

“This was not about our parish’s financial situation anymore but instead about supporting the prayer lives of children and leading them to holiness through the Rosary,” Kaufman tells CWR.

So far, groups have been initiated in 45 countries, and the movement has received support from numerous bishops and cardinals as well as the Dicastery of Laity, Family, and Life, he says.

Kaufman’s motivation is thus “the desire to continue that mission of helping children develop a prayer life and relationship with Our Lord in community with other children through Our Blessed Mother’s Rosary.”

“I do believe the Lord has put me in a position to play a role in this work, and so my trip to Africa is part of fulfilling that mission,” Kaufman tells CWR.

With strong groups already established across the continent, Kaufman believes the Children’s Rosary is vital to strengthening the Church by helping children form deep bonds with Christ.

“When children come to love the regularity of prayer, they can fill very large shoes in building up the church,” he says, noting that this influence often radiates outward as children encourage their parents to pray the family rosary, creating an impact that extends well beyond the home.

“In countries in Africa and in other areas like Pakistan, we have seen children who take it upon themselves to help the priest facilitate his Masses in their far-flung subparishes, taking readings, preparing, and cleaning the Church. Therefore, quite literally, the children are helping their churches to flourish.”

On the African continent, where the general belief has been that children cannot spend the time necessary to pray the rosary, Kaufman says he has met a rather receptive audience who have dispelled that myth.

“I have prayed with many groups that were recollected, fervent, and focused throughout the whole Rosary. Furthermore, the children wanted to be there, praying. Nobody forced them to come, yet they were there, and glad to be so. The schools we visited where the Children’s Rosary had not yet been initiated were eager and wished to begin the prayer group as well, “Kaufman tells CWR.

The prospective seminarian recalls the young man he met in Uganda’s Luweero diocese who joined the Children’s Rosary six years ago as an older child, noting that he had taken a leadership role in helping the parish priest organize meetings.

“He told me how they held weekly meetings after the Sunday Masses and helped integrate even children who did not know how to pray the rosary initially. After three years, the parish priest, noticing that he was not in school due to not being able to pay school fees, helped him find a way back; from there, he told me, he will be finishing his last year of secondary school this year, and he will be entering the major seminary after. ‘

“If it were not for the Children’s Rosary,” he assured me without hesitation, “I would not have got that chance,” Kaufman recalls the young man telling him.

 “I just remember so vividly the joy and confidence radiating from the young man’s face. It struck me that he had so strongly taken up this way of prayer and devotion to the Rosary as well as service to the young children he helped to lead, that Our Lord could not help but look after his vocation the way He did. That story taught me a lot about trusting in God’s providence to take care of our lives; we are called to live the Gospel and give the rest to Our Lord to resolve.”

Such testimonies, he notes, bode well for an African church that he says differs structurally from its US counterpart, often featuring a central parish surrounded by dozens of subparishes. He notes that lay groups, like the Children’s Rosary, are vital to keeping these communities active in the absence of a priest. Kaufman also observes that African parishes typically manage many more schools than those in the US, and the Children’s Rosary is again critical to keeping them alive.

The 18-year-old says he has learned to see “the hand of God” in disrupted plans while relying on the “goodwill and assistance of many people.”

His core mission is to build local, self-sustaining groups so that “if a priest gets transferred, the group does not die with his departure.”

The ministry’s reach extends to non-Catholic children, who Kaufman says are drawn to a prayer that helps them “gain quite a lot about what we believe.”

This experience has affirmed his calling to the priesthood, showing him that “regardless of where you go, you are able to satisfy the same deep needs of the faithful.”