Visit Report 2006
September 2006
[Source: Margaret Davies, St Mary the Virgin, Kenton]
In Maputo we were welcomed by Father Julião Mutemba. He struck us as a dynamic leader and a very busy man, but he was nevertheless generous with his time. On our first afternoon he introduced us to a school for street boys, and the following morning he showed us three of the eight churches in the Maputo suburbs which he supervises with the help of catechists, church elders and members of the church congregations. We had brought an aspergillum for Fr Julião, a present from St John’s, Greenhill.
The home is a boarding school in the centre of Maputo for street boys, some of whom are orphans, but most of whom had become estranged from their families. Every effort is made to reunite the boys with their families, while some training and education is also given to them by the school. We were able to talk to a couple of the boys in the presence of both the school administrator, Mr José Cuna, and Fr Julião. We learnt the circumstances in which they had left home and their ambitions for the future.
Linked with St John’s Greenhill, this is the church where Fr Julião has his residence. Here we met the churchwarden, Severiano Artur, and some of the young people who had come to clean the church compound and who sang to a guitar during much of our visit. Apart from the church itself, notable features seen included a large hall which is used as a much appreciated community centre and also the workshop which is part of a project to help mothers with AIDS who have young children. St John’s Greenhill has helped with this scheme. St Barnabas has an active system of visiting AIDS sufferers in the area.
This church is linked with St John’s, Hillingdon. This church is associated with an existing school in its grounds, but its main current project is the extension to the accommodation of the resident catechist, Sergio Bamba. Sergio was about to get married at the end of September but, when we visited him, only had two little rooms backing on to a schoolroom. The plan was to add another room and a veranda which would give the Bambas a little more space, although they would still have to use the school kitchen and separate toilet facilities being constructed at the back of the church. St John’s Hillingdon has helped with this project.
The congregation at St Monica’s currently have a small temporary church of corrugated iron on a rough timber frame, but they want a bigger and sounder building. They had built a larger outer shell of concrete blocks but were seeking help to build the new roof. They were not, at the time of the visit, linked with any particular church in London (possibly because there is apparently no St Monica’s in London, which might provide an obvious link).
Here we visited the church of Todos os Santos (All Saints) which had been linked with All Saints, Hampton. Among those who welcomed us warmly were Fr Damiao Jaquissone and his wife, Rebecca, Paul and Benegrade Chintinguiza and Samuel Kumbe. Paul and Samuel are church elders and Paul has been directly supervising the building of a four-classroom primary school close to the church, which has been an ALMA project. The standard of building appeared to be good and we have subsequently heard that the church hopes to hand the school over to the Diocese in mid January 2007 with lessons starting on 20 January. We took a gift of stationery and pens and pencils from All Saints Hampton. We also saw a wall around the church, which we gather a donation from All Saints Hampton helped to build.
Meanwhile Rebecca Jaquissone has started a nursery school called ‘Esperanza’ (Hope) for up to 150 disadvantaged children, some being AIDS orphans. They sang enthusiastically to greet us when we arrived. At present the nursery school has no premises and often meets under a tree in the church compound. The church would like help with building a classroom for it. We gave some squashy rubber balls to the nursery school, a present from ALMA.
Our visit to Nacala ended with a lunch generously provided by Benegrade Chintinguiza, whilst we and our hosts sat and talked about education and the Todos os Santos community’s hopes for the school. As in Maputo we were tremendously impressed with what the local Anglican church and community are trying to do and hope that churches in London will feel that any help given to them will be greatly appreciated and thoroughly worthwhile.