Visit to Mozambique

Visit to Mozambique - September/October 2004

The following account of the visit is accompaned by photos for each stage. Click on the thumbnail for a larger photo to appear in its own window.

Maputo

Matatuini

Journey to Gaza

Xai-Xai

Last Sunday

Goodbyes

Visitors

Our Synod visitors were John & Hillian Durell, Peter Etwell, Jan Maxwell, Hannah Middleton, Helen Stephenson, and John & Margaret Young. With the exception of Jan, who was part of the initial fact-finding visit earlier in the year, this was their first experience of Africa.

In and around Maputo

The visit began with a few days in Maputo . The first full day coincided with national celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the revolution. Some saw the President on his way to address the crowds at the football stadium; later we all saw the two hour plus speech on television.

Worship on the first Sunday was at the “Fig Tree” – an open-air coming together of all the Maputo Presbyterian congregations which has been observed at this time of year for over a century. The fig tree is no more – but the congregation of a couple of thousand or so gathered under two enormous trees of indeterminate species, and heard John Young dare give our greetings in their own Shangana language. In a moment of madness we even tried to sing “Jesus' love is very wonderful”, knowing that we would never match our hosts' wonderful harmonies.

Our days in the capital included a most moving morning visiting people with HIV/AIDS who were being cared for by volunteers working with one of the Church's latest projects – a project depending on overseas (currently US Government) money in order to keep running. Our hearts were touched by both the desperate need and by the willing service of those who reached out to people whom others might shun.


At and around the Khovo Church Centre

Worship at The Fig Tree

Maputo's busy streets...	Trees in full flower	Everything for sale at the roadside	...and a few moments relaxing on the beach

Visiting people with HIV/AIDS

A trip to Matatuini

A day trip south, nearly to the South African border, took us to the school settlement in Mabilibili, where we sensed the hope that there is among people in the countryside as facilities are developed again after the long years of civil war. At the same time, we sensed a barrier between us and the pupils: was it the generation gap, or was it simply the inept way in which we were placed at the far side of the dusty little arena as they sang and danced for us? Happily Helen had the solution: when they had finished, she asked if they would teach us to dance like them. After a hilarious half hour there was the closeness that comes when we know that we all have things to learn from one another.


The ferry across Maputo harbour

Mabilibili campus - boys' dormitory, chapel exterior and interior

The clinic and (foreground) foundation of original leper hospital	In one of the classrooms	Dancing lesson!	Group photo at departure

North to Gaza

Three days in the middle of the visit were spent in Gaza Province , which lies a hundred miles to the north of Maputo . On the journey we stopped at a number of churches and projects, receiving greetings in song and one welcome meal after another. We discovered that the Swiss Church that founded much of this work in the last years of the 19th century has little in the way of resources to continue it into the 21st : it seems unlikely that every half-built church will be completed, or every ruined mission complex restored. In Mozambique churches are strong in terms of people – but as in England hard decisions need to be taken about maximising the value of what has been handed down to us.


Antioch (Magude) and nearby - view over the Limpopo, and inside the chapel; an Orphans' day centre; and building in faith still goes on

Greetings and welcomes all the way north

Back across the Limpopo to the school and hospital at Chicumbane

Xai-Xai

Our base in Gaza was the coastal town of Xai-Xai , near the mouth of the Limpopo River . Here some eight hundred people died in the devastating floods of January 2000: this was where the woman gave birth to a baby in a tree. (And we saw the house, well up a hill, that the government subsequently gave to her and her family.)

From Xai-Xai we travelled out to village churches and communities, and also saw exciting project work being undertaken in and around the town. Some of us had hoped to find out how global trade regulations are affecting people's lives – knowing that the cashew nut industry is significant in Gaza . A visit to the local producer had originally been scheduled, but ominously it never took place. The plant, we were told, had just closed.


New church at Chibuto	On the outskirts of Xai-Xai, worship is held under the tree - though all mod cons are at hand	A newJoaquim Chissano secondary school in Xai-Xai

Amilcar Cabral Primary School	Tailoring and knitting projects at the pastor's house in Xai-Xai	Mazengarne church - Xai-Xai

Sunday in Maputo

For the second Sunday our group, which had so far stayed together, split up so that we could all participate in parish life back in the capital. The three ministers in the party were invited to preach, and we all brought greetings and took some part in the lively and exuberant worship we encountered. Here as everywhere we were struck by the generosity of the hospitality we received. These were people who simply loved to give – and this was seen not least in Sunday worship, where the highlight of the service was certainly the offertory. People dancing and singing in order to make their gift is not an every-Sunday experience for any of us in our Synod.


Sunday morning worship at Ndlavela parish

Saying goodbye

Another particular joy for us visitors had been the renewal of friendships. All of the eight Mozambicans who visited us earlier in the summer were among our hosts during this return visit – and friendships that were already strong were certainly deepened during these days. There were new friendships made too, as we visited the Bible Society headquarters, and also the ecumenically run seminary, whose Rector is the new Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, as well as the various central departments of the Presbyterian Centre at Khovo.

The time we spent in Mozambique was no holiday: the heat and the pace of activity were demanding on all of us. But our hosts did give us time off when we really wilted. Back in Gaza there had been a couple precious hours on the beach; and now in Maputo there was just time to see a little of the city sights (on another national holiday, celebrating twelve years of peace) and do some serious shopping!

We left, after a useful debriefing session together, knowing that what we have seen and shared has now to touch our Churches more fully, and deepen our sense of being one people of God in the world, with one mission, which is his mission, to pursue. How exactly this global partnership of ours is to develop we do not know: but believing that it is of God, we believe too that he will show us the way.