5/15/2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn.
By Holly E. Nye
Members
of a Volunteer in Mission team from Mozambique sing during the Troy
Annual Conference session in Burlington, Vt. Eleven men and women - both
clergy and lay people - from the United Methodist Church s Mozambique
Area arrived in Burlington May 4 for a three-week visit. The team
attended the annual conference session and is spending time with area
congregations. A UMNS photo by Ilah Sisson Walser. Photo number 03-180,
Accompanies UMNS #284, 5/16/03
No Long Caption Available for this Story
BURLINGTON, Vt. (UMNS) - Teams of Volunteers in
Mission frequently go to African nations, helping build churches or
homes. Now, for only the second time, a Volunteer in Mission team has
come from the African nation of Mozambique to the United States - to
build relationships, unity and faith.
Eleven men and women -
both clergy and lay - from the United Methodist Church's Mozambique
Area, arrived in Burlington May 4 for a three-week visit. The team
attended the Troy Annual Conference session and is spending time with
congregations across the conference. The first Mozambique Volunteer in
Mission team to the United States visited the Troy Conference in spring
1998.
The Mozambique Area and the Troy Conference have been in
relationship for more than a decade. Troy teams have traveled to
Mozambique nine times in the 12 years since the African country emerged
from civil war. Volunteers from those teams, wishing to build a
relationship of ministry and support with their friends in Mozambique,
suggested inviting teams to the United States. Local churches raised
about $40,000 to bring the team here.
While North Americans tend
to think of "doing mission" as a way of offering help and inspiration
to a "less developed" part of the world, the church in Mozambique
challenges North Americans to consider mission and ministry a two-way
experience.
"To have peace in Mozambique, Troy Annual Conference
helped our church and our country. We wish to bring peace to the United
States, with all the challenges you face," said the Rev. Zaqueu
Ranchaze, team leader and Mozambique Area Volunteers in Mission
coordinator.
"We are here today because Troy Annual Conference
and the Mozambique Area are one church," Ranchaze told the conference
assembly.
In response to a question about how the North
American church can work in partnership with African brothers and
sisters, Ranchaze said, "Come to Mozambique and see what we really need -
your hearts will tell you what to do." He stressed the importance of
direct relationship and mutuality: "We have to share with each other; we
have to share experiences." Financial support, he said, is less
important than direct relationship.
Team member Naftal Oliveira
Naftal agreed. "The money doesn't stay," Naftal said. "(Sending money)
doesn't give people an experience that will last."
The message
of unity and mutuality was repeated throughout the conference session.
"Ours is a message of love rooted in the person of Jesus Christ," said
the Rev. Zefanias Augusto Chihulume, a pastor studying at United
Methodist-related Africa University in Zimbabwe. "It's our strong belief
that we have something in common, and we need to have time together to
share what is common" between Africans and North Americans.
To
provide for such sharing, Chihulume proposes an ongoing exchange. He
would like his church to send two young people to the United States to
be in mission for two years, while two young people from the United
States would work in his country. This way, he said, his church could
"share our spiritual resources" with North Americans. In addition, he
wants to see more short-term teams from Mozambique invited to the United
States.
Chihulume noted differences between the cultures that
could be instructive to North Americans. "Ours is a church of the
young," said the 27-year-old, who was ordained an elder four years ago.
"And, we find value in life apart from material things."
Even
when he has to travel miles by foot to do his work, even when he has to
go a day without food, even in times of suffering, he said, "I still
know God is there." Wealth in the United States, he suspects, can
distract people from their relationship to God. "In Africa," Chihulume
said, "everything is done in a spiritual way."
In the United
States, he noticed, "people are in a hurry." He took note that "in the
U.S., everything seems to have to follow the schedule. If the paper says
it's time for worship to end, you end, no matter what. We believe that
the Spirit will lead."
Team members were eager to speak of the
vitality of their churches and their ministries with children, youth and
women. Cecelia Jose, who was a member of both VIM teams from
Mozambique, spoke of the 25,000 children under age 12 served by the
Women's Society in her annual conference.
She challenged Troy
Conference Christians to reach out to children and youth. "I felt
sorry," she said, "when we went to a church here and some women told me
the youth are not very involved. I would like EVERYONE to be involved
in getting the young people to church."
The Rev. Telma Arminda
Eduardo, a former district superintendent, now serves as women's
coordinator for the Mozambique Area. She described the life-giving
ministries of seven training centers, an orphanage and a center for the
elderly. Even some Muslim women, she said, go to United Methodist
training centers to gain self-supporting skills in areas such as sewing,
public health, computer work. Some of the women have been cast out of
their families for being childless or have been accused of being "witch
doctors," but the United Methodist Church gives them skills to survive.
On
the final evening of the Troy Conference session, the Mozambicans led
the assembly in prayer and songs from their tradition. Team leader
Ranchaze offered "thanks for making us feel warm in these cold
temperatures" and voiced the hope that the two annual conferences would
continue in a relationship of mutuality.
The team presented to
the conference a wooden carving of a map of Mozambique. The planning
committee from the host conference gave the team a wall hanging
portraying mountains, echoing the conference theme "Come to the
Mountains," and evoking the mountains of Mozambique, Vermont and
northern New York.
As a gift to Bishop Susan M. Morrison, the
team wrapped her in a scarf with a map of Mozambique woven into it, and a
head wrap, in African fashion. The visitors also presented the bishop
with a small tin "to keep treasure in."
"The treasure," the
bishop responded, "is the relationship. Every time I am with people from
Mozambique, my heart gets fuller, with a sisterhood and brotherhood I
didn't know was possible."
Morrison has been to Mozambique
twice. In summer 2002, she took part in a Volunteers in Mission team
from Troy Conference. During that visit, she joined Bishop Joao Somane
Machado in consecrating the Xinhambanine Temple in Maputo, a church that
Troy volunteers had helped build. Joaquim Chissano, president of
Mozambique, attended the consecration.
# # #
*Nye is the communication director for the Troy Annual Conference.
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