Reps Circular

We have returned from Angola with a key request from Bishop André: he asks ALMA and MANNA friends to pray without ceasing for the forthcoming elections in Angola on 31 August. These are the second elections since peace was declared in 2002. Bishop André writes:

‘We are asking you to PRAY for us as you have done last time (see the letter and prayer in 2008) to ask the Lord to help us to have a good close without causing another conflict as has happened in other Africa countries. Please Pray for us’.

The election campaign was launched in Uige on Saturday 3 August which meant the Uige service to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Missionary Diocese of Angola was moved back to Friday 2 August. We saw great enthusiasm with streams of people arriving in Uige for the rally and much electoral bunting. However, there are real tensions as a BBC Africa News Report “Angola: Ten years of peace but at what price?” from April 2012 reports.

In Luanda we met the Christian Council of Angola, CICA, who are part of the monitoring process for the election. Please remember them, and do surround this last week of the election campaign, polling day and the counting process in prayer. There is more news of our visit in the Angola section of the circular.

1. Diary Dates

31 August Angolan Elections

1-8 September Bishop Mark Van Koevering is in the UK

2 September Bishop Mark Van Koevering preaching at St Mary the Virgin Norwood Green

4 September 12.30-14.00 light lunch for Niassa Link Priests with Bishop Mark Van Koevering

4 September 17.40-20.00  ALMA Reps and Friends meeting: 17.40 for light refreshments; meeting 18.00 Main Hall at London Diocesan House.  Please make this a priority and ensure your parish is represented.

(Please RSVP by 31 Aug for catering purposes. Cakes welcome!)

8 September Bishop Mark Van Koevering at MANNA AGM:  Eucharist 12.00 St John’s Waterloo. Meeting 2pm

9 September Bishop Mark Van Koevering preaching at St Mary Battersea

24-28 September ACSA Synod of Bishops in Johannesburg

11-19 October Revd Mark Melluish, Fiona Cole, Cathy Webber and I from St Paul’s Ealing are visiting Nampula, Morrupula and Lichinga. This is a parish visit rather than an ALMA visit for me but I will be going to Maputo from 20-23rd October to visit Bishop Dinis and Maputo.

19-29 October Bishop of Kensington, Bishop Paul Williams, will visit both Niassa (19-23 October) and Lebombo (23-29 October) ending his visit at the

26-28 October Lebombo Diocesan Family Weekend

2. News from our Partners

a) Angola

• It was a huge privilege to visit Angola to share in the celebrations of the 10th Anniversary of the Diocese alongside the delegation from the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. There was such a welcome to Archbishop Thabo, Mrs Makgoba, Provincial Executive Officer, Revd Allan Kannemeyer, the President and Chairman of the St Bernard Mizeki Men’s Guild, Revd Elliot Masoka, Siphiwe Mncube and ourselves. Apart from John we were all first timers to Angola and we saw and tasted so much in such a short time that it has taken me some time to gather my thoughts and impressions.

  On our arrival day Wednesday 1 August we, and especially Archbishop Thabo, were welcomed to Luanda at a joyous service at St Joseph’s Rocho Pinto followed by a buffet in one of the school rooms. On Thursday we visited CICA, (where we encountered Fr Mbala from Ondjiva and Namacunde as he represents Cunene in CICA) and explored Luanda.

  A very early Friday departure with a journey through spectacular landscapes got us to Uige for a mid-morning to mid-afternoon celebration Eucharist at the Parish of the Martyrs where images of Archbishop Thabo bedecked the celebration T-shirts. Bishop Richard’s message had a profound resonance in Uige where there was a sense of all those whose sacrifice had made this 10th Anniversary possible, and therefore so treasured. Archbishop Thabo installed two new Archdeacons: the Ven Augusto Domingos, the new Archdeacon of Uige and the Ven Garcia Kazayilawoko, the Archdeacon of Lukunga Loge. The singing was memorable from the girls’ choir and its diminutive conductor, to the men and the MU and to ‘Protocol’ the youth team who stewarded and marshalled everything so well – from the financial offering to the generous gifts of fruit and vegetables to the lunch on the church balcony afterwards and later a dinner with the Uige clergy. I hopefully have some recordings of this service to share – maybe even by the Reps meeting – so we can come in and go out with joy!

  On Saturday we had a more leisurely return to Luanda, some of via St Philips Uige and others via the petrol station where we had the opportunity to observe people coming towards Uige for the election rally. We marvelled at the beauty of the rain forest and the vast numbers of baobab trees, stopped often at village markets and fruit stalls, at the ‘Evil Lake’ where we heard the story of a drowned village, and some of us went to Quibaxe, site of an Umkhonto we Sizwe camp which Archbishop Thabo writes moving about. We reached Luanda much later than intended at dusk as the traffic snarled, but the dinner that awaited us at Bishop André’s home showed no sign of our being so late. It was a delight to meet Bishop André’s wife and family and to ‘live’ the spirit of the 1998 ALMA Covenant  ‘Partnership is a deep friendship between two people which engages their families and their offspring’.

  Happily we all met again on Sunday for the 10th Anniversary Service at St Stephen’s Golfe Luanda. In the 10 months since John’s last visit the church had new towers and a brightly painted front! In this service we heard about the history of the Anglican church in Angola from Archibald Patterson, Ven Alexandre Domingos, Bishop Dinis’ oversight in the 1990s and finally the creation of the Missionary Diocese in 2002. How they each would have enjoyed the worship, the wonderful singing of the psalm, and the prophetic call to the church for the future of both the church and the country. The service included liturgical dance, flute bands, MU and men’s choirs, birthday cake and ended with a lunch in the old church building – a real banquet. In the evening Richard Wildash, the British Ambassador, paid tribute to Bishop André’s leadership over these ten years and urged the church to continue to engage in building up civil society.

  Monday was a day for exploring the changing cityscape of Luanda as the South African team left. Surely Luanda must rival if not surpass London in the number of cranes per square mile? We explored the new seafront development, saw the new National Assembly building with its magnificent dome, old colonial buildings, churches, and saw a small opposition rally. On Tuesday we had useful ALMA and MANNA meetings with Bishop André, Fr Nunes and the team the Diocesan office and sadly said farewell to our hosts as we left for London in the evening.

  I hope this gives you a flavour of our visit and what Archbishop Thabo describes as the ‘vibrant worship and godly optimism – such as in laying the foundations and starting to build churches that may take years to complete’ that has led him to come home with ‘a fresh energy to strive for peace and justice. As each of us is made in God’s likeness, not only does every human being deserve respect, but we should see that to harm any person is an act of desecration against a holy image, against God-bearers, even against God himself. This is true both of the violence of war, and in peace-time also. While war, which turns people into objects for domination by those who want power at any price, may be over in our part of the world, we also need a peace that is rooted in justice, fairness, and the refusal to allow the creation of political and economic structures that also reduce people to objects for exploitation’.

b) Lebombo

• The building work at T3 is progressing well with the walls now at full height and the next step being the roof.
  

  

c) Niassa

• Clergy Moves: further to news last month of Padre Padre Diniz Mbenueca’s (formerly in Morrupula) recent installation as Archdeacon of Milange, Padre Bonifacio is moving to be priest in charge of Messumba at the end of August (in Lichinga with his family right now as he moved from Milange last month). He will move into a new residence to the side of the Cathedral, overlooking the valley of Messumba village. Canon Cacongue has now moved into retirement in Metangula.
• The candidates for community priesthood have been on an exchange visit to Messumba and Chuanga to see the church there, and to hear about the history of the church and the cathedral from the folks there, one being Vovo Monica Msossa (who visited St Peter’s Hammersmith in 2005). Interestingly the Community Priesthood training in Niassa has completed a course by SEAN (Life of Jesus in Matthew) which is the same course used in Angola in our Ministry and Mission Programme. Several years ago Revd Mike Clark (ALMA Advocacy Officer and Bishop André’s UK Commissary at that time) helped translate and prepare this course for Angola. Helen Van Koevering found it ‘real adult education for experienced but not academic ministers. Cleverly brings together lots of different disciplines and ministry support in one 25 lesson course, and the group sessions are great too’. SEAN’s Theological Training by Extension (TEE) courses enable and mobilise God's people in discipleship, evangelism and ministry and are prepared for use by ordinary people, without the pre-requisite of higher education or advanced theology.
• Helen is also visiting Tanzania shortly to help on two ‘Rooted in Jesus’ training courses. She writes ‘Rooted in Jesus is the basis for all our ministry and mission training, supporting as it does our diocesan vision to ‘become a communion of communities in Jesus’, i.e. small groups studying, discipling one another, church planting and rooting, growing in faith and changed lives together.