Bishops witness faith in Angola, Mozambique
8/20/1998 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York by United Methodist News Service Deep faith can create a sense of joy even under conditions of absolute misery, a group of United Methodist bishops learned while traveling in Africa.
The bishops were part of an Aug. 5-18 "cultural awareness experience" that led them to Angola and Mozambique. The United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and Board of Discipleship sponsored the tour.
"I was incredibly impressed with how dynamic and alive the church is in both those countries," said Bishop Janice Riggle Huie of Little Rock, Ark. Amid poverty and misery, "there's a joyfulness about people's faith and a liveliness that I think any of us here long for at times."
Methodism has been part of Angola for more than a hundred years. During the period when the U.S. government had no diplomatic relations with Angola, the church helped maintain that country's relationship with the United States, the bishops learned.
But Angola has been in turmoil for years. A treaty was signed in 1994 to end the long-running civil war between the UNITA rebel movement and the Angolan government, but the peace has not held. The massive destruction caused by the war was most evident to the bishops in the city of Malange, where the East Angola Annual Conference, led by Bishop Moises Fernandes, is based, and at Quessua Mission.
Founded in 1885, Quessua was the largest United Methodist mission in Africa and included a hospital, high school and theological seminary. But the mission was virtually destroyed in 1992 as a result of the war and is no longer in use.
"For us, it was like walking into a ghost town," said Bishop John Hopkins of Minneapolis, Minn.
The continued fighting was evident when the group heard over the BBC that 150 people were killed only 35 kilometers from Malange during a clash between rebels and government forces. Bishop Peter Weaver of the Philadelphia area, who stayed in a small hotel outside Malange with his 22-year-old daughter Sarah and several others from the group, recalled hearing gunfire and distant explosions throughout the night.
But Weaver was more concerned about the incredible poverty he found in Angola. While he has been involved in ministry to inner city neighborhoods and to the homeless in the United States, Weaver noted that Angolans endure a different kind of suffering. "It's not just a matter of extraordinary poverty, it's extraordinary misery," he explained.
Contributing to the misery is the huge number of landmines that remain buried in both Angola and Mozambique. De-mining is a slow and expensive process. Huie noted that the Norwegian government spent more than $1 million merely removing mines around the hospital at Quessua Mission.
The bishops spoke with the U.S. ambassadors to Angola and Mozambique about the landmines. The Angolan ambassador, she added, is leaving his post to guide a U.S. effort on de-mining.
"It's going to take a worldwide effort to clear out those landmines because there's so many of them there," Huie said.
While Angola and Mozambique have had similar histories, Mozambique was able to end its 15-year-old civil war in 1992.
"They have had six years of peace, and it's absolutely incredible the difference," Weaver said. The church there, he added, is "very, very vital," with lots of young leadership.
Hopkins found a sense of hope and purpose among the Mozambicans, but noted that the question remains as to whether new wealth will be shared across what remains a poverty-stricken country.
One example of that poverty was a United Methodist school in Maputo for children ages 5 to 13, most of whom are orphans of the war. The teachers hold classes with the 527 students despite the absence of desks and chairs and a shortage of teaching materials.
But poverty and war have not sapped the faith of United Methodists in either country.
"They live in a sense of community that we in the United States don't experience here much," Hopkins explained. To experience that community in worship, he added, "is really a challenge to us. We have so many material goods, but they have some spiritual goods."
So while the bishops hope to provide material assistance to Mozambique and Angola through the Council of Bishops' official emphases on "Children and Poverty" and "Hope for the Children of Africa," they want to build spiritual alliances as well.
Hopkins, who helped conceive the Operation: Classroom project for West Africa, discussed the need for more conference-to-conference partnerships, allowing U.S. United Methodists to connect more directly with African United Methodists. "That people-to-people relationship tells the story," he said.
Other bishops on the tour were Bishop Ray Willis Chamberlain Jr., Knoxville, Tenn.; Bishop Marian Edwards, Raleigh, N.C.; Bishop Robert Fannin, Birmingham, Ala.; Bishop Susan Hassinger, Boston; Bishop J. Woodward Hearn, Houston; Bishop Cornelius Henderson, Lakeland, Fla.; Bishop Earnest Lyght, White Plains, N.Y.; Bishop Marshall Meadors Jr., Jackson, Miss.; Bishop Nkulu Ntanda Natambo, Lubumbashi, the Congo; Bishop Raymond Owen, San Antonio, Texas; Bishop Joe Pennel Jr., Richmond, Va.; and Bishop Joseph Sprague, Chicago.
Representing autonomous Methodist churches were Bishop Adolfo Evaristo DeSouza, Brazil; Bishop Isaias Gutierrez, Chile; and Bishop Juan Vera, Puerto Rico.
Agency staff accompanying the bishops were the Rev. Randolph Nugent, general secretary, the Rev. German Acevedo-Delgado and Doreen Tilghman, Board of Global Ministries; the Rev. Ezra Earl Jones, general secretary, Mary Jones and Marilyn Magee, Board of Discipleship; and Sandra Kelly Lackore, general secretary, and Elizabeth Okayama, General Council on Finance and Administration.
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