The Northern Lakeshore Revisited, 4-12 Dec 2004

Having promised to visit every parish in the diocese once a year, the turn of the most remote area came round again this month. Last year, our visit inspired pages of reflections on my part, as much because it was all so enormous, new and overwhelming as because there was so much to remember and record. This year felt much more of a visit to and with better known friends – there have been so many meetings together this year, with Synod, the women’s conference, the conference for HIV/AIDS, catechist training, clergy conferences – we share a bit more of a common story and experience together.

And the northern Lakeshore, amongst the most needy people and church communities of our diocese, has certainly seen some development in this last year. Twelve churches have been built, roofed or renovated, and three strategically placed health posts with nurse’s housing now exist. We travelled with our three children again and Rebecca Vander Meulen, our HIV/AIDS coordinator who lives with us. She brought with her a friend from Bread for the World in Washington DC (which always highly impressed the congregations when she was introduced as being from the US President’s home town!) Naomi, our gap year friend, also came. They were good sports, but I have yet to hear any real feedback from them. It takes a few days to process such experiences. Matias Ncalaila, responsible for Lakeshore projects, Sylvia (the MU worker) and Alicia Zoane, the new MU District President, also were amongst the crowd on our boat.

The churches welcomed us as enthusiastically and generously as last year – and we came back with another Noah’s Ark of gifts in the form of goats, chickens, maize, bananas, even pumpkins. We had visited a few weeks later this year, so the rainy season was well underway. We got drenched in Wikihi! As Kylie wrote in her diary, “We slept in our tent, but it rained. Then we moved out tent into the house. It rained in the house.” With no glass in windows, rain just pours in if it is hitting at the right slant – and it did! It was delightful to return to Wikihi, to see the roof on the church, the welcome of the women for their new MU President (me!), and the order that Revd Daniel Sambile, a missionary priest from Tanzania, is bringing.

Otherwise, every place we visited this year was new to us, out-station churches for the parish centres. There are something like 56 churches in Lago District, with two working age priests, one good but currently poorly archdeacon, and two retired priests. We met some very good catechists and the churches are clearly utterly dependant on their ministries. We have made a beginning with training of catechists, thanks mainly to the visit of Chris and Sandy Swift last month, but the work is enormous as so many gather for training and the baseline seems always to be shifting. At least this year I could help Mark with services, and we had some fun moments – Mbweka good-heartedly listened to Mark’s sung invitations to worship and to our attempts at reading Nyanja. We practised by singing Nyanja carols on the boat from the hymn book – Ancient, not Modern Hymns, with original tunes from the English missionaries.

Rebecca tells us that she ‘enjoys’ confirmation services best (perhaps 200 were confirmed this year), but that she can’t imagine how your perspective must change when wearing heavy robes and stoles in such heat and crowds. I appreciated her sympathy and the supplies of water she had and the translations to give to our visitors and children. Three to four hours in services every day is pushing any child, but ours do it so well now.

We had a mid week break at Patrick Simkin’s Nkwichi Lodge, thanks to his parent’s kindness, and that was truly wonderful. It was a space in paradise for just our family for one day, the food satisfied our cravings for veggies, fruit and sugar, and we got cleaned up with hot water showers! It gave us a bit of a chance to process some of our thoughts and ideas for the places we had just visited, resulting in a plan to develop ‘cantinas’ (teashops) through the MU on the Lakeshore, with the aim of providing both a service to travellers and sailors, as well as some finances for the women, and a percentage to help the increasing number of orphans these communities are supporting. I now have lists from the women of about 2000 vulnerable children along the Lakeshore – yes, orphans due to the emerging HIV/AIDS situation, but children who are struggling with poverty, lack of schooling, or enough food and clothing, children looking after other children in some places. The MU of Bath and Wells, one of our MU link dioceses, has sent innumerable packages of clothing and linen in response to the need and Sylvia is focussed on addressing this need on the Lakeshore. She is a very good Christian woman, an example of patience and joy to me.

But I love to hear of communities doing it for themselves. We visited places that had not had a bishop visit for decades, in fact, most of the churches this year. In some places, Mark is still introducing himself. Yet the congregations were alive and the churches were full. It was clear they did not know the Eucharist service very well in places, but then they had not celebrated the sacraments in some places for a long while.

Yet, in Luimbila, they had raised almost all of their own funds for their large church building (so beautifully positioned overlooking the lake), in Mtimbe the women are truly the church’s backbone, and the catechists of the parish of Mepoche had 44 well-prepared candidates for confirmation and their own way of organizing themselves and their churches. This is truly a grassroots church, and begs the question of the place of the church hierarchy for them!

Our car is a tractor on these roads - you should see the road to Mbweka! We had two punctures on our return to Lichinga, resulting in our separate return – myself and the children and visitors on the back of a pick-up, and Mark many hours later with a repaired tyre. An exhausting end to the trip and the beginning of preparations for Christmas in our house. What an end to 2004!