Visit to Angola for the 10th Anniversary of the Angolan Diocese

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 movingly 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 even 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’.