Sierra Leone would certainly become his new homeland for the rest of his life. So it’s unsurprising that Azzolini suffered during this preparation in Scotland. The four Pioneers were there to get ready for the mission, but there were difficulties of all kinds, including shortage of money and strange customs. Moreover for Azzolini, now almost 40 years of age, the learning of English was a daily struggle and humiliation. Therefore, as soon as he could, he would leave his books and mix quickly with the many Italian immigrants in the Glasgow area to do all kinds of pastoral work and to get some financial assistance. The English language could wait! For Azzolini this time in Scotland was a kind of exile, as he himself expressed in a letter to the Superior General. But finally in April 1950, then the Holy Year, the order came from both Rome and Parma to the Four to begin the African adventure! On June 29th, at Glasgow Cathedral, there was a celebration to send them off to Sierra Leone. Many people there could not hold back their tears, especially when Father Azzolini addressed them in … Italian. (115).

 That very day the Four boarded the ship Apapa in Liverpool and sailed South! They arrived in Sierra Leone, in the large bay of Freetown, on July 8^th, Saturday afternoon, and in the morning were able to set foot on land, at last! There to welcome them were two Holy Ghost Fathers, who, in the words of Azzolini, “were very good, kind, and cordial. They could have not given us a more fraternal hospitality.” (117)

After only two days in Freetown, Fathers Azzolini and Calza alone took the train for Makeni, where they arrived late that afternoon, after a trip of about 100 miles. Makeni, the centre of the Northern Province, badly needed missionaries to proclaim the Gospel and to establish the Church. There the Two would find another two Holy Ghost Fathers lodged in a small and poor three-room house and a primary unfinished school. In the words of Azzolini: “The Makeni population is about 12.000, all Muslims except some 60 Catholics, 30 catechumens and … 190 school children. … Fr. Mellet (a Holy Ghost Father) has already opened ten outstations, now with only a catechist, but tomorrow they could easily become parishes. (What an insight for the newly arrived missionary!) … The room in which Fr. Calza and I live is a classroom … with a mattress and a bed sheet each, a desk without drawers, a chair, a basin and a mirror each. Nothing else. But we are well and happy.” (119)

At the end of September 1950, after only three months in the country, Azzolini wrote to one of his Xaverian friends: “Here … what is painful is to see the poor situation of this people: how much need is here for schools, education, even for the most elementary things … Where we actually live all need to be done, all to be built. Moreover in the centre of Makeni most of the people are muslim, therefore with a mentality far from and negative to our Faith. But, thanks to God, they are all very friendly and happy to greet us. May the Lord give them his light and make them appreciate the beauty of our Faith. You know how more beautiful and great our Faith becomes in the midst of people who understand nothing of the Spirit.” (120)

Azzolini had been waiting for so long to express his missionary zeal with complete freedom, but now the Holy Ghost Fathers’ slow pace, different methodology, and shortage of money seemed to tie his spirit and hands unnecessarily. Therefore, in October of that year, he wrote impatiently to Father General; “ … rather than going on like this, we prefer to be alone.” (121) This desire was repeated in February 1951 with these words: “… the (local) people love us, they trust in us a lot, and wish that we take care of the mission in full … May the Lord give us the grace to be soon alone and to work seriously, without too many obstacles.” (124) This actually happened in August of the following year, 1951, when the Holy Ghost Fathers had practically left the North of Sierra Leone to the Four newly-arrived Xaverians. Then Azzolini, as their superior, would say to the other three: “Brothers, let us pray, the Lord will help us. Courage, faith.” (127) These were words that he used throughout his life, with missionaries and people alike, because he fully practiced what he told others.

At the end of 1951 another three Xaverians arrived in Makeni. Then, finally, on April 3^rd, 1952, the Northern Province of the British Protectorate of Sierra Leone was erected an Apostolic Prefecture, an ecclesiastical territory distinct from the Diocese of Freetown and Bo (130). This Prefecture was fully entrusted to the Xaverian Missionary Society and, from August 15^th, Monsignor Azzolini was its Apostolic Prefect. He himself expressed his satisfaction, and commitment to the new Prefecture in a letter to his Superior General on August 19^th: “With God’s grace, I will do everything to give myself, without reservation, to the conversion and wellbeing of this people, whom I feel to love as my people and for whom I stand ready to give my work, my sweat, and my blood.” (133)

A few days later Azzolini wrote his first official letter as Apostolic Prefect to his six Xaverian Confreres. There he first expressed his sincere gratitude to Our Lady as follows: “May the Lord be thanked and blessed be his most Holy Mother, the Queen of Apostles. May She be the Star that illuminates and guides us in the Field given us to plant; may She inspire the ways and means to lead this people of ours to the feet of Her Son, our Divine Saviour.” Then he continued by thanking his Confreres for all their “deference, esteem, and affection” together with the recognition of their “great spirit of goodness, of zeal, of sacrifice … This is of great comfort and encouragement in the midst of the difficulties we all have to face and particularly because of my unworthiness.” (135)

The new Monsignor also gave his co-workers some very practical directives about roles, finances, prayers and so on. With particular interest we read in his letter: “As you know well, our Evangelization is most greatly accomplished though the schools.” Yes, schools were the focal point of Azzolini’s missionary strategy. Seeing the need of the people for education, and the need of the Church to evangelize, there was no better way for the missionaries to help the people than to build schools wherever possible. This strategy was shared fully not only by the other Confreres but also by the General Direction of those days, when Fr. Castelli, after his visit to Sierra Leone, would write: “… the school has shown itself as the most direct and efficient way (of evangelization).” (152) For this purpose, in the words of a Xaverian, “(Azzolini) was going personally to the Paramount Chiefs and spoke to them clearly, especially against the protestant enemies. Fights that do not find description!” (138).