Africa Mission News Briefs

e-HUM Announcement

October 6, 2006

Africa Mission News Briefs

Edited by Elliot Wright
General Board of Global Ministries of
The United Methodist Church
www.gbgm-umc.org

Bishops to Meet in Mozambique

The United Methodist Council of Bishops will meet in Maputo, Mozambique in early November, and several mission related committees and groups will convene immediately before or during the episcopal sessions. A committee on a United Methodist holistic strategy on Africa, set up at the 2004 General Conference and administered by Global Ministries, will hear reports on the work of the general agencies in Africa. Retired Bishop Felton E. May is chair.

Bishop Gaspar João Domingos of West Angola will report on the ongoing effort to provide pensions to retired pastors in Africa. A coalition of agencies is involved in this project. The new Africa Task Force on Substance Abuse and Related Violence, organized by the General Board of Global Ministries in 2005, will meet in conjunction with the bishops’ council. Bishop Janice Riggle Huie of Houston is president of the Council of Bishops. Bishop João Somane Machado is host of the Maputo meeting.

The church in Mozambique is a strong mission base in southern Africa. It works in partnership with Global Ministries and annual conferences, including the Missouri Conference’s Mozambique Initiative. Mozambique is the site of important mission through church growth, education, landmine clearance, and water resource development. Bishop Machado is a major advocate for the United Methodist Community-based Malaria Prevention Program and HIV/AIDS ministries.

Church Membership in Côte d’Ivoire

The United Methodist Church in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) has 678,366 lay and clerical members, according to a count that includes all but two districts. The number is less than the more than one million projected in 2004, when the formerly autonomous Protestant Methodist Church of Côte d’Ivoire became a United Methodist annual conference. The earlier figure was from government sources and considered too high at the time by Côte d’Ivoire church leaders.

A careful, actual person-by-person count was made in all but two districts. In the two, civil conflict prohibited visits by the census takers, and United Methodist congregations are relatively few in both. There are 123 active and retired clergy and 678,243 lay members in 14 of the 16 districts.

Global Ministries/UMCOM Team Visits Angola; Quéssua Mission Reopened

The historic Quéssua Mission in Angola was formally reopened during a late September and early October visit to the country’s two annual conferences by the chief executive of Global Ministries. Quéssua was destroyed during a more than 20-year civil war. The Rev. R. Randy Day, general secretary of Global Ministries, was accompanied on a recent trip by a reporter and photographer from United Methodist Communications (UMCOM) and other personnel of the mission board. The primary objectives of the visit were to see reemerging mission projects in the country still recovering from war and to meet with Angolan United Methodist leaders in their own contexts.

Quéssua Mission, which is in the East Angola Conference, was established more than 100 years ago by Bishop William Taylor and other early Methodist missionaries to Angola. A chapel and school have been rebuilt and plans are under way to restore a clinic. Many of the present leaders of Angola are graduates of Quéssua School. Bishop Jose Quipungo leads the East Angola Conference.

Rev. Day took part in the West Angola Annual Conference meeting. He and delegates engaged in a three-hour plenary dialogue on mission presided over by Bishop Gaspar João Domingos. Day preached to 3,000 people at the conference’s closing service of worship.

Accompanying Day were writer Kathy Gilbert from the United Methodist News Service, photographer Mike DuBose of UMCOM, the Rev. Morais Quissico of the Global Ministries’ Africa Office, and Donald Reasoner, language interpretation coordinator for the mission agency.

Six New Missionaries for Africa

Six of 14 new Global Ministries missionaries are slated for assignments in Africa in the fall and winter of 2006 – 2007. They will engage in a range of ministries in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Senegal, and Zambia. The Rev. Dr. Dennis and Mrs. Dale Lipke from the Virginia Conference will be in Mozambique; Farayi Tiriwepi of Zimbabwe is serving in South Congo; Tshala Mwengo, originally from Congo, will serve in agricultural mission in Zambia; and the Rev. Dr. Richard Brown-Whale and his wife, the Rev. Kimberly Brown-Whale from the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, will go to Senegal in early 2007. Watch the Global Ministries Web site (www.gbgm-umc.org) for additional information.

Bishops Visit Countries in East Africa Annual Conference

Bishop Daniel Wandabula, elected last summer to lead the East Africa Annual Conference, and Bishop Roy Sano, executive secretary of the Council of Bishops, have completed formal visitations to all five countries in the huge conference. They were in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, and Uganda in the interest of building bridges. For several years, Bishop Wandabula’s predecessor was unable to visit parts of his episcopal area because of political factors. Bishop Wandabula is developing a comprehensive ministry plan that includes evangelism, church growth, education, and social and medical outreach.

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