The Congregation of the Missionaries of Mariannhill has a short pre-history in Zambia. During the apartheid era which was both in South Africa and the Southern Rhodesia our confreres Fr. Cas Paulsen and Kuno Ringenberger had been declared persona non grata in both countries in 1970s respectively. The confreres found a place in Zambia to be engaged in missionary work. Unfortunately, Fr. Kuno CMM died at a young age in 1973 due to heart problems, and is buried near the church in kaparu where he has been serving as a parish priest. Twenty five years later the parishioners organised a memorial mass with Archbishop Mazombwe of Lusaka then as main celebrant. They wanted to express their appreciation for the enormous work their beloved priest had achieved in such a short period of time. Fr. Cas returned to South Africa as soon the possibility arose. Both confreres might not have had any influence on a possible beginning of Mariannhill in Zambia but through them and their works the spirit of Abbot Francis Pfanner of reaching out to many places and the zeal for missionary works was hovering around. This is seen now in Fr. Ivo Burkhardt CMM who opted to work in Kasama Archdiocese  after bishops from Zambia had approached the general government for missionary personnel.

Interestingly, Fr. Ivo arrived in Zambia Northern Province Kasama on 02^nd October 1982, exactly 100 years after Abbot Francis our founder with his companions landed in Natal to begin his life’s master work, a date which is significant and worthy remembering (The arrival of our pioneer in Zambia), Giving religious instructions at Kasama Boys High School became Fr. Ivo’s pastoral field. Soon some boys started showing interest in our congregation, and the archbishop was bold and kind enough allowing Mariannhill to accept candidates as future members on one condition that there should be at least one small CMM community in Kasama. In this way the prospective candidates would from a concrete basis observe and experience the Mariannhill community and missionary life. The Archbishop intended to hand over a parish into the pastoral care of Mariannhill.  Proposals on the ideas of the archbishop were brought by Fr. Ivo to the General Government in Rome, and after many exchanges to and fro, he was invited to explain his vision and dreams to the General Chapter held in 1985 and prior to this two representatives from the General Government had visited Zambia and returned with positive impressions and information.

At the chapter after fairly hot discussions on the pros and cons of starting in Zambia the final vote showed that after all a majority supported the challenge. A first attempt to take over St. Margret’s Parish in Mungwi approximately 29km away from Kasama under the guidance of a local diocesan priest did not immediately materialize.  In 1989 at the initiative of the superior general, Fr. Fridolin Zueger , two confreres Fr. Macarius Hausler  from Mthatha and Fr. Luke Mlilo, the first local CMM priest from Bulawayo Zimbabwe, volunteered to continue the enterprise of establishing CMM in Zambia together with Fr. Ivo. They formed the original trio of a first small CMM community in Zambia, hence, it was necessary for them to learn a new language, Bemba, especially for those to be engaged in pastoral work in the parish.