LEBOMBO LEAVES
Lisbon, 2 September 2010
I plead guilty as charged to rank plagiarism. The title of this piece is taken from the name of the newsletters written by the early bishops of Lebombo (now usually Libombo) through which they kept the folks back in England abreast of their missionary endeavours. The leaves in question were not the botanical variety, but refer rather to pages in a book. I have spent time in the diocesan archives poring over mouldy and faded “leaves” which have enabled me to more deeply appreciate my experiences in the diocese and its current work.
If we inverted the words in the title, it would well describe the fact that my sojourn in Mozambique has come to an end. We are now enjoying a brief layover in Lisbon before heading home. Claudette and Normandie left on Tuesday and I left yesterday. My flight was delayed more than three hours because of the demonstrations in the streets of Maputo which held up traffic, thereby preventing our crew from getting to the airport. The demonstrations, of which you doubtless learned on the news, were to protest the cost of living in Mozambique, and served as a reminder that there is indeed a great gulf fixed between rich and poor there. There is a wide chasm indeed between the diplomatic and international communities, government officials and Mozambican entrepreneurs who frequent 5 star hotels and the restaurants and cafes that dot the seaside and the city’s wide boulevards on the one hand, and the hardscrabble residents of the capital who eke out a living, making on average $300 a year. During the six weeks I spent there, the local currency, the metical, was devalued by 20% against the US dollar, making life even more difficult for the rank and file, a group whom the church here is committed to serve.
One of my last official acts in Maputo was to celebrate and preach at the two sung masses, 6:30 and 9 a.m. at St Cyprian’s Church in Maputo. As a concession to me, the language of the services was in Portuguese instead of Ronga, and the sermon was preached in English and translated into Ronga. Thankfully, such liturgical acts as censing the altar transcend language.
An English priest wrote of St Cyprian’s in a 1936 issue of Lebombo Leaves: "On Sundays, if only you could come here, you would witness the most moving and impressive offering of the eucharist. It is the most amazing experience imaginable, with the packed church and the triumphant volume of unaccompanied singing. On such occasions one knows how worthwhile are the labours of the missionary." These comments are no less true today except that drums and tambourines accompany the “triumphant singing.” Worship in the Mozambican church’s my missives have no doubt suggested, is at the heart of the church’s life. The legacy of the Anglo-Catholic missionaries has left its mark. The liturgy is elaborate, meant to capture a vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, and is done “decently and in good order.” If services tend to be long, it is because for Christians, the church is the center of their lives. I have been struck, too, by the great numbers of children and young people involved in the worship, as well as in youth groups and Sunday School, and it is clear that they are a priority in the church’s life. It is in their faces that we can see the joy and the optimism of the whole church, a joy that exists despite meager resources at the church’s disposal. Clergy, for example, work for very low wages, and several of them augment their incomes with secular employment, or in the case of rural churches, farming.
What is more, they are often called upon to make bricks without straw. Most parishes have a mother church and several outstations. My officiating at St Cyprian’s on Sunday enabled the rector to conduct services at two other congregations. The rector of St Mary’s, Maxixe (pronounced Masheesh) is blessed with a curate, but the two clergy cover some 14 congregations between them. On a given Sunday, the rector deposits the curate at Congregation A while he ministers to the faithful at Congregation B. He then picks up the curate, conveys him to Congregation C, while he hurries to the mother church for the 9am mass. This means that the other congregations in the cluster avail themselves of the services of lay readers and catechists on those Sundays. Indeed, the whole experience serves to make us extremely grateful for the blessings that we have.
I would add that one of the greatest surprises of this most recent sojourn in Africa is how spiritual an experience the visit to Kruger National Park proved to be. Seeing leopards in a tree, lions sunbathing in the middle of the road, majestic elephants wending their way through the savannah, and zebras and kudus and impalas grazing together --- completely free and uncaged and living as God intended --- enables one to appreciate the glory of God in all his works. Our knowledgeable guide, who explained the habits of these creatures made it abundantly clear that “dumb” which man has used to describe animals is as much a misnomer as the name he gave himself --- homo sapiens. They have much to teach us, if we would but heed.
Faithfully, your rector and friend,
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The Rector bids farewell to St Cyprian's congregation
The High Altar at St Cyprian's, Maputo
Claudette and Normandie learn new dance steps
The inscription on this monument is to the European and African combattants who died in the Great War
Elephantus magnus africanus
Hear no evil...
The end
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Previous postings
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Greetings from the rector and his new friend in Kruger National Park, one of the largest game reserves in So. Africa.
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A MESSAGE FROM THE RECTOR
Maputo, 17 August 2010
The English missionary has long been maligned --- as culturally insensitive, more desirous, perhaps of promulgating the English way of life than the Gospel, of being impervious to local customs. But for all of his foibles, the English missionary (who traditionally packed his belongings in a box, fulling intending to die at his post) was committed to a wholistic approach to mission. He saw himself as ministering to the convert's mind and body as well as his soul. The typical mission station in the "bush" had not only a church, but a school and a hospital as well.
Before visiting churches in the northern reaches of the Diocese, Claudette and I visited Masciene last week. What the early missionaries founded as a boys' boarding school is now a co-ed K-12 institution, run in conjunction with the government. A carpentry school complements the instructions in the 3R's. There are over a thousand students, the youngest of whom, the kindergarten students, sit on the floor of a dilapidated building to receive their instruction. To accommodate the school population, there are two shifts, 7am to noon, and noon to 5pm. I would add parenthetically that if childhood obesity is virtually unknown in this part of the world, it is because many of the students walk about 5km each way to school.
The hospital there provides AIDS testing and treats those who are HIV-positive. We learned that the incidence of AIDS is higher in this province, about 300 km north of the capital, than most of the rest of Mozambique. One of the reasons, the Dean explained, is that there is a local traditional custom that widows subject themselves to a "purification" rite soon after their husbands' death, which consists of having sexual intercourse with a family member or a man in the community!
When I was in Grahamstown, the first English settlement in South Africa, in 2004, the neo-Gothic cathedral there was dedicated to St. Michael and St. George, and sat at the western end of High Street (the entrance to Rhodes University was at the eastern end). But here in the Diocese of Lebombo, St. Augustine's Cathedral, in the midst of the compound, and in the middle of the countryside, is a church, originally erected in the 1920's, and named for Augustine of Hippo, an African bishop and doctor of the church, modeled after the style of indigenous local housing. Near the cathedral are workshops where crafts made of banana leaf and other local materials are made, the proceeds used for people in the community living with AIDS.
We worshipped at St. Augustine's before going to St. James,' one of the "satellite" congregations of the Cathedral. It was an uplifting experience. One is struck at once by the joyful faces and uplifted voices of the children. When we entered the church, Claudette sat down next to a nun who was a member of a local religious order. But she was quickly ushered into the sanctuary, to sit next to the woman who was the catechist and lay reader, who conducts services there when the priest is visiting another Cathedral congregation. The priest had left his glasses at home, and one of the acolytes, a young woman, was asked by the priest to read the Gospel in his stead. When I got up to preach I complimented the girl for stepping up to the plate and suggested that one day she might read the Gospel in her own right, as a priest of the church. Where in most places this would be no more than a word of vocational encouragement, in Lebombo, one of the three dioceses in the Province of Southern Africa that does not yet ordain women, the comment took on added significance. The measure failed to get the necessary 2/3 vote at the last diocesan synod, but most people I spoke to seem to think that women's ordination will be approved in the near future. It is interesting to note that in Nyssa, the diocese in the northern half of Mozambique, women are already ordained, a development that may have something to do with the fact that the bishop's wife is a priest!
After the service there was entertainment. First several groups enacted Biblical stories through skits. Those depicting the judgment of Solomon and the sacrifice of Isaac were especially poignant. Then there were a series of dance routines accompanied by singing, staged especially for us visitors.
My teaching at St. Christopher's Seminary has been varied --- a crash course in ethics, a smattering of church history, lessons on the parables, and church polity. It was been rewarding and enlightening despite linguistic challenges. An English-speaker teaching in Spanish to a Portuguese-speaking audience is hardly an exact science. Some Portuguese words are identical to their Spanish counterparts, like "pregunta" (question) or "casa" (house). Some are similar like "coisa" (thing) and "cosa." But others bear no resemblance. "Perro"(dog) is "caon" in Portuguese (which of course is closer to the Latin canis). Yesterday I gave a lecture on the structure of the Anglican Communion, and when I wanted to make a comment on the Anglican Covenant, I was at a loss. I knew intuitively there was no such word as "covenento" so I tried "pacto." Blank stares. Then after a convoluted description of what covenant meant, one student came up with the ideal translation: acordo! What helped us, too, is the common language of theology and "church talk." Sometimes we can even crack a joke. In discussing the powers of the bishop, we listed "ordenar" (to ordain). One witty student hastened to add "desordenar" (to unordain)! Everybody laughed and that became something of leit-motif for the rest of the lecture.
For Judie Compher and others concerned that I am not getting any rest, let not your hearts be troubled. Claudette and I spent a few days at a rather funky resort on the Indian Ocean where we soaked up culture, sun and the local prize-winning brew called Laurentina --- excellent for washing down shrimp and calamari! There are some 1500 miles of beautiful coastline here in a country that is a playground for South Africa and Europe, but Americans --- ugly or otherwise --- are few and far between. So y'all come!
Affectionately, your rector and friend,
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PHOTOS FROM THE RECTOR
With the children at St Barnabas daycare.
Baptismal candidate at St Mary Magdalene.
Patronal Festival at St James.
Seminarians prepare beans for dinner.
Bp Sengulane addresses malaria conference.
Malaria conference.
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A MESSAGE FROM THE RECTOR
Mbabane, Swaziland
4 August 2010
I write this from Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland, about three hours to the west of Maputo. But for its mountainous border with Mozambique, Swaziland is entirely surrounded by South Africa. I am here visiting a former student from the College of the Transfiguration, the Reverend Freedom Makhubu and his family. Freedom, so named because he was born on the day of the commemoration of Swaziland's independence from Great Britain, is the assistant priest at All Saints Cathedral here. The Kingdom of Swaziland is a constitutional monarchy, and the King, Mswati III, observes traditional Swazi customs, including polygamy. At present he has thirteen wives! Freedom has only one, Thembi. Their two boys, Liberty and Aweto call me "Mkhulu" (grandfather). But I digress --- let me fill you in on last week.
In Mozambique, "mosquiteira" has nothing to do with Annette Funicello and her friends. A mosquiteira is a mosquito net, and it is the hope of Roll Back Malaria that each and every Mozambican sleep under one every night. RBM, affiliated with a US-based organization called Nets for Life, which is in turn supported by Episcopal Relief and Development, is a Mozambican organization committed to eradicating this devastating but totally preventable disease which, as I have pointed out, is responsible for more deaths on the continent of Africa than AIDS. Nets help because the Anopheles mosquito seeks out protein from human blood to help her form her eggs only at night, and the most effective way to prevent malaria is to avoid getting bitten in the first place. Contracting malaria is a real risk for the tourist, and for that reason, in addition to using nets, the traveller must take anti-malaria medicine before, during and after visiting the infected area.
Roll Back Malaria, of which Bishop Sengulane is president, celebrated a major milestone this week. I was present at a local hotel for the launching of a partnership between RBM, made up largely of faith-based organizations, and the National Institute of Social Security, a government-affiliate. To help this enterprise get off the ground, a local bank presented an oversized check in the amount of 1.5million meticais (about $60,000) a prodigious sum in a nation whose annual per capita income is $300.
In his speech, Bishop Dinis, who after nearly three and a half decades as Bishop of Lebombo is a highly respected leader in the community, stated that churches and religious organizations sponsor anti-malaria programs as part of its normal agenda. This is an important statement. It speaks to the fact that for the church here outreach is not a sideline or a nice thing to do. Nor is it in any way seen as Lady Bountiful dispensing largess to the poor. The reason is that the church itself is poor. One of the challenges faced by the church, according to the bishop, is that "poverty, while debilitating in itself, also means that many people in the pew are often not able to contribute to the work of the church." Nevertheless, the church uses its meager resources to help lift up those around them. In a previous dispatch, I mentioned the day care center and community water project of a local parish. What I have since learned, is that the same congregation sponsors a ministry at the local garbage dump, where among acres upon acres of garbage, hauled and piled there before it is ultimately burned, I saw scores of people scaling the mountains of refuse, foraging for food, clothing, or anything salvageable or resalable. The local parish ministers especially to the children at the dump, in an attempt to provide food and clothing, and ensuring that they can obtain schooling.
The church also makes creative use of the resources at its disposal. I am staying in the guest flat at the diocesan center which houses the diocesan offices, St Cyprian's Church, St Christopher's Seminary, housing for staff, and an outreach center called Boia de Salvacao (Ark of Salvation). Built 40 years ago by Bishop Dinis' predecessor, it sits on several acres of land. Much of the grounds has become a parking lot. Secure, off-street parking being at a premium here, several local residents rent space at the Center for their vehicles, the fees for which net enough, according to the bishop, to pay annual stipends for six of the clergy. The adjacent Escola Anglican Sao Cipriano, the diocesan second school, is now too large for the local student population, so the Diocese has leased its upper stories to the local university to house its philosophy department. The Diocese also receives assistance from the Church of England through an organization called MANNA (Mozambique and Angola Anglican Association).
This past week, a capital campaign was launched to raise 9.5million meticais ($380,000) for the restoration of St. Cyprian's Center. This project, together with a commitment to divide the 200,000 square mile diocese into three manageable dioceses, are high on the bishop's agenda. Amidst these and other challenges, the church in Mozambique soldiers on!
Faithfully, your rector and friend,
P.S.: When a member of a religious order (a monk or a nun) is buried, it is customary for three dates to appear on his or her tombstone --- birth, profession and death. The profession date is always included because it marks the beginning of the professed's new life, consecrated to Christ, at which time often even a new name is received. I thought of this practice recently when I attended the funeral of little Kayonga Francisco Zandamela. Under his name and photograph on the service leaflet were these words:
Nascido a 29.09.09
Baptizado a 15.07.10
Falecido a 25.07.10
Kayonga had been a Christian for all of ten days, "sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ's own forever." How appropriate it was to include the date of his baptism, the day when he became a "child of God an an inheritor of the Kingdom of heaven." It reminded me that most of us, sadly, don't even known our baptismal dates.
The Church of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence, where his parents had been married nine days earlier, was a somber place, devoid of the joy and hilarity of the wedding day. The radiant face of a bride had become the sorrowful visage of a stricken mother. But as at the wedding, the church was packed, an outward and visible sign of the support of the loving Christian community --- an element of church life that transcends language, culture, race and geography.
Pray for Kayonga that he may have eternal rest, and for his parents, Jorge and Rossina, that they might be given the strength to face with courage with weeks and months ahead.
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Maputo, 27 July 2010
My second Sunday in Mozambique saw my participation in yet another patronal festival celebration --- this time at St. James' Church (Igreja Sao Tiago) in a district of Maputo called Choupal, close to the airport. The Bishop dispatched me there to bring greetings while he drove three hours north to conduct services at the Cathedral (the Cathedral is not in the capital city, but in Maciene, closer to the center of the Anglican population). Since no baptisms or confirmations were scheduled at St James', I thought it would be shorter than last week's worship experience --- but it turned out to be what I now regard as the "standard" four and a half hours. It occurred to me that during exactly the same period of time (8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.) Calvary had conducted three services with an hour's break in between!
On this special occasion, greetings are brought from representatives of neighboring parishes and ecumenical visitors as well, and each has a brief homily of sorts. Her Excellency, the President of the National Assembly was in attendance with her entourage, and praised the congregation for its good works in the community. The service was bilingual --- Portuguese and Ronga (the local language last week, a few miles away, was Choro) and the lessons, parts of the sermon and other elements of the service were in both languages.
The offertory procession deserves special mention. At St. James', the plate wasn't passed; the faithful brought up the offerings --- singing and dancing down the aisle as they did --- and placed them into one of the seven baskets being held by women in colorful native dress. I learned that each basket represented a neighborhood, and each worshipper placed his or her offering in the basket corresponding to place of residence. I, for the record, dutifully placed my offering in the basket labeled "visitors." Some minutes later, this ritual was repeated when the second offering --- for the building fund --- was received. Although all the money goes ultimately into the same pot, the neighborhood basket ceremony is a fund-raising scheme emerging from a spirit of healthy competition. John Wray, take note!
Lest you get the impression that African worship is haphazard, let me assure you that it follows, recognizably, what Dom Gregory Dix, an Anglican theologian, described as "the shape of the liturgy." What is different is that the standard elements are interspersed with spontaneous elements --- singing, dancing, ululating, drum-beating,or a combination of all of the above. Such a "fanfare" even preceded my brief remarks, which were translated by a teenage girl. Her high school friends, all of whom had studied English, laughed at my jokes before the translation! The humbling part of my introduction was the rector's comment, "The Anglican Communion extends all over the world, even to the United States." It was a friendly reminder and a lesson from perspective. Despite the wealth, clout and prestige traditionally enjoyed by The Episcopal Church, we number less than 2% of the world's Anglicans --- and from Africa, which boasts more than one-half of the world's Anglicans (it is alleged that one in ten Anglicans worldwide is a Nigerian!) we are seen as a kind of peripheral outpost.
After the blessing of the children and the conclusion of the Eucharist, a few choral renditions and a dramatic presentation, the rector asked me to bless the congregation. When we had processed out, he also asked if he could have my alb, whose lightweight material he thought ideal for tropical climes. I explained to him that I needed it for the other services in which I would be taking part, but assured him I would deliver it to him before flying home! The service concluded, we repaired to the church yard for a sumptuous repast. The same neighborhood groups who competed in their stewardship now competed in the culinary sphere, and we were treated to chicken, beef, goat, shrimp, cassava, rice dishes and other delicacies. Pili-pili, a taste-at-your-own risk hot pepper sauce, was the condiment of choice. There was even a celebratory cake, which the Rector and I cut, and everything was washed down with vinho from Portugal --- and yes, even bubbly!
Festively, your rector and friend,
P.S. On a somber note, I report the death of the 11-month old son of the couple whose wedding I attended last week (the groom was the bishop's nephew). The only fatality, he was thrown from the automobile upon impact. The bishop's family has suffered such loss at least twice before. Mrs. Sengulane died in a car accident 11 years ago, and her brother and niece were victims of a car crash two years later. But the plight of the bishop's family may not be unique. Fatal road accidents have reached alarmingly high levels here, and are linked to such factors as alcohol abuse, reckless driving and a less obvious factor: corruption. It would appear that unqualified drivers, with little or no instruction, often obtain driver's licenses in exchange for hefty bribes. Bishop Sengulane's recent message to Parliament raised concerns about automobile accidents, corruption and violence as three of the major issues facing Mozambican society.
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Maputo, Mozambique
21 July 2010
Bom dia!
It was the early church father Tertullian who said, "Ubi episcopus, ibi ecclesia"("Where the bishop is, there is the church"). In Mozambique, that could be translated as "Nothing happens without the bishop." On Sunday, I accompanied the bishop to the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, a church about half an hour from town (which turned out to be more than an hour because of construction going on on the estrada). We arrived just in time for the 9 a.m. patronal festival service. The church could not hold the congregation of some three hundred, so many thronged at the entrance, jammed the adjacent sacristy, or peered through the windows of this simple structure with a corrugated roof that would have fit comfortably into Calvary's chancel. The aisle down which we processed disappeared by the time we reached the altar, as the faithful found places to stand or sit during worship.
There were 45 baptisms, and about half as many confirmations. My liturgical role was to present a candle to each baptismal candidate, reading the assigned words in Portuguese (the bishop said I passed muster). After these rites of passage there was the installation of officers of the Mothers Union, installation of a men's group called the Order of St. Bernard Mzeki, a catechist and martyr from the late 19th century. There was also a welcome to the parish of a couple who had been married the day before, an introduction of yours truly, and a presentation of a choir who had been organized as a memorial to the bishop's late wife. By the time we began the offertory hymn, sung in the local language called Choro, it was 12:05 p.m. Bishop Dinis pronounced his pontifical blessing an hour and fifteen minutes after that, after which the faithful stayed on for an informal chat with the bishop!
The bishop has seen to it that I be exposed to the cultural realities of life of church and society here. I attended his nephew's wedding on Saturday, and yesterday, assisted him at the house blessing. Two days ago, I went by Range Rover to a country parish (St. Barnabas) which runs a day care centre for the community and which also supplies water for residents of the neighborhood. I've met with diocesan staff (two of the biggest departments are the "Roll Back Malaria" office and the HIV-AIDS ministry). Although nearly one of five Mozambicans is HIV-positive, malaria kills more people here --- and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa ---than AIDS. These two causes of death account in large measure for the fact that the average life span here is 38.
Dinis Salomao Sengulane has been bishop here since 1976, and is the longest serving bishop in the Anglican Communion. Nurtured in the church here, he was sent by the bishop (his predecessor) to Salisbury Theological College in England to prepare for the ministry. (Bishop Dinis tells the story that until his departure, he thought he was headed to Salisbury, Rhodesia --- now Harare, Zimbabwe.) He worked briefly on his return in a local parish, and fifteen months after his ordination to the priesthood, was elected tenth bishop of the Diocese, the first Mozambican to hold the post. The election took place on the day after his 30th birthday (30, as canon lawyers can attest, is the minimum age for the consecration of a bishop). He has labored tirelessly here and in Angola, the other Portuguese-speaking country in the Province) and has been recognized by the All Africa Conference of Churches for his work towards peace at the time that this country was wracked by civil war --- efforts for which the Queen conferred on him the Order of the Companion of St Michael & St George.
I would add that the bishop is aptly named (Solomao is, of course, Portuguese for Solomon). He made the brilliant suggestion that when I begin my teaching duties next week the language of instruction should be Spanish! Since it is so close to Portuguese, the students are able to understand it. A trial run in a getting-to-know-you session proved that the bishop had a good idea!
More later. Rumors persist that there are beaches nearby, but I haven't yet tested the waters of the Indian Ocean this far north. The other thing I'd love to do is take a train trip somewhere, just for the thrill of leaving from a station designed by none other than Gustave Eiffel!
Affectionately, your far-flung Rector,
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Friday 16 July 2010
Being mathematically challenged, I normally have trouble converting Fahrenheit to Celsius and vice-versa, but I had no trouble translating the pilot's announcement on Tuesday morning as we landed in Johannesburg. He told us it was minus two degrees Celsius. Yes, it's winter in South Africa, and thanks to a cold front that came in from the snow-capped mountains around Cape Town, it is see-your-breath-weather winter.
I have spent the last three days in Pretoria, South Africa's capital about 40 minutes north of Jo'burg. There were two major reasons for my layover here. First I called on Professor Malan Nel at the Faculty of Theology, at the University of Pretoria. Dr. Nel and Ron Peters (Henry Hillman Professor of Urban Ministry at Pittsburgh Theololgical Seminary) have been in touch about an exchange of faculty between the two institutions, and Ron asked me, as an adjunct faculty member at PTS, to contribute to the conversation. I had a chance to sit in on one of Professor Nel's classes, on contextual theology. There were about 25 in the class, most of whom were clergy who had had little or no formal training. There were about fifteen faith communities represented, including independent Baptists, Pentecostals and Anglicans, and about as many language groups, including Xhosa, Tswana, Afrikaans, Zulu and English. (Most classes in the department are offered in two sections, Afrikaans and English.) One of the topics discussed in the class that day was how a faith community should go about creating a mission statement. I volunteered that there is a "definition" of mission statement in the Book of Habbakuk, "Write the vision clearly, that even a runner can read it." The professor asked me where in Habbakuk it could be found. I couldn't remember, and thought I should get credit for remembering the book. One of the students rescued me and directed us to the second chapter. Dr. Nel and I exchanged books: he gave me his entitled "Who Are We?" about the identity of church communities, and I gave him "A Church for the Future," about the role of South Africa as a crucible for Anglicanism.
I also called at the offices of Thembani International Guarantee Fund, the sister organization to Shared Interest, the New York-based organization on whose board I sit. (It will be remembered that Archbishop Tutu came to Pittsburgh under the auspices of S.I. a few years ago). S.I. provides funding for grassroots organizations throughout South Africa, many of which are run by women --- businesses that normally would not be able to procure credit through normal channels. I met with Evans Maphenduka, a Zimbabwean who heads Thembani (a Zulu word that means "Have hope and courage") and the members of his staff, and learned in some detail about some of the projects funded, which include an ostrich farm and an apiary! By happenstance, there was a Shared Interest Board meeting on the afternoon of my visit, via something called "Webinar," in which Evans and I participated. If I keep on doing things like this, I will have to turn in my sharpened quill!
Two days ago, I received an email from Bishop Dinis Sengulane of the Diocese of Lebombo, Mozambique, saying that he looks forward to meeting me when I arrive (later today). He indicated that I will be running seminars (not Webinars) with theological students and catechists and that I will be visiting parishes. Hopefully someone will give me a crash course in celebrating mass in Portuguese! I hope to receive a warm welcome in Maputo not only from the bishop but from the elements. Temperatures there are about 24 degrees Celsius, about 80 Fahrenheit.
Your African correspondent,