Reps Circular

Dear ALMA Reps and Friends,

This mailing contains:

1. Initial Report from the meeting with Bishop Mark, 15 Sep 2009
2. Diary Dates
3. News from Angola
4. News from Lebombo
5. News from Niassa
6. News from London

1. Meeting with Bishop Mark

It was so good to be with many of you last night at our Reps meeting with Bishop Mark and to listen to updates from Niassa where there has been such growth in the church over the last five years. There are now 65,000 on the electoral roll in Niassa – not so different from our own Diocese! There was also really encouraging news about the impact of the Equipa da Vida and the 30 new ‘adeptos’ – people specially trained in community mobilisation so they can be alongside a community in a supportive and mentoring role as a community seeks to make changes on a range of issues from sanitation to food security and adult literacy to healthcare. Sadly funds have only been available so far for eight of the adeptos to be employed but their training means that the capacity is there for the mission of the church (Justice, Advocacy, Evangelism and Development) to be delivered. £1200 funds a sustained interaction with a rural community to help them develop.

Bp Mark Van Koevering is shown the new banner

We also welcomed the two new ALMA Reps from St Peter’s Hammersmith (twinned with Messumba), and a new rep from St Mary’s Hampton (twinned with Mandimba) and many old friends. Beryl, our intercessory Chaplain, who led the Rivers of Prayer last year in our 10th anniversary service, brought a preview of the ALMA Banner for Bishop Mark to take back to Lichinga which Ann Flett has crafted. We were all awed at the skill and beauty of the banner, which encompasses some of the fabric from the River of Prayers and the words Lichinga London. All seamstresses are encouraged to consider talking to Beryl and Ann and making an ALMA banner for your link parishes – and your own!

A fuller report of this meeting will follow.

2. Diary Dates

Sat 19 Sept MANNA AGM with Bishop Mark at St John’s Waterloo starting with a midday Eucharist. All Welcome.

Sat 19 - Sun 20 Sept St Paul’s Old Ford (St Stephen’s Rd, London E3  5JL) is taking part in Open House London Weekend. This is a stunning church, linked with a Lichinga, and they will be showcasing the ALMA link during the open weekend. This will include ‘Music Man’ a Swords into Ploughshares sculpture from Maputo. The weekend will conclude on Sun 20 Sept 6pm  ‘African Praise’ service with an Angola Choir. Do come and support the Luisas and Revd Muanga as they participate.

NB The ALMA REPS MEETING on 19 October has been postponed and will be replaced by a meeting with Father Nunes the ALMA Link Officer in Angola, who is visiting London, on Tuesday 17 November at London Diocesan House Room A. 5.45 for light refreshments. Meeting 6-8pm. Please RSVP to book a slot! Again an offer to man refreshments would be appreciated.

3. News from Angola

This week the Diocese celebrated it’s sixth birthday –we look forward to hearing more about this when Father Nunes comes to London in November.

John, our Angola newshound, has two pieces of news for you:

a) Hillary Clinton's visit to Angola: Moving beyond petro-politics?

On the 9th and 10th of August, Hillary Clinton made the fourth visit of a US Secretary of State to Angola. In Luanda it was announced that this 24 hour stopover was the longest ever made by a top US official. Previously, Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos had met informally with President Barack Obama at the G8 meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, and Foreign Minister Assunção dos Anjos visited Washington last May. These are indicators of an ever more confident nation: Luanda feels it is gaining international leverage and relevance, not only because of its oil wealth but also as an emerging regional power. The Portuguese Institute of International Relations & Security has published a viewpoint on this topic ( 63Kb)

b) a piece of news from the BBC to help you engage the palaeontologists in your congregations. Dinosaur fossils have been found in Angola. Louis Jacobs, of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, says: “Angola is the final frontier for palaeontology”.

4. News from Lebombo

Bishop Dinis has written to us after his visit in August was cut short:

Dear Friends

Greetings from Lebombo. Thank you very much for your continuous support and interest for God’s work in this Diocese. I do sincerely apologize for failing to complete my planned schedule for the visit to London but I am glad that I got back to be with my mother who was in critical condition at Xai-Xai Hospital. I spent quality time with her. Your prayers could be felt and I am glad to inform that she has improved miraculously and she has been discharged. She is staying at my sister’s house, Melta, in Xai-Xai who is a retired nurse. We continue to pray for her, thanking God for what He has been doing for her health.

After a six day visitation to Tete and Chimoio, eight places in all ministering to 20 Congregations (baptizing, confirming, marring, admitting M.U. and Bernard Mizeki guild members) and plans to create six more Congregations. I am back in Maputo this Sunday which we observe Harvest Festival, we rejoice as Omega Global University of South Africa is conferring me the degree of Doctor of Divinity “Honoris Causa”. The graduation will be held at the Cathedral – Maciene in the context of the Eucharist of the day which is also the patronal festival (St. Augustine of Hippo). Please rejoice with us over this.

It is good to share with you all these good news.

Affectionately, Together in the Gospel (Good News)

+Dinis Salomão Sengulane

Bishop of Lebombo

We were really glad however that one visit in Bishop Dinis’ schedule did happen – to St Mary the Virgin Harmondsworth, the newest ALMA Parish link – linked with St Andrew’s Liguirine. Ann Peterken, our Lebombo Chaplain has written a report of this extremely relaxed and happy visit.

5. News From Niassa

Bishop Mark has brought most of the news with him. It was good to be together and remember Oscar Hansine’s family in prayer. Oscar led the ‘Rooted in Jesus’ programme in Niassa and is also the brother of Archdeacon Paolo in Chimoio who visited us last year. It was good to hear from Goodwin Mnyawa after the last Circular underlining the need for ALMA to pray for the bereaved families and also giving news of the Great Festival of Annual Thanks to be held at All Saints Nacala on 30th August. Since then Godwin has updated us:

‘God really performed miracles in that the event was blessed by about six various congregations that participated in the event which saw our small church filling up to the brim as there were around 300 people present for the ceremony. There was lots of fun,singing groups from almost each of these sister churches and a good participation of Reverends,pastors locally from Nacala which form part and parcel of CCM (Mozambique Christian Council) The ceremony started with formal prayers whereby lessons were read thus 1-First reading- Deutronomy 26: 1-11 2-Second reading Ephesians 6: 10-20 3-Gospel Matthews 13: 1-9

Our church Youth Choir (Grupo Coral de Todos Santos-Nacala port, who recently produced a very exciting and interesting DVD) performed a great service yesterday which fascinated these visiting churches. Will send the photos of the occasion later. God is Great, we saw ourselves collecting an exceptionally good amount of thanks giving collections yesterday, a blessing that will assist us a lot in the expansion of our small church. In fact we have embarked on a programme to expand our church and we are looking for funds for the realization of this service. We are trying to do lots of fund raising activities’.

6. News from London

Expansion seems to be the order of the day! ALMA in London is also seeking to recruit more help and the volunteer post of Senior Link Officer is currently being advertised on the Diocesan Website. Please do look at this and see if you could be called to join the team here as ALMA grows.

A huge thank you again to all the ALMA Reps who turned out in the torrential rain last night.