The Lebombo Diocesan Family Meeting Celebration 2009

A young pilgrim involved in accident when looking for his friend among the crowd during the long procession on Diocesan Family Day, Sunday 25th October, 2009.

The young pilgrim, Bernardo Felix Langa together with his friend Francisco Dava, the previous day they had walked some 25 kilometres away from Nhamavila village to the Cathedral of St. Augustine in Maciene, in order to attend the night vigil celebration and the closing service on Sunday. The darkness of night vigil went on well for Bernardo, and the Sunday morning; the visitation to the graveyard was also part of his pilgrimage. The accident occurs when everybody was walking down to the Cathedral square, where procession had its start. Bernardo suddenly fell under the moving vehicle when running looking for his friend who was missing among the crowd. Bernardo escaped to be smashed for finding himself in the middle of a 4X4, which stopped immediately with a wheel positioned on part of his body. Bernard was rushed unconscious to the local hospital where he was checked and transferred to provincial hospital in Xai-Xai. The hospital results showed that Bernardo was not hurt, he was terrified otherwise, so he recovered from that fear and he returned to his normal life. In that case, we could learn that the hand of God was powerful to save.

The Clergy meeting

In the context of the Diocesan family weekend, clergy from all over the diocese, from 21st to 24th October, met in the newly built Maciene Training Centre, in the slope behind the Bishop’s house. Bishop Dinis explained that the objectives of the meeting were the following: a). Pray and worship together; b). To publicly share the live of our congregations; c). To be sociable in other to strengthen our fraternity and d). To reflect upon the theme.

The meeting was characterized by having sessions of bible studies based on the readings from Isaiah 59:1-2 and Acts 18:9-10, and discussions among the three constituted groups. The other part of the programme was filled with reporting on the life of our congregations, where each parish came in with several projects being carried out, such as:

• Building the churches and residences of the clergy with or without use of conventional material. The rhythm of constructions is very slow, since the cost of purchasing material is high, and there was shortage of cement in due to existence of many building projects going in the country, such as, the National Stadium, National Roads, double storage buildings and so on. It was noticed that we still have many congregations without a church building and their land is being taken by the government and relocated to others due to the lack of resources.
• In terms of pastoral action, our clergymen have been trying hard to reach all congregations and guarantee at least one Eucharistic service per month. Some pastoral zones have large number of congregations which are distant from each other, and the need of having a mean of transport is very much demanding. Bicycles and motorbikes would be a good response to these needs. The Pastoral zone of Matutuine, across the Maputo Bay is vast and is currently without a priest or deacon. It is expected that clergy from Maputo will take responsibility of visiting that areas taking sacraments which for long time people have been waiting for, while the diocese is still having to identify people to serve there.
• Means of transport are needed for most of the clergy. Within our local 2008 lent appeal fund, the diocese bought 2 motorbikes and sent to the respective number of clergy. There is hope that this year’s lent appeal will also be used towards a purchase of more motorbikes for the clergy.
• Drought – In general terms, the entire geographical area of the diocese is dry, and people face serious problems of starvation. There was a government alert which indicated that this year the country will face two major calamities: drought in the south and floods in the north. Given the existing drought, some rivers or small lakes water has dried up. Our resource at this stage is prayer, and trust that God’s hand is powerful to save. This situation affected the level of financial contribution in most of our parishes.
• Ecumenism. The Anglican Church keeps relationship with other church denominations. In this context, in some districts ecumenism is stronger than others, but is is encouraged that where possible our church members be much involved.
• Theological training. There is a great need of vocations for the ordained ministry, and therefore, new strategies have been put in place in order to ensure recruitment clarity and faith and quality of the future seminarians. In order to reach the intended results, a new admission requirements model was designed and there will be a vocational workshop taking place from 12 to 13 December, 2009, going on in each parish, where young people will be invited to attend.

Financing of the Clergy Meeting

Along the year, bishop issued letters to the parishes explaining the need for everyone investing for the success of the Diocesan Family meeting in Maciene. Parishes were requested to pay for the transport of the clergy together with their families, as well as contributing 600 Meticais for each single priest and 1200 Meticais for each married couple for food, and a reinforcement translated with one meal per parish to be provided during the meeting. Although not all parishes afforded to give these contributions in full, we were told that the entire meeting had supported with local contributions, and this practice will continue next year.

Some of the difficulties we encountered on the ground were the shortage of water, given that the water pump had been broken, but cathedral teams managed to fetch water with a van from the nearest locality (Chongoene), an effort which helped to cater for needs of thousands of people on that hottest Sunday. We were also informed that water problems would soon be resolved with funds from the Diocese of Vasteras, in Sweden.