Reps Circular

It’s been good to catch up with some of you as you’ve collected your Lent Appeal materials from Diocesan House, or at the Lent Appeal launch. I hope you’ve seen the Ash Wednesday Greetings from Bishop Dinis and the report of the launch, appropriately at a Diocesan Spirituality Study day on Thomas Traherne, at St Mary with St Alban Teddington. We also made it into the Richmond and Teddington local press with the new ALMA London banner in a prominent position and ALMA Rep Clare Rider holding the Lent Appeal poster!

The day had a bookstall where books by and about Traherne were available reminding me of the richness of the resources we in London have access to, and the thirst of clergy, catechists and laity in Angola and Mozambique for Bibles, prayer books, ‘Rooted in Jesus’ books and hymn books. May this Lent Appeal enable more training and the provision of more resources for our partners in the Gospel.

This Circular contains:

1. Diary Dates
2. News from our partners
   1. Angola
   2. Lebombo
   3. Niassa
3. London News
4. Wider Issues

1) Diary Dates

5 April LENT LUNCH in aid of the Diocesan Lent Appeal from12.00 - 2.00 pm at St Mary’s Stoke Newington. All welcome.

7 April Lent lunch at St John Friern Barnet

8-10 April BIBLETHON You are all invited to support and sponsor the indefatigable leadership team at Holy Trinity Northwood who are giving up water this year and taking up the Bible! From 6pm on Friday 8 April to Sunday 10 April will be reading the Bible aloud non stop. Everyone is welcome to come and listen. This Biblethon will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Kings James Bible and also use every translation since. It will raise funds to support the Lent Appeal ‘Training God’s people’ to ensure Priests and Catechists in Angola and Mozambique have the training and scriptural resources they need.

16 May ALMA REPS MEETING 6-8 pm in the main Hall at Diocesan House. We are pleased that some of the ‘Rooted in Jesus’ team will be with us so we can learn more about the Training Programmes our partners in Angola and Niassa are using.

9 July MANNA 2011 AGM will be held on 12 midday at the parish church of St John the Divine, Vassal Road Kennington - a short walk from The Oval station on the Northern Line. The Trustees will meet briefly at 11 am before the main meeting as usual. Full details in due course.

10 July ALMA SUNDAY Eucharist, St Paul’s Cathedral at 6pm with Bishop Dinis Sengulane. Please put this in your diaries now so we can have a real celebration as the ALMA link becomes a teenager!

2) News from our Partners

Angola:

• We’re thrilled to announce the formation of a new ALMA Twinning relationship between the Parish of the Martyrs in Uige and St Marylebone in London. May God bless this new link and the journey these parishes take together.

Lebombo:

• Yesterday was the first anniversary of the death of Padre Isaias in Beira. Please remember his family in prayer, and also next week when Bishop Dinis will go to Xai Xai to bless the new home of Cremilda and the children –built on the plot bought by Isaias for their retirement.
• We also had news from Bishop Dinis on: 
  • Annual Pilgrimage to Gwambene, Bernard Mizeki’s birth place.

    About 800 people ‘travelled from all Archdeaconries and also from Zimbabwe and Niassa to an apparently isolated and small village to have a vigil with Baptism, Confirmation, admission to M. U. ; Bernard Mizeki, Anglican Youth groups, lasting from 17.00 Saturday to 4.30 Sunday, culminating with the Solemn Eucharist at 6.00 a.m. and

  • Ash Wednesday at Maciene ‘Three days later as I celebrated at the Cathedral in Maciene, at 6.00 a.m. about 400 children crowded the Cathedral, joining about 300 adults, to be marked with Ashes on Ash Wednesday, in an attitude of exemplary devotion which I strongly believe it caused God to smile with delight. At 9.30 a.m. at Nhamavila, about 150 students from the neighbouring school to All Saints Church left classrooms to join worshipers in a similar act of devotion. Very similar stories are being reported from different parishes’.

Niassa:

• Here is the Diocese of Niassa Diary for the next three months. Please pray alongside this.

  Month	Training	Episcopal visits	UK school holidays
  April	4-21 Women Catechists’ training, Lichinga WITH SA VISITORS 26-30 Clergy wives’ retreat, Lichinga	8-20 Pemba 26 April – 8 May Milange	1-25: Matthew’s Easter Holiday 8 April – 1 May: Kylie’s Easter holiday
  May	9-27 Community priests, Part 2, Lichinga. 21-22 Bernard Mizeki Conference, Lichinga	21-29 Lúrio Archdeaconry	26-30 Half term
  June	18 Bernardo Mizeki pilgrimage, Zimbabwe. 4- 30 ‘Cantam novas Canções!’ five day youth conferences in Mecanhelas, Lichinga, Metangula and Chigoma WITH SA/UK VISITING TEAMS	4-6 Mecanhelas. 10-12 Cuamba. 16-20 Archbishop’s  visit to Niassa	24 June – 17 July Family holiday 4-10 July

3) London

• We send our best wishes and congratulations to ALMA Friend Jo Lambert on her marriage to Andy Beale on 19 March. Many of you heard Jo speak on her three months in Niassa working on broken Afridev pumps and writing a maintenance manual that has been translated into several local languages. We suspect it won’t be too long before Andy is introduced to Mozambique!
• Eight Sixth Form Students from Twyford High School took part in the finals of the Chiara Foundation Challenge with a generous prize of £10,000 to support the work of an NGO in Mozambique on offer. The four teams all made well researched, compelling and passionate arguments in support of their nominated charity displaying considerable knowledge of Mozambique. All were winners, but one team gained £10,000 for the work of Médicins sans Frontières in Mozambique!  It was a privilege to attend this event on behalf of ALMA and to know that some of the participants will be visiting Mozambique in July. See visits below.
• In October 2010 members of St. George’s (one of the five churches in Southall linked with Lichinga) did a Walk for Water. This was a sponsored walk along the Grand Union Canal and finishing in Minet Country Park to raise money for a new water well in Lichinga. Members of the other Group churches contributed by sponsoring the walkers! The walk was four miles because this is the average distance Africans walk to collect water each day. The group raised £1,753.05 for a new well in Lichinga.
• Please hold two ALMA people in your prayers: Dinos Kousoulou from the Strategy Group and Joanna Gordon from Daniels Den, who have both unexpectedly developed heart problems and await surgery.
• Visits - Several are planned for 2011:
  • 17-30 June Four people from St Thomas Finsbury Park (Revd Stephen Coles, Sandra Hall, Christine Cox and Mr Wesley Da Costa Arruda) are visiting their link parish St Peter with St Paul Thlabane (Maputo, Lebombo). Fr Elias Muholove is thrilled to see this visit happen.
  • July Twyford School visit to their Link School in Maciene.
  • July Revd Richard Fermer, Supervisor of the Ministry & Mission project will visit Angola
  • July Bishop Dinis to London for MANNA AGM
  • Visit by St Pancras to their link Parish St Mark’s Cuamba (Niassa)

4. Wider Issues

• Some good news came last week:

  The Government has announced that the law clamping down on Third World Debt profiteering is to become permanent.  Many thanks to those who wrote about this. See the full Press Release on the Jubilee Debt Campaign website on the success of the Vulture Fund Campaign.

• Finally, do share news of the Holy Trinity Northwood Biblethon and keep encouraging people to engage with the Lent Appeal: – remember the Powerpoint presentations; look at the Training Schedule in the Niassa Diary over the coming term to see how much training is going on, and share Bishop Dinis’ rallying call:

  ‘Equipping God’s people through training/Christian formation means that these young people will be enabled to be “the salt of the earth and the light of the world”. They are surrounded by noisy and apparently attractive invitations to engage in the world of crime, dishonesty and sin and our effort through ALMA’s effort can help them and the adults to be impenetrable to these ills with God’s help’.